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NSWCCD to Hold Virtual Industry Day for Follow-On Stealth Tech Development Contract
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NSWCCD to Hold Virtual Industry Day for Follow-On Stealth Tech Development Contract

Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division is set to hold a virtual industry day on April 26 to provide details for a follow-on stealth technology development support services contract vehicle.

The new procurement effort covers the provision of engineering, scientific and technical services to support ship design applications, stealth technology development and fleet support implementation under various NSWCCD programs to improve the survivability and sustainability of naval platforms, according to a notice posted Monday on SAM.gov.

Contract work will also support advanced submarine development, advanced ship concepts and other technical programs managed by NSWCCD.

The upcoming industry day will take place via the Microsoft Teams business communication application and include presentations from subject matter experts, the contracting department and the small business deputy.

Only companies registered in the U.S. Navy’s Seaport-Next Generation multiple-award contract vehicle may participate in the event.

DOE Accepting Comments on Unified Data Framework for Biological, Environmental Research
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DOE Accepting Comments on Unified Data Framework for Biological, Environmental Research

The Department of Energy’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research is seeking public input on the development of a unified framework for next-generation data management and analysis.

A notice posted Monday on the Federal Register states the BER is requesting comments on technologies needed to develop a more unified data infrastructure and research areas that may benefit from the framework.

The office is also looking to identify current data sets that should be integrated into existing data infrastructure to facilitate research and determine barriers to accessing or integrating data from various sources.

The proposed infrastructure will support research in atmospheric science, environmental science, bioenergy and bioproducts and plant and microbial genomics.

Responses are due Oct. 31.

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HHS Launches Online Platform & Publishes Resources to Improve Healthcare Cybersecurity
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HHS Launches Online Platform & Publishes Resources to Improve Healthcare Cybersecurity

The Department of Health and Human Services introduced three new resources to improve cybersecurity awareness and preparedness in the health care sector.

HHS on Monday launched two published materials and an online educational platform called Knowledge on Demand through its 405(d) program, which provides relevant tools to health care and public health entities.

Knowledge on Demand is the first free cybersecurity training tool from HHS and covers five topics: threats against network-connected medical devices, data or equipment loss or theft, accidental or malicious loss of insider data, social engineering and ransomware.

The department also published a new edition of its Health Industry Cybersecurity Practices. Amassing input from more than 150 government and industry experts, the 2023 edition focuses on the most cost-effective and applicable approaches to address HPH-specific online attacks.

Using the latest HICP version and the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Cybersecurity Framework, HHS conducted a study on the awareness and alignment of domestic hospitals with standard cybersecurity guidelines.

The resources are available at the 405(d) program website, 405d.hhs.gov.

Healthcare IT - Digital Transformation Forum

GovCon Wire, sister publication of GovCon Daily, will host its second annual Healthcare IT – Digital Transformation Forum on May 17. Register for the virtual event by clicking on the image above.

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Berkeley National Lab Builds AI Facility for Sustainable Energy Materials Discovery
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Berkeley National Lab Builds AI Facility for Sustainable Energy Materials Discovery

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has built and opened an autonomous artificial intelligence research facility to accelerate materials science discovery.

The A-Lab is focused on finding new materials for sustainable energy, and can process 50 to 100 times more samples than human scientists every day, LBL said Monday.

The closed-loop laboratory uses three robotic arms that work 24/7 to test novel materials and identify which of them should be scientifically pursued further. The robots can can select from and mix nearly 200 powder precursors, such as metal oxides with lithium, iron and nickel.

Data from the automated system is sent to human researchers, as well as the Materials Project, a consortium of multiple countries and institutions that aim to significantly shorten the timeline for inventing new inorganic elements.

“We need materials solutions for things like the climate crisis that we can build and deploy now, because we can’t wait – so we’re trying to break this cycle that is so slow by having machines that correct themselves,” said Gerd Ceder, A-Lab’s principal investigator. “The important thing is not working in parallel, but instead to iterate rapidly, the way scientists operate.”

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Matthew Heideman Promoted to President & GM of Xage Security Government
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Matthew Heideman Promoted to President & GM of Xage Security Government

Matthew Heideman has been elevated to president and general manager of Xage Security Government LLC.

In a LinkedIn post published last week, Heideman announced his promotion from his previous position as vice president of Xage’s U.S. federal arm.

Prior to joining Xage in 2022, Heideman served as director of strategic partnerships and growth at D2iQ, a role in which he worked to expand the company’s public sector business and help clients drive their infrastructure and application modernization initiatives and embrace Kubernetes. 

Earlier, he spent more than eight years as a Department of Defense business sales and delivery executive at IBM, where he managed a project portfolio and a profit and loss center valued at $40 million.

Heideman’s other previous positions include program manager and business development lead at Deloitte and business development manager at Lockheed Martin. He began his government contracting career two decades ago as a technical recruiter at TEKsystems, where he held multiple roles of increasing responsibility over nearly six years.

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USSF Invests in Satellites, Sensors to Increase Space Domain Awareness; Philip Garrant Quoted
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USSF Invests in Satellites, Sensors to Increase Space Domain Awareness; Philip Garrant Quoted

Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant, deputy chief of space operations for strategy, plans, programs and requirements, said the U.S. Space Force is investing in ground and space-based sensors and surveillance systems and commercial space tracking data to increase space domain awareness, SpaceNews reported Monday.

Garrant said the service branch’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2024 allocates $584 million for space-tracking programs, including the development of optical telescopes and surveillance satellites, to improve the detection, tracking and identification of objects orbiting the Earth.

“It’s not just tracking and monitoring but also characterizing what type of spacecraft it is and anticipating its behavior,” Garrant said.

