Defense Department Secretary Jim Mattis has selected McKinsey & Co. Partner Eric Chewning as a Senior Executive Service appointee and a deputy assistant secretary at DoD.

The department said Tuesday Chewning will specifically oversee manufacturing and industrial base policy as a deputy assistant secretary of defense.

Chewning most recently worked with McKinsey as a partner advising clients in the aerospace and defense industry and is a U.S. Army veteran who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

He worked as a principal at Booz & Company, now known as Strategy& under PwC, before joining McKinsey in 2014.

He earned a master of business administration degree at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business as well as an international relations master’s degree from the University of Chicago.

The Senate voted 79-19 Tuesday to confirm David Trachtenberg, former president and CEO of Shortwaver Consulting, as the Defense Department‘s principal deputy undersecretary for policy, Defense News reported Tuesday.

He will also serve as undersecretary of defense for policy on an acting basis as DoD awaits a decision on former Lockheed Martin executive John Rood’s nomination to the post.

The report said Trachtenberg supports efforts to increase the department’s missile defense capacity and strategy to counter threats from Russia.

The more than 30-year public and private sector veteran previously served as a division manager and vice president at CACI International and SVP for homeland security and corporate support at National Security Research.

He also held the roles of principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for forces policy and senior professional staff member on the House Armed Services Committee.

The Lockheed Martin-built F-35 fighter aircraft has received clearance to launch from the U.K. navy’s aircraft carrier – HMS Queen Elizabeth – after an integrated test force completed a series of ski-ramp trials.

Harriett Baldwin, U.K. defense minister, made the announcement before the House of Commons defense select committee, the British government said in a news release published Tuesday.

The U.K. has 12 F-35s that are in the testing phase in the U.S. in preparation for test flights aboard the aircraft carrier in 2018 and is expected to receive two additional fighter jets by the end of 2017.

The country’s defense ministry also announced that the 617 squadron at Royal Air Force base in Marham, England, will be the country’s first operational F-35 unit.

The British government expects its fleet of F-35s with the Block 3F software to achieve initial operating capability by December 2018.

The Department of Homeland Security has convened a new government council for election infrastructure security in cooperation with the Election Assistance Commission, the National Association of Secretaries of State and election officials across U.S.

DHS said Saturday the Government Coordinating Council for the Election Infrastructure Subsector is comprised of three members from the federal government and 24 representatives from state and local governments.

The department uses the GCC structure for each critical infrastructure sector to help coordinate the security efforts of government and private sector entities.

The GCC framework is designed to implement a mechanism for threat information sharing between the federal government and council members.

DHS identified election infrastructure as a subsector of the Government Facilities critical infrastructure sector in January to prioritize cybersecurity assistance to state and local election officials and to show that election systems are entitled to critical infrastructure protections from the U.S. government.