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Robert Johnson Named Acquisition Executive at DLA Land and Maritime
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Robert Johnson Named Acquisition Executive at DLA Land and Maritime

Robert Johnson, an acquisition and management professional with 24 years of civilian career in the U.S. Air Force, has assumed responsibility as the acquisition executive of the Defense Logistics Agency Land and Maritime.

He will oversee strategic sourcing, planning, research and development programs and other acquisition initiatives for the land and maritime supply chains, DLA said Monday.

Prior to his appointment, Johnson served as chief of contracting for the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Fighters and Advanced Aircraft Directorate and Mobility and Training Aircraft Directorate.

“[His] 27 years of logistics expertise supporting multiple programs throughout the Air Force only highlight a smidge of the depth and breadth of acumen that [he has] brought and will continue to bring to the fight,” said Brig. Gen. Gail Atkins, commanding general of DLA.

Johnson’s Air Force career includes time as division functional lead for ISR Sensors and FMS contracting, acting chief of contracting for the F-16 program and contracting officer and source selection team lead for contracted support services.

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DARPA Expands RACER Robotic Fleet With Heavy Platform Demonstration
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DARPA Expands RACER Robotic Fleet With Heavy Platform Demonstration

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has demonstrated the extreme speed off-road ground autonomy of 12-ton vehicles as part of its Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency, or RACER program.

DARPA said Tuesday the recent autonomous movement tests for the RACER Heavy Platform vehicles marked the second phase of the DARPA initiative and reflected the agency’s continued round of autonomy development and testing.

The heavy vehicles dubbed RHPs have the Textron M5 base platform, which was developed and utilized in U.S. Army robotic combat vehicle campaigns and was upfitted by Carnegie Robotics to support RACER autonomy integration hardware stacks and software.

The 20-foot-long, skid-steer tracked vehicles are expected to complement RACER Fleet Vehicles, or RFVs, which are the two-ton, 11-foot-long, Ackermann-steered, wheeled platforms already in use.

RACER Program Manager Stuart Young remarked, “Having two radically different types of vehicles helps us advance towards RACER’s goal of platform agnostic autonomy in complex, mission-relevant off-road environments that are significantly more unpredictable than on-road conditions.”

He added that there are higher goals for the off-road average autonomous speed and lower intervention rates during Phase 2 and that the two platforms enable RACER to demonstrate the adaptability and resilience of autonomous software in complex, military-relevant environments.

The University of Washington and Overland AI; and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Offroad Autonomy, Georgia Institute of Technology and Duality Robotics worked as RACER Phase 2 performer teams.

More Info on Tech Hubs Phase 2 Proposals Now Available
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More Info on Tech Hubs Phase 2 Proposals Now Available

The Economic Development Administration is now offering more details about the applications submitted in February by the 31 Tech Hub Designees for phase 2 of the Regional Technology and Innovation Hubs, or Tech Hubs, program.

EDA said Tuesday that for phase 2, it plans to award five to 10 Tech Hubs $40 million and $70 million each to finance three to eight projects per Hub. Winners will be announced this summer.

Enacted via the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, the Tech Hubs Program aims to invest in regions that show potential for transformation within 10 years into competitive innovation centers. The program aims to promote U.S. economic growth and bolster national security.

EDA selected 31 out of 400 applicants as Tech Hub Designees in October last year. Designees are given the opportunity to apply for funds via Tech Hub funding opportunities.

So far, Designees have proposed a total of 182 projects worth $2 billion in all. These proposals include technology commercialization, workforce development and entrepreneur support.

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OMB Unveils FY 2024 Q1 Agency Priority Goals
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OMB Unveils FY 2024 Q1 Agency Priority Goals

The Office of Management and Budget has released the new agency priority goals of major federal agencies to mark the first quarterly update to the fiscal year 2024-2025 performance period.

The Small Business Administration is working to further promote equity across its services and products, according to a blog post published Tuesday on Performance.gov.

To achieve the goal, SBA plans to evaluate programs and processes, expand services to underserved markets, embed equity principles into its programs and advance evidence-building activities and performance measures by the end of September 2025.