The Space Force has requested funding to support the development of the Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability, a planned radar network to identify adversarial threats in the geostationary orbit.

The FY 2024 budget request also includes upgrades to the Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance System to identify currently undetectable space threats and collect intelligence required to support actionable space domain awareness.

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Cadmus Selects Andrea Marr to Succeed Terry Fry as Energy Services Division Lead
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Cadmus Selects Andrea Marr to Succeed Terry Fry as Energy Services Division Lead

Andrea Marr has joined Cadmus as its new Energy Services Division lead, succeeding Terry Fry, who previously held the position.

As part of this leadership transition, Fry will assume the role of executive vice president and head of global energy strategy at Cadmus, the Arlington, Virginia-based company announced on Tuesday.

“I’m delighted Andrea is bringing her exceptional experience, leadership capabilities, and strategic insight to our energy services division,” said Ian Kline, president and CEO of Cadmus.

He also shared his excitement for Fry’s future efforts to diversify Cadmus’ work to support global utility and public sector clients with energy and decarbonization projects.

“Together, these two appointments enhance our ability to grow our impact and deliver for our clients,” Kline said.

Marr has a long history of leading business units centering utilities as well as commercial and industrial clients. Informed by a background in clean energy economy, she brings a unique point of view on urgent decarbonization challenges and the future of the electric grid.

Prior to joining Cadmus, Marr was vice president of industrial energy at Willdan Energy Solutions, a position in which she developed and conducted a strategy that drove the enterprise into new markets and boosted performance and delivery within her department.

Earlier, she served in the U.S. Navy, and in 2013, she was honored by the White House as a Champion of Change for her energy work as a veteran.

“Cadmus is home to some of the best talent collaborating with industry-leading innovators on today’s most pressing energy issues. I’m excited to be joining the Cadmus leadership team as the firm continues to grow and innovate,” Marr commented.

Marr’s appointment follows multiple executive leadership changes made by Cadmus last year. In March 2022, the firm selected Paul Lynch as chief operating officer. Cadmus also hired Robert Cherry as vice president of mergers and acquisitions and Aidan Barrett as M&A associate to position itself for future expansion.

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Leslie Beavers to Assume DOD Principal Deputy CIO Role in May
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Leslie Beavers to Assume DOD Principal Deputy CIO Role in May

Leslie Beavers, most recently director of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance enterprise capabilities within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, has been appointed principal deputy chief information officer at the Department of Defense.

Her new role is slated to take effect May 8, the DOD CIO office said Monday in a LinkedIn post.

Beavers will be responsible for helping advise the defense secretary on matters related to information technology, information management, information assurance, critical satellite communications, non-intelligence space systems, telecommunications, spectrum and navigation and timing programs.

She will also work with CIOs of defense agencies and field activities to facilitate strategic resource planning across cybersecurity and IT areas.

DOD CIO John Sherman said Beavers’ experience overseeing the Defense Intelligence Digital Transformation Campaign Plan within OUSD(I&S) will enable her to further advance initiatives such as zero trust, software modernization, electromagnetic spectrum operations and the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability program.

David McKeown, senior information security officer and deputy CIO for cybersecurity at DOD, has served as acting principal deputy CIO since Kelly Fletcher stepped down in October to become the State Department’s CIO.

“Dave’s experience, leadership, and drive have been invaluable as we rolled out Zero Trust and awarded JWCC,” Sherman said.

Sherman and McKeown are both 2023 Wash100 Award recipients.

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GAO: DOD Needs Transition Agreements to Move Directed Energy Prototypes to Acquisition Programs
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GAO: DOD Needs Transition Agreements to Move Directed Energy Prototypes to Acquisition Programs

The Government Accountability Office has recommended that the Department of Defense, particularly the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy, come up with transition agreements between developers of directed energy weapon prototypes and identified transition partners within the first year of a prototyping project.

GAO made the recommendation after it found that DOD, which spends $1 billion annually on DE weapons development efforts, faces challenges when it comes to transitioning prototypes to acquisition programs, according to a report published Monday.

“Without these transition planning steps, the Navy and Air Force risk developing directed energy weapons that may be misaligned with operational needs,” the GAO report reads.

According to the report, the U.S. Army created a detailed transition plan outlining the roles of stakeholders and schedules to support the move of weapons prototypes to the development phase.

GAO also recommended that the Navy and Air Force document how they gather, track and integrate feedback from prototype users during the development and testing phases.

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Maynard Holliday: DOD Should Take Ownership of AI Technical Baseline
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Maynard Holliday: DOD Should Take Ownership of AI Technical Baseline

Maynard Holliday, deputy chief technology officer for critical technologies at the Department of Defense, said DOD recognizes the “need to own the technical baseline” of artificial intelligence as AI technologies transition into military platforms, Breaking Defense reported Friday.

“We recognize we need to fast-follow, but we also need to develop military-specific applications of these commercial technologies, and as Under Secretary LaPlante has said in the past, we need to own the technical baseline of these technologies, so that we can have control over their evolution to a militarily specific solution, rather than being vendor-locked and having us beholden to one single vendor to evolve a capability,” Holliday told the publication in an interview.

When asked about how the Pentagon can create a balance between owning its technical baseline and having an industry that is obsessed with intellectual property protection, he cited the need for a “corpus of data” that is specific to the department.

“We’re going to have to develop our own militarily specific, DoD-specific corpus of data that’s updated with our information, our jargon, so that we can interact with it seamlessly — and that we trust it,” Holliday noted.

Holliday also discussed DOD’s plans to host a three-day conference on autonomy and AI in June, mentioning possible topics of discussion at the upcoming event, including Large Language Models, command systems, cybersecurity and the department’s recently updated policy on the reliability, ethics and control of autonomous weapons.

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