/
Trump to Nominate Melissa Sue Glynn as VA Enterprise Integration Asst Secretary
Published on
Trump to Nominate Melissa Sue Glynn as VA Enterprise Integration Asst Secretary

Trump to Nominate Melissa Sue Glynn as VA Enterprise Integration Asst SecretaryPresident Donald Trump intends to nominate Melissa Sue Glynn, former head of public sector practice at global professional services firm Alvarez and Marsal, as assistant secretary for the Department of Veterans Affairs‘ Office of Enterprise Integration.

Glynn previously served as a principal of PwC and led the company’s work with VA, the White House said Monday.

If confirmed, she will oversee the office that helps the department manage veteran and employee experience using enterprise integration strategies for people, processes, technologies and innovations.

Her industry career focused on efforts to develop and deploy collaborative decisionmaking platforms.

She also held the roles of co-director at the University of Arizona’s Center for the Management of Information and principal investigator on a National Science Foundation cooperative grant and several other defense research laboratory-funded programs.

Glynn holds a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University and both master’s and doctorate degrees from University of Arizona.

/
NASA Seeks Official to Oversee Planetary Protection Efforts
Published on
NASA Seeks Official to Oversee Planetary Protection Efforts


NASA Seeks Official to Oversee Planetary Protection EffortsNASA looks for a planetary protection officer who will lead the agency’s efforts to prevent space flight missions from contaminating other planets and solar system bodies with Earth organisms and organic constituents.

The planetary protection officer will work within the office of safety and mission assurance for planetary protection and will serve for three years, with a possible two-year extension, NASA said July 13 in a USAJobs notice.

A selected candidate will oversee NASA’s planetary protection functions as well as advise senior agency officials on planetary protection issues and coordinate with external organizations on such matters, according to the notice.

Business Insider reported Tuesday Catharine Conley, NASA’s current planetary protection officer, said the agency posted the job opening after the position was relocated to the office of safety and mission assurance, an independent technical authority within NASA.

The role was created as part of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which mandates that space missions must have less than 0.01 percent chance of contaminating celestial bodies.

/
Heather Wilson: Air Force to Evaluate 4 Aircraft During Light Attack Experimentation Campaign
Published on
Heather Wilson: Air Force to Evaluate 4 Aircraft During Light Attack Experimentation Campaign


Heather Wilson: Air Force to Evaluate 4 Aircraft During Light Attack Experimentation Campaign
Heather Wilson

Heather Wilson, secretary of the U.S. Air Force, has said the service branch’s pilots will test-fly four aircraft in various combat mission scenarios at Holloman AF Base in New Mexico next week as part of the Light Attack Experimentation Campaign.

The Air Force said Tuesday it will evaluate an A-29 Super Tucano from the Embraer–Sierra Nevada Corp. team and an AT-802 Longsword from the Air Tractor–L3 Technologies alliance, as well as Scorpion and AT-6 Wolverine platforms from Textron.

“The light attack aircraft experiment took five months from conception to aircraft delivery,” Wilson told audience at an Air Force Association event held Tuesday in Arlington, Virginia.

Wilson added the service branch aims to establish an agile and flexible environment and accelerate analyst processing, assessment and decisionmaking in space command and control operations with the use of open architecture systems.

The service branch has begun to explore innovation ideas that involve input from academia and industry.

The Air Force also plans to create a new Deputy Chief of Staff for Space Operations directorate — or A11– to support the integration of space programs and appoint a senior civilian who will serve as the directorate’s assistant deputy chief of staff.

/
Senate Bill Would Establish Security Requirements for Internet-Connected Devices
Published on
Senate Bill Would Establish Security Requirements for Internet-Connected Devices


Senate Bill Would Establish Security Requirements for Internet-Connected DevicesFour senators have introduced a bipartisan bill that would require federal suppliers of internet-connected devices to ensure that their products are free of “hard-coded passwords” and cyber vulnerabilities, patchable and comply with industry standard protocols.

The Internet of Things Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2017 calls for the Office of Management and Budget to establish network-level security requirements for IoT devices with limited software and data processing capabilities, Sen. Mark Warner’s (D-Virginia) office said Tuesday.

The legislation would also require the national protection and programs directorate within the Department of Homeland Security to introduce guidelines on cyber vulnerability disclosure regulations and exempt researchers that conduct studies in compliance with such guidelines from liability under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Lawmakers also proposed to require an inventory of all IoT devices used by each executive agency.

The senators drafted the bill in consultation with security professionals from Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Atlantic Council and other organizations.

The measure also has endorsements from companies such as VMware, Symantec, Mozilla, Neustar and Cloudflare.

Warner proposed the bill with Sens. Cory Gardner (R-Colorado), Ron Wyden (D-Washington) and Steve Daines (R-Montana).

/
Coast Guard Adm. Paul Zukunft Pegs Icebreaker Construction Cost at Less Than $1B
Published on
Coast Guard Adm. Paul Zukunft Pegs Icebreaker Construction Cost at Less Than $1B


Coast Guard Adm. Paul Zukunft Pegs Icebreaker Construction Cost at Less Than $1BAdm. Paul Zukunft, commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, has said he estimates that U.S. shipyards can help build the service branch’s first heavy icebreaker within 20-year timeframe for less than $1 billion, Breaking Defense reported Tuesday.

Zukunft told audience at a Center for Strategic and International Studies-hosted event Tuesday that the real cost of the icebreaker acquisition lies in developing local shipyards’ capacity to construct such vessels since Polar Star, the last heavy icebreaker to be built in U.S., was commissioned 40 years ago.

