Executive Mosaic Honors Guidehouse’s Scott McIntyre & Verizon’s Maggie Hallbach for 2023 Wash100 Wins
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Executive Mosaic Honors Guidehouse’s Scott McIntyre & Verizon’s Maggie Hallbach for 2023 Wash100 Wins

Guidehouse CEO Scott McIntyre and Maggie Hallbach, senior vice president of public sector at Verizon, were spotlighted today for their achievements and their selection to the esteemed 2023 Wash100 list.

Executive Mosaic’s annual Wash100 Award recognizes the most impactful, outstanding and promising executives working in the dynamic and evolving government contracting field. This year marks the award’s tenth anniversary, and Executive Mosaic is pleased to again usher in a new roster of winners.

Scott McIntyre earned his seventh Wash100 Award this year for his continued leadership at the helm of one of GovCon’s major consulting firms. McIntyre has led Veritas Capital-backed Guidehouse through three major acquisitions in the last five years, growing the organization’s footprint in key markets. Most recently, Guidehouse purchased Grant Thornton’s public sector advisory business. Read McIntyre’s full Wash100 profile here.

This year marks Maggie Hallbach’s debut on the Wash100 list. She earned the recognition by securing key government contracts and advancing the 5G mission across the public sector. Hallbach has been with Verizon for over two decades, and she has served in her current role for just over one year. Read Hallbach’s Wash100 profile here.

Now is your chance to sway the outcome of the 2023 Wash100 popular vote competition! Each year, our readers vote for their favorite Wash100 winners, and the top 10 are announced at the end of April. Who will take first place? Cast your vote at Wash100.com to find out!

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DARPA Announces 3 University Teams to Develop Protective Biofilms
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DARPA Announces 3 University Teams to Develop Protective Biofilms

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has selected three university teams to develop protective biofilms designed to prevent the degradation of military assets.

DARPA said Tuesday the Arcadia program aims to create beneficial materiel coatings using naturally occurring microorganisms to address biologically induced problems such as increased drag on unmanned undersea vehicles.

Clemson University will develop a stable microbial biofilm to decrease drag on underway UUVs as part of its Engineering Control of Organic Coatings on Autonomous Navy Gliders project.

Columbia University will work on its Inhibiting Molds with Probiotic Ensembles from Diverse Environments to identify and disseminate inhibitory organisms to safeguard military materiel and equipment. 

Texas A&M University’s Microbes Achieve Resistance to MicroOrganism-influenced Rust was selected to develop methods of modeling and predicting microbially influenced rust to engineer a functional and resilient biofilm.

“Research has shown that accumulation of biofilms on UUVs can cause more than a 90% reduction in velocity within three months, leading to deployment failure,” said Tiffany Prest, Arcadia program manager.

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College Students Invited to Participate in NASA Tech Competition to Address Lunar Dust
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College Students Invited to Participate in NASA Tech Competition to Address Lunar Dust

NASA has opened registration for the Human Lander Challenge, a competition encouraging college students to develop technologies that can mitigate lunar surface dust clouds during spacecraft landing and ascent.

The winning technology could be used in the Artemis mission to the Moon’s South Pole, the agency said Wednesday.

Lunar dust, technically known as plume surface interaction, is made of granular, rocky material that could cause safety risks and damage to NASA’s assets. The agency is also looking for techniques that could protect habitats, scientific experiments, mobility systems and other infrastructure from the dust, called regolith.

The first-ever Human Lander Challenge is seeking devices and methodologies such as dust shields, flight instrumentation, or approaches that enable visibility through plume surface interaction. 

The space agency will grant funding to 12 teams for their technical papers and design models or prototypes. They will present their products in June 2024, in Huntsville, Alabama. The top three teams are set to receive corresponding monetary prizes.

Interested parties should submit their proposals by March 4, and their non-binding notice of intent by Oct. 22.

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NSA, CISA Recommend Identity & Access Management Best Practices Via New Document
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NSA, CISA Recommend Identity & Access Management Best Practices Via New Document

The National Security Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have developed a document as part of the Enduring Security Framework to provide system administrators with recommended best practices related to identity and access management.

