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GAO: Amphibious Vehicle Program Needs to Reach Best Practices Readiness Level Prior to Production
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GAO: Amphibious Vehicle Program Needs to Reach Best Practices Readiness Level Prior to Production


GAO: Amphibious Vehicle Program Needs to Reach Best Practices Readiness Level Prior to ProductionThe Government Accountability Office has called on the U.S. Marine Corps to ensure that the contractor should achieve manufacturing readiness level 8 across all risk areas before entering the second phase of low-rate production for the first increment of the proposed amphibious combat vehicle.

GAO said in a report publicly released Tuesday it made the recommendation as program officials prepare to pick a single contractor for the ACV 1.1 program, begin low-rate production in June and commence the second LRP round a year later.

The Defense Department’s guidance for weapons procurement production states that MRL 8 should be achieved across design, quality management, materials and process capability and control risk areas prior to the LRP phase.

The congressional watchdog recommended that the ACV 1.1 program reach MRL 9 before the service decides to move the program to full-rate production by 2020.

Failure to meet those recommended readiness levels prior to the start of low- and full-rate production phases could potentially result in delays and cost increases, according to the report.

BAE Systems and Science Applications International Corp. received contracts worth up to $225 million in 2015 to build ACV 1.1 prototypes for the Marine Corps.

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GSA Appoints Jessica Salmoiraghi OGP Associate Administrator
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GSA Appoints Jessica Salmoiraghi OGP Associate Administrator


GSA Appoints Jessica Salmoiraghi OGP Associate Administrator
Jessica Salmoiraghi

Jessica Salmoiraghi, former director of federal agencies and international programs at the American Council of Engineering Companies, has joined the General Services Administration as associate administrator of its Office of Government-wide Policy.

GSA said Wednesday Salmoiraghi will be responsible for helping develop the agency’s policies related to personal and real property, travel and transportation, information technology, regulatory information and use of federal advisory committees.

At ACEC, she led the council’s efforts to help address procurement challenges that have affected the engineering sector.

She previously served as director of federal relations and counsel at the American Institute of Architects and helped promote AIA’s advocacy and outreach efforts to the federal government.

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DOE to Help Fund 9 Power Electronics Innovation Projects
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DOE to Help Fund 9 Power Electronics Innovation Projects


DOE to Help Fund 9 Power Electronics Innovation ProjectsThe Energy Department has earmarked $20 million for nine projects that seek to advance power electronics intended for solar power systems.

DOE said Wednesday the selected projects aim to help the department address photovoltaic reliability challenges and reduce the cost of solar energy in half by 2030.

The funding recipients are:

  • Flex Power Control
  • Georgia Institute of Technology
  • North Carolina State University
  • Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  • University of Arkansas
  • University of Maryland, College Park
  • University of Texas at Austin
  • University of Washington
  • Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

The department expects each project to last up to three years and meet its 20 percent cost share requirement.

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Heather Wilson: Air Force to Share Space Education With Partners, Streamline Acquisition Process
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Heather Wilson: Air Force to Share Space Education With Partners, Streamline Acquisition Process


Heather Wilson: Air Force to Share Space Education With Partners, Streamline Acquisition Process
Heather Wilson

U.S. Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson announced at the 34th Space Symposium that the service will share its educational courses on space with U.S. partners starting in 2019 as part of the National Defense Strategy.

The Air Force said Wednesday its National Security Space Institute at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado will teach allies about collision avoidance and de-orbit and re-entry operations, as well as additional courses that include one about space situational awareness.

“We will strengthen our alliances and attract new partners not just by sharing data for monitoring, but by training and working closely with each other in space operations,” said Wilson, a 2018 Wash100 recipient.

She added that the Air Force will establish an office that will help modify and streamline the service’s acquisition process for space systems.

The military branch requested $156.3 billion in its 2019 budget proposal for initiatives that will further secure space systems, as well as for the transition to multidomain operations.

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Carlos Muniz Confirmed as Education Department General Counsel
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Carlos Muniz Confirmed as Education Department General Counsel


Carlos Muniz Confirmed as Education Department General Counsel
Carlos Muniz

The Senate has confirmed Carlos Muniz, formerly a partner and senior vice president at law firm McGuireWoods, as general counsel of the Education Department.

“[Muniz] has dedicated his career to upholding the law, and his insight and expertise will be invaluable as we work to advance educational opportunities for all students,” Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said in a statement published Wednesday.

He previously served as Florida’s deputy attorney general and as deputy general counsel in former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

His career also includes time as law clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the U.S. District Court for D.C.

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Report: Camilo Sandoval Appointed VA Acting CIO
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Report: Camilo Sandoval Appointed VA Acting CIO


Report: Camilo Sandoval Appointed VA Acting CIOThe Department of Veterans Affairs has appointed Camilo Sandoval, former Trump campaign director of data operations, to serve as VA’s chief information officer on an acting basis, Politico reported Wednesday.

