Army Lt. Gen. Charles Hooper, director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, has said DSCA has initiated reform efforts in its acquisition and program execution processes in a push to build up the Defense Department’s business practices, DoD News reported Friday.

“We collaborate very closely across the department to analyze the timeline and milestones associated with the execution of foreign military sales and other practices in order to ensure priorities are being met,” Hooper said Friday during a Center for Strategic and International Studies-hosted panel event.

He said DSCA’s security cooperation reform initiative seeks to reduce the time spent between requirements identification and delivery of capabilities and sets four conditions to achieve its goal, such as the need for a trained workforce, strategic guidance, execution and full-spectrum capability.

Hooper, a 2018 Wash100 recipient, cited the agency’s creation of a workforce development directorate and the increase in its security cooperation personnel after DSCA determined the scope of its workforce through the directorate.

The new directorate will build a competency assessment tool for use across DoD, develop a competency program and revise the education and training curriculum, he said.

He also discussed DSCA’s role in the administration’s National Security Strategy.

Leslie Smith, recently-tasked as 66th inspector general of the U.S. Army, has been promoted to lieutenant general during a ceremony conducted Feb. 9 at Fort McNair, Washington, D.C.

With this, Smith replaces David Quantock who has stepped down from the role in February after years of service since December 2014, the Army said Wednesday.

Gen. Mark Milley, Army chief of staff, administered the ceremony that had soldiers and Smith’s family and friends in attendance.

Milley gave recognition to past officers who precede Smith, and also noted that the latter was among the few, out of over 6,000 second lieutenants, to have reached the rank of general officer.

Smith expressed his gratitude for the people in his life, as well as peers and officers within the Army, who have influenced his values and work as a commissioned officer.

The U.S. Army wants contractors to deliver prototypes of the service branch’s future robotic, optionally-manned combat vehicles by 2019, Breaking Defense reported Thursday.

Brig. Gen. David Lesperance, head of the Army’s Cross-Functional Team on future ground vehicles, told reporters that defense contractors and “non-traditional companies” are currently developing concepts for the Next-Generation Combat Vehicle.

Lesperance added that NGCV program performers will conduct experimentation, modeling and simulation in the next six to 12 months.

He noted that he wants NGCV experimental prototypes to enter shakedown tests in 2019, then undergo full field tests with an operational combat unit in 2020.

The Army will gather soldiers’ feedback and refine the vehicle design before conducting a second round of field tests in 2022 and a third in 2024.

The new NGCV timeline is two years ahead of the original program schedule.

Lesperance said the new combat vehicles are designed to feature less weight and size than current platforms, as well as showcase optimized performance for urban combat.

Steven Walker, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has said that his investment priorities for DARPA are aligned with President Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy and Defense Secretary James Mattis’ National Defense Strategy, DoD News reported Thursday.

Walker, a 2018 Wash100 recipient, told House Armed Services Committee members at a hearing Wednesday that his first priority is to develop technologies in the areas of cybersecurity, biosecurity and defense against weapons of mass destruction.

He added that DARPA’s second investment priority is to stay ahead of peer competitors in Europe and Asia.

“The [United States] can no longer be dominant across all scenarios, but it needs to be highly lethal in select ones.”

The DARPA director noted that the U.S. military needs to obtain new technologies across physical, space and electromagnetic spectrum domains.

DARPA’s third priority is to effectively complete global stabilization efforts and the fourth is to continue research in science and technology.