The report said he seeks to demonstrate to industry that construction of an icebreaker fleet is a “worthwhile investment.”

Zukunft noted the Coast Guard aims to deploy the first new icebreaker by 2023 to replace Polar Star.

The service branch currently plans to build three heavy and three medium icebreakers in two phases.

/
Air Force Nears Deal to Acquire 2 Boeing 747s for Presidential Aircraft Recapitalization Program
Published on
Air Force Nears Deal to Acquire 2 Boeing 747s for Presidential Aircraft Recapitalization Program


Air Force Nears Deal to Acquire 2 Boeing 747s for Presidential Aircraft Recapitalization Program

The U.S. Air Force and Boeing are close to reaching a deal to procure two 747-8 aircraft that will be converted into presidential planes, Defense One reported Tuesday.

“We’re working through the final stages of coordination to purchase two commercial 747-8 aircraft and expect to award a contract soon,” said Ann Stefanek, a spokeswoman for the Air Force.

Sources familiar with the deal said Boeing originally manufactured the 747-8 planes in response to the 2013 order by Russian airline Transaero that filed for bankruptcy in 2015.

The report said the average list price for a Boeing 747-8 aircraft is worth approximately $386.8 million and that the Defense Department could disclose the deal as early as this week.

The Air Force plans to allocate approximately $3.2 billion in funds to purchase two Air Force One planes from 2018 to 2022 based on DoD’s fiscal 2018 budget request filed with Congress in February, the report added.

Defense News also reported that Boeing currently stores the two undelivered 747-8s at Southern California Logistics Airport near the Mojave Desert.

Caroline Hutcheson, a Boeing spokeswoman, said the company is in talks with the service branch over a deal for a pair of 747-8s but did not confirm the details about the proposed transaction.

/
King & Spalding Partner Christopher Wray Confirmed as FBI Director
Published on
King & Spalding Partner Christopher Wray Confirmed as FBI Director


King & Spalding Partner Christopher Wray Confirmed as FBI Director
Christopher Wray

The Senate voted 92-5 Tuesday to confirm Christopher Wray, a litigation partner at international law firm King & Spalding, as FBI director, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

Wray’s confirmation came nearly two months after President Donald Trump nominated him for the post following the dismissal of James Comey as FBI chief in May.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said Tuesday that Wray told the panel “he won’t condone tampering with investigations, and that he would resign rather than be unduly influenced in any manner.”

His “record of service, and his reputation, give us no reason to doubt him,” Grassley added.

Wray previously worked at the Justice Department as assistant attorney general of the department’s criminal division from 2003 to 2005.

He served as assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia between 1997 and 2001.

/
NASA Program Aims to Help SEWP Contract Users Identify Authorized IT Resellers
Published on
NASA Program Aims to Help SEWP Contract Users Identify Authorized IT Resellers


NASA Program Aims to Help SEWP Contract Users Identify Authorized IT ResellersNASA has launched a program to help government buyers confirm if an information technology product they want to procure through the Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement contract vehicle comes from an authorized reseller, Nextgov reported Monday.

The report said NASA aims to restrict certain SEWP contracts to authorized resellers and prevent non-authorized vendors from submitting quotes for certain products under the Established Authorized Reseller Program.

The program will also allow clients to choose whether to use authorized resellers, the report noted.

In 2014, NASA issued 56 contracts under the potential 10-year, $20 billion SEWP contract that covers IT products and services for the space agency’s centers and other federal government customers.

NASA also implemented a tool that works to help the agency locate authorized resellers in it database for each SEWP order.

/
GAO: DoD Should Review ‘Internet of Things’ Security Policies, Guidance
Published on
GAO: DoD Should Review ‘Internet of Things’ Security Policies, Guidance


GAO: DoD Should Review 'Internet of Things' Security Policies, GuidanceThe Government Accountability Office has urged the Defense Department to evaluate security policies and guidance related to internet of things devices, then identify areas that require new policies or updated guidance.

GAO said Thursday DoD has conducted infrastructure-related and intelligence assessments to examine security risks posed by IoT tools but the department has yet to evaluate the security of IoT device operations.

The congressional watchdog found that DoD policies and guidance do not adequately address certain IoT platforms, including smart televisions in unsecure areas and IoT device applications.

GAO added that DoD policies and guidance on cyber, operations, information and physical security do not cover IoT devices.

The department has yet to establish policy that would require its components to implement existing security measures on industrial control systems, including IoT tools, the GAO report noted.

GAO recommended DoD to administer operations security surveys to identify IoT security risks, or use other risk assessment methods.

/
Gen. Paul Selva Given 2nd Term as JCS Vice Chairman
Published on
Gen. Paul Selva Given 2nd Term as JCS Vice Chairman


Gen. Paul Selva Given 2nd Term as JCS Vice Chairman
Paul Selva

The Senate has approved the reappointment of U.S. Air Force Gen. Paul Selva for another two-year term as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense News reported Monday.

Senators reconfirmed Selva through a voice vote held Monday, two weeks after he sailed through a nomination hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He assumed the vice chairman role in July 2015 after he previously commanded the U.S. Transportation Command and the Air Mobility Command and served as vice commander of Pacific Air Forces.

The 37-year Air Force veteran has pushed for military modernization and innovation as the second highest-ranking officer in the country’s armed forces.

1 … 2,168 2,169 2,170 2,171 2,172 … 2,598