Alan Laing, NSA lead for the IAM working group, said in a statement published Tuesday that rigorous IAM enables organizations to detect and prevent malicious cyber actors from gaining access to data of national importance and corrupting critical systems.

The document provides IAM-related threat mitigation techniques organizations should implement. These are identity governance, environmental hardening, identity federation and single sign-on, multifactor authentication and IAM monitoring and auditing.

The paper, for instance, defines identity governance as a process that allows an organization to gain better visibility into access privileges and identities and is comprised of policies that cover role management, access review, reporting, analytics, logging and segregation of duties.

According to the document, phishing, insider threats and creation of accounts to maintain persistence are some of the IAM threats that identity governance can help mitigate.

“IAM is a critical part of every organization’s security posture, and we must work collectively with the public and private sector to advance more secure by default and secure by design IAM solutions,” said Grant Dasher, office of the technical director for cybersecurity at CISA.

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Commerce Department Seeks to Protect CHIPS Incentives Program With Proposed Rule
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Commerce Department Seeks to Protect CHIPS Incentives Program With Proposed Rule

The Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking outlining guardrails to prevent the improper use of incentives under the CHIPS Incentives Program established through the CHIPS and Science Act. The law would also protect U.S. technologies and innovation from foreign adversaries.

If passed, the rule would bar CHIPS incentives recipients from using the funds in other countries and investing in semiconductor production in foreign countries of concern, such as Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, for a period of 10 years following the award, NIST said Tuesday.

“CHIPS for America is fundamentally a national security initiative and these guardrails will help ensure malign actors do not have access to the cutting-edge technology that can be used against America and our allies,” said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

The rule also aims to classify semiconductors as critical to national security; strengthen U.S. export controls; restrict the expansion of legacy facilities in foreign countries of concern; and establish standards to limit expansion of advanced facilities in such countries.

The department will open the proposed rule for public comments for a period of 60 days.

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DOD Selects 31 Teams for Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative; Heidi Shyu Quoted
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DOD Selects 31 Teams for Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative; Heidi Shyu Quoted

The Department of Defense has awarded $220 million in grants to 31 teams of researchers selected as part of the fiscal year 2023 competition for the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative.

Each research team will receive approximately $7.1 million over five years to conduct their basic research projects under the MURI program, which was launched in 1985, DOD said Tuesday.

“Not only does the program enable scientific breakthroughs with direct relevance for DoD applications, it also has been used to create and sustain new fields of inquiry,” said Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering.

“It is a program with a powerful legacy of scientific impact and remains a cornerstone of DoD’s basic research portfolio,” added Shyu, a 2023 Wash100 winner.

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Army Research Office and the Office of Naval Research requested proposals and reviewed 259 white papers covering 24 topic areas of interest to DOD. A panel of experts selected the 31 teams located at 61 universities out of a pool of 90 proposals.

Some of the topic areas the selected research projects cover are control theory for novel quantum error correction, climate change, cognitive security and quantum phononics.

Click here to see the full list of selected teams.

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GSA, DOD Partner to Make Sustainable Technologies Available to Federal Agencies; Sonny Hashmi Quoted
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GSA, DOD Partner to Make Sustainable Technologies Available to Federal Agencies; Sonny Hashmi Quoted

The General Services Administration has partnered with the Department of Defense to expand the federal government’s access to sustainable technology products.

Under the memorandum of understanding, GSA will use product performance and pricing information from DOD’s Sustainable Technology Evaluation and Demonstration program to streamline federal acquisition programs, the agency said Tuesday.

STED coordinates with military installations to verify the performance of sustainable technology alternatives. When the program identifies a more sustainable alternative that meets DOD requirements, GSA will help vendors secure a new Federal Supply Schedule or a National Stock Number.

“It’s so important that we help agencies more easily find and buy products that not only meet mission needs but are also better for the environment,” said Sonny Hashmi, commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service and a previous Wash100 awardee.

The MOU was signed by Erv Koehler, assistant commissioner of general services and supplies at FAS, and Richard Kidd, deputy assistant secretary of defense for environment and energy resilience.