SBA’s key goals include raising federal contracting awards to small disadvantaged businesses to 15 percent, increasing the loan portfolio of the Community Advantage Small Business Lending Company program by 10 percent and boosting the number of underserved small companies supported by the agency’s Entrepreneurial Development Programs by 10 percent.

The Department of Commerce intends to further develop domestic capacity for semiconductor manufacturing by Sept. 30, 2025.

The department set two strategies to achieve this goal: incentivizing the development of semiconductor facilities and upstream suppliers, including at least two clusters focused on fabricating leading-edge logic chips, and building research and development capacity through the creation of a public-private consortium and operator and initial implementation of metrology, advanced packaging and semiconductor manufacturing programs.

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Gen. Chance Saltzman on Building Readiness With Space Force Generation Model
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Gen. Chance Saltzman on Building Readiness With Space Force Generation Model

Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations for the U.S. Space Force and a 2024 Wash100 awardee, has called on service leaders to implement a new model to build up readiness and help maximize the military branch’s combat effectiveness.

In a notice to Guardians published Friday, Saltzman wrote that the Space Force Generation model, also known as SPAFORGEN, “is based on the straightforward observation that day-to-day space operations do not prepare Guardians for the challenges they will face in a high-intensity combat environment.”

Under the SPAFORGEN model, Guardians assigned to combat squadrons and combat detachments rotate through three phases: prepare, ready and commit.

Guardians develop expertise in assigned roles under the prepare phase and take part in advanced training to prepare for high-intensity conflict as part of the ready phase.

“Guardians then rotate into the Commit Phase as part of a combat squadron or combat detachment. Once complete, they rotate back into the Prepare Phase and begin the process again,” Saltzman wrote.

According to Saltzman, the new readiness model alters how the Space Force prepares for operations and helps the service to develop the capacity to conduct the current mission while getting ready for the future fight.

“Under SPAFORGEN, both officers and enlisted in mission squadrons will continue to rotate in and out of operations while assigned to the unit, creating a more experienced, capable, and threat-focused crew force,” he added.

Army Program Office Launches Competitive Prototype Initiative Aiming to Transform FMS Case Implementation
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Army Program Office Launches Competitive Prototype Initiative Aiming to Transform FMS Case Implementation

The Army Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems’ Foreign Military Sales – Army Case Execution System Product Office, a.k.a. FMS-ACES, has launched a competitive prototype effort to develop new products to support the FMS community.

Under the competitive prototype phase, two vendors will develop their prototypes through August to provide the FMS-ACES with the capability to plan and perform case initiation and implementation, logistics, financial execution and forecasting activities.

“FMS-ACES is looking at our vendors to attack the current problems with modern solutions using an Agile approach,” said Aric Sherwood, acting assistant program executive officer at PEO EIS.

“For PEO EIS, a guiding principle in Agile is about getting value to users in the form of working software as quickly as possible,” Sherwood said.

The prototype phase will culminate in technology demonstrations in which the Army will select one offering that best fits the needs of the FMS community and its stakeholders.

FMS-ACES is part of PEO EIS’ Defense Integrated Business Systems portfolio that is tasked with modernizing the U.S. Army’s FMS case implementation, execution and closure system.

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USSF’s Lt. Gen. Shawn Bratton Shares Thoughts on Commercial Space Strategy
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USSF’s Lt. Gen. Shawn Bratton Shares Thoughts on Commercial Space Strategy

The U.S. Space Force’s recently released Commercial Space Strategy is designed to push leaders to consider novel approaches to industry partnerships and technology, according to Lt. Gen. Shawn Bratton, deputy chief of space operations, strategy, programs and requirements for the service branch.

During a conversation hosted by the Atlantic Council, Bratton explained that the strategy encourages leaders to “make ourselves a little uncomfortable and go into areas where we haven’t explored” for collaboration, the Department of Defense reported on Wednesday.

Along with promoting new perspectives on government-industry partnerships, Bratton said the strategy also aims to “build on just this long history where we’ve worked with commercial partners in more traditional areas like satellite communications.”

