Boulder County and the state of Colorado have adopted the National Institute of Standards and Technology‘s community resilience planning guide for building and infrastructure systems to support the development of the collaborative’s own infrastructure standards.

NIST said Wednesday that the new standard is designed to let cities and towns within the collaborative set goals that will establish the desired resilience performance, including the ability to prepare, recover and adapt from disasters, of structures and infrastructures for 50 years.

The standard will also focus on clusters of building, such as housing, healthcare and retail, are also taken into account with the standard, NIST added.

“Organizing the built environment into clusters provides a basis for developing an estimate of how to prioritize systems for recovery and sets a workable timeline goal for recovery after a disaster,” said the county report on the collaborative standard.

Andrew Mayock, nominee for the deputy management director post at the Office of Management and Budget, has said he would prioritize federal cybersecurity and background investigation efforts if he is confirmed by the Senate, Government Executive reported Wednesday.

Charles Clark writes Mayock also discussed with members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee how he intends to address issues of improper payments, last-minute regulations when the new administration takes over, duplicative information technology procurement and federal hiring process.

He called on the Congress to pass the $3.1 billion Cyber Security National Action plan intended to help agencies replace old IT systems and to support the administration’s category management push across the government.

The report said Mayock also called for a review of how regulators control the lavish spending in government.

He told the committee he would help to facilitate a smooth presidential transition if confirmed within the final six months of the Obama administration, during which he would chair the Agency Transition Directors Council, according to the report.

Zina Sutch, former director of the Agriculture Department’s Office of the Executive Secretariat, has joined the Office of Personnel Management as director of OPM’s diversity and inclusion office.

OPM said Wednesday Sutch will work to review federal policies, government-wide data trends and employee survey findings that influence how the agency handles human resource policies related to diversity and inclusion issues.

“Her extensive work experience and her knowledge of diversity and inclusion issues will be a tremendous advantage as we continue to build and maintain a federal workforce that draws top talent from throughout this nation,” said Beth Cobert, OPM acting director.

Sutch was previously the USDA’s director of diversity, recruitment and work/life functions within the department’s office of the assistant secretary for administration prior to his most recent role there.

She began her career at USDA as leadership development program manager for the Agricultural Marketing Service in 2006 and later took the role as a training officer for the international technology services division for the chief information officer.