“The backing of the STED program provides us with the resources to test, evaluate, and bring environmental innovations to market faster,” Koehler said.

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Maj. Gen. Edmond Brown Appointed Army Futures Command Chief of Staff
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Maj. Gen. Edmond Brown Appointed Army Futures Command Chief of Staff

Maj. Gen. Edmond Brown, commanding general of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, has been named the next chief of staff of Army Futures Command, the Department of Defense said Monday.

Brown became the head of DEVCOM, a major subordinate command of Army Futures Command, in July 2021 and spearheaded the development of new warfighting capabilities while harnessing artificial intelligence, autonomy, robotics, advanced energetics and other emerging technologies.

He previously served as the deputy director and chief of staff of the Futures and Concepts Center, which evaluates the operational environment and develops future battlefield concepts and requirements.

Brown was also deputy commanding general of the 1st Cavalry Division in Fort Hood, Texas, and Operation Freedom’s Sentinel in Afghanistan.

US Marine Corps Amends Logistics Doctrine to Include IT, Cybersecurity
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US Marine Corps Amends Logistics Doctrine to Include IT, Cybersecurity

The U.S. Marine Corps has revised a logistics doctrine first published in 1997 in an effort to align its conceptual framework with current warfighting principles.

The Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 4, Logistics covers the branch’s increasing use of data and information technology, as well as other global challenges in expeditionary force sustainment, the service said Tuesday.

In the new version, cyberspace and space have been included in the five operational domains of the Marine Corps. It discusses how cyberthreats can disrupt the service’s logistics, and emphasizes the need for Marines to have an in-depth understanding of these threats.

The doctrine also highlights the importance of employing emerging technology in order to build a resilient physical network. Technology can strengthen both physical and virtual security and prevent logistical intrusion, according to MCDP 4.

MCDP 4 “represents a significant update to our logistics doctrine,” said Lt. Gen. Edward Banta, USMC deputy commandant for installations and logistics. “It provides a common framework for all Marines involved in logistics operations and will help ensure that we are able to sustain our operations in the most effective and efficient manner possible.”

DOD Releases Biomanufacturing Strategy to Guide Defense Activities in the Emerging Field
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DOD Releases Biomanufacturing Strategy to Guide Defense Activities in the Emerging Field

The Department of Defense has published its Biomanufacturing Strategy, a collection of guidelines related to the emergence of this new approach to manufacturing, which uses biological mechanisms in its processes.

Built on three pillars, the strategy will inform research activities, industry partnerships and relationships with allies within the growing field, which is expected to have a considerable impact on U.S. national security and economic competitiveness, the DOD announced on Tuesday.

Heidi Shyu, under secretary of defense for research and engineering and a three-time Wash100 Award winner, noted the National Defense Strategy’s push for the DOD to “seed opportunities in biotechnology” to maintain a technological advantage.

“The strategy’s principles will define the path we must take to not just develop advanced technologies, but turn them into advanced capabilities that meet national security needs,” she added.

Efforts to incorporate biomanufacturing processes into the production of fuels, chemicals and construction materials are quickly progressing. In the future, biomanufacturing may also allow for the development of biologically-based environmental sensors and wearable technology as well as materials with new characteristics.

As part of the strategy, the DOD aims to establish transition partners for early-stage innovations by making sure that emerging science is focused on capabilities that can assist operational commanders with reaching mission goals. The strategy also calls for the creation of a “self-sustaining domestic biomanufacturing ecosystem,” to meet defense demands and support an enduring competitive advantage.

To better understand the biomanufacturing industry as it changes and expands, the DOD will also prioritize the collection of data to guide future investments and minimize risks associated with the new field.

DOD Releases Biomanufacturing Strategy to Guide Defense Activities in the Emerging Field

The Potomac Officers Club will be hosting its 9th Annual Defense R&D Summit on March 23, which will connect numerous experts to examine the current challenges and priorities shaping the defense R&D landscape. To learn more and register to attend, please visit the Potomac Officers Club events page.

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