A VA spokesperson told Politico that Sandoval has been senior adviser to the department’s undersecretary for health since May of last year and has helped manage its electronic health record modernization efforts.

He also worked for the Treasury Department following the 2016 U.S. presidential elections and previously served in the U.S. Air Force as an intelligence officer.

Sandoval replaces Scott Blackburn, who resigned as acting CIO of the VA after seven months on the job.

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Report: GSA Names Elizabeth Cain as Tech Modernization Fund Executive Director
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Report: GSA Names Elizabeth Cain as Tech Modernization Fund Executive Director


Report: GSA Names Elizabeth Cain as Tech Modernization Fund Executive DirectorElizabeth Cain, formerly a financial management analyst at the General Services Administration’s office of the chief financial officer, has been named executive director of the Technology Modernization Fund, Fedscoop reported Tuesday.

GSA Administrator Emily Murphy, a 2018 Wash100 recipient, announced the appointment Tuesday during a hearing of the House Appropriations Committee’s financial services and general government subpanel.

The TMF executive director will help oversee the technical, business and fiscal assessments of the proposals to ensure “the dollars spent come back with a return on investment, that they’re able to repay the fund and continue that cycle of reinvesting,” Murphy told the committee.

The appointment came a month after the Office of Management and Budget named seven members to the TMF board that will review project proposals from federal agencies seeking to get funds through TMF, which was created as part of the enactment of the Modernizing Government Technology Act.

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Report: OMB Requests Repurpose of $65M DOE Funds for NNSA Weapon Development
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Report: OMB Requests Repurpose of $65M DOE Funds for NNSA Weapon Development


Report: OMB Requests Repurpose of $65M DOE Funds for NNSA Weapon DevelopmentThe Office of Management and Budget has requested the repurpose of $65 million Energy Department funds for the National Nuclear Security Administration‘s low-yield warhead initiative, Defense News reported Tuesday.

NNSA announced plans to create the W76-2 warhead based on the W76-1 payload of the U.S. Navy‘s Trident missile and issued the Nuclear Posture Review in February that resulted in the non-inclusion of the program in the fiscal 2019 budget request, the publication said.

Total funds for the nuclear weapon program for fiscal year 2019 will amount to $87 million, with $22.6 million from the Defense Department and a part of the Future Years Defense Program budget, the publication detailed.

The FYDP budget is worth $48.5 million spread across the program lifetime, which will run through fiscal year 2023, Defense News noted.

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Report: Air Force-NRO Team to Build Space Situational Awareness Satellite
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Report: Air Force-NRO Team to Build Space Situational Awareness Satellite


Report: Air Force-NRO Team to Build Space Situational Awareness SatelliteThe U.S. Air Force has teamed up with the National Reconnaissance Office to build a new satellite designed to provide space situational awareness capability, Breaking Defense reported Tuesday.

Gen. Jay Raymond, head of the Air Force Space Command and Joint Force Space Component commander at the Strategic Command, announced the partnership at the Space Symposium Tuesday.

The partnership came after the Air Force decided to call off further updates to the Joint Mission System initiative.

The report said the proposed Enterprise Space Battle Management Command & Control system is designed to support the intelligence community and collect data from a wide range of sensors.

Lt. Col. Christina Hoggatt, a spokeswoman for the service, told the publication ESBMC2 will serve as the command-and-control platform “for the larger space enterprise” designed to facilitate communications and data-sharing operations.

The Air Force posted a request for information in January 2017 and noted that the ESBMC2 program aims to help the Joint Functional Component Command for Space plan, coordinate and implement space operations against potential adversaries.

The service’s five requirements for the ESBMC2 system are threat identification and warning; spectrum common operating picture; battle management C2; modeling and simulation for course of action development; and dynamic tasking, according to the FedBizOpps notice.

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Kirstjen Nielsen: DHS Aims to Provide Critical Infrastructure Cyber Support via ‘Security as a Service’ Program
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Kirstjen Nielsen: DHS Aims to Provide Critical Infrastructure Cyber Support via ‘Security as a Service’ Program


Kirstjen Nielsen: DHS Aims to Provide Critical Infrastructure Cyber Support via ‘Security as a Service’ Program
Kirstjen Nielsen

Kirstjen Nielsen, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, has said DHS might directly deliver cybersecurity services to energy companies, airports and other critical infrastructure operators under a new White House cyber strategy, Nextgov reported Tuesday.

Nielsen told reporters at the RSA Cybersecurity Conference in San Francisco that the cyber strategy will have five primary pillars and those include threat reduction, risk identification, vulnerability reduction, cyber outcomes and mitigation of consequences.

She noted that DHS would help facilitate threat data sharing and provide cybersecurity services that are tailored to the needs of each critical infrastructure sector under the proposed “security as a service” program.

Nielsen, a 2018 Wash100 recipient, said the proposed program seeks to respond to the evolving cyber threat environment.

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