It follows four foundational lines of effort designed to operationalize the integration of commercial space capabilities, the first of which is collaborative transparency. This part of the plan aims to increase the Space Force’s understanding of commercial culture and development timelines and collaborate continuously.

Operational and technical integration, the second line of effort, targets the integration of commercial space offerings into a hybrid space architecture. This goal will be executed through the development of policies, processes and procedures to support data and hardware integration with the Space Force.

Through the third line of effort, risk management, the USSF intends to work alongside commercial organizations to identify and mitigate any risks associated with their technologies. The Space Force also aims to secure the future by establishing a process to consistently evaluate new commercial capabilities.

The strategy is meant to drive the USSF to connect with commercial innovation in new ways and veer away from the “comfortable” methods through which the service branch has traditionally received commercial offerings.

Today’s advanced technologies present a wide range of capabilities for various mission areas. Bratton said for the Space Force to leverage the “rapidly moving commercial enterprise,” it must start thinking differently.

Congress OKs $61B in Ukraine Funding, Potential TikTok Ban in Foreign Aid Package
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Congress OKs $61B in Ukraine Funding, Potential TikTok Ban in Foreign Aid Package

A package of four bills that would provide $95 billion in military aid for Ukraine, Israel and U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific region is now headed to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature after the Senate passed the package in a 79-18 vote Tuesday, Reuters reported.

In a statement published Tuesday, the president called the legislation as a measure that seeks to strengthen national security and demonstrate U.S. leadership in advancing freedom and democracy and fighting tyranny and oppression.

“I will sign this bill into law and address the American people as soon as it reaches my desk tomorrow so we can begin sending weapons and equipment to Ukraine this week,” added Biden.

The package would provide $61 billion in funding for Ukraine to help the country counter the Russian invasion that started in February 2022.

The other bills would allocate $26 billion for Israel and $8.12 billion for the Indo-Pacific region to help “counter communist China,” according to the report.

A potential ban on the social media platform TikTok and new sanctions on Iran are also included in the package, which passed the House on Saturday.

The report noted that the House voted 311-112 to approve the package’s Ukraine funding portion.

GAO Outlines Recommendations to Improve Federal Audit Clearinghouse Information, Usability
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GAO Outlines Recommendations to Improve Federal Audit Clearinghouse Information, Usability

The Government Accountability Office has found in a new report that the Federal Audit Clearinghouse responsible for reviewing federal grant audits cannot identify recipients that did not submit a single audit, providing federal agencies with inadequate data to conduct oversight.

GAO also found that the Office of Management and Budget has not designated an entity to initiate a government-wide single audit quality review since 2007 and recommended that the office conduct such a review at a regular interval.

According to GAO, a government-wide review is crucial to helping federal agencies identify issues in the quality of single audits that can impact the quality and completeness of FAC information.

To address this concern, GAO recommended that Congress consider amending the Single Audit Act to require OMB to perform regular government-wide single audit quality reviews and submit a report on the findings from each review to the appropriate committees of Congress.

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Latest Version of TEFCA Common Agreement Calls for FHIR API Exchange Support
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Latest Version of TEFCA Common Agreement Calls for FHIR API Exchange Support

Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement-qualified health information networks may now adopt and implement version 2.0 of the Common Agreement, which was released on April 22 by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and The Sequoia Project, the TEFCA-recognized coordinating entity.

The Common Agreement makes it possible for users on different health information networks to share information securely by establishing a governing approach and infrastructure model, the Department of Health and Human Services said Monday.

One of the features of CA v2.0 is a requirement to support Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources Application Programming Interface exchange. The requirement would further facilitate information sharing as well as user access to healthcare information via one’s preferred app through TEFCA.

According to Micky Tripathi, national coordinator for health information technology, “We have long intended for TEFCA to have the capacity to enable FHIR API exchange. This is in direct response to the health IT industry’s move toward standardized APIs with modern privacy and security safeguards, and allows TEFCA to keep pace with the advanced, secure data services approaches used by the tech industry.”

Accompanying the release of CA v2.0 is the Participant and Subparticipant Terms of Participation, which covers the requirements that interested parties seeking to join TEFCA must agree to and comply with.

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