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GSA, DAU Develop Tool to Facilitate Comparison of Acquisition Regulations
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GSA, DAU Develop Tool to Facilitate Comparison of Acquisition Regulations

The General Services Administration and the Defense Acquisition University have collaborated to develop an acquisition regulation comparator that could enable Acquisition.gov users to compare up to three acquisition regulations by providing them side-by-side view of multiple regulations. 

Acquisition personnel were required to open multiple tabs and see each regulation individually before the ARC tool was implemented, according to a GSA blog post published Tuesday.

With the ARC, users can now compare specific sections of other agencies’ regulations, assess how supplemental regulations are being implemented by agencies and find examples that could be used to guide others in implementing regulations.

GSA said there are 32 regulations that have been integrated into the ARC, including the Federal Acquisition Regulation used by all executive agencies.

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NIST-Lightcast-CompTIA Report Shows Cybersecurity Labor Demand Growth Over 12 Months
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NIST-Lightcast-CompTIA Report Shows Cybersecurity Labor Demand Growth Over 12 Months

The demand for cybersecurity professionals in the U.S. grew 2.4 times faster in the last 12 months than the rate across the national economy, according to data analyzed by the CyberSeek platform from a partnership between the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Lightcast and the Computing Technology Industry Association.

CompTIA released the findings of the study Monday that showed 769,736 new job openings from September 2021 to September 2022 focused on or requiring skills in internet security and postings in the third quarter of the current calendar year were 30 percent higher compared to the same period a year ago.

Meanwhile, supply and demand ratio indicated that for every 100 job posts, there were 65 of those professionals in the labor market, most of them already employed.

IT security skill requirements significantly expanded in the past year amid the emergence of more job specializations, CompTIA reported.

“The data should compel us to double-down on efforts to raise awareness of cybersecurity career opportunities to youth and adults, especially during Cybersecurity Career Awareness Week which is an international campaign to inspire individuals to explore the variety of types of cybersecurity-related roles that are needed in both the public and private sectors,” said Rodney Petersen, director of the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education.

CyberSeek functions as an analytics tool designed to help stakeholders examine supply and demand data in the job market.

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Heidi Shyu: DoD Keeps Abreast of Hypersonic Tech Despite Workforce Challenges
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Heidi Shyu: DoD Keeps Abreast of Hypersonic Tech Despite Workforce Challenges

Heidi Shyu, undersecretary for research and engineering at the Department of Defense, said every service branch under DOD is developing hypersonics weapons in order to keep up with the accelerating pace of the technology’s adoption by governments such as Russia and China.

She told The Hill editor-in-chief Bob Cusack at a Raytheon Technologies-sponsored event Tuesday the department agency is heavily invested in hypersonics training and fielding efforts, and is in fact on track for deployment in the mid-2020s.

“It is important to keep abreast of what’s going on in hypersonics, but it’s equally important to keep abreast of many different technology area that’s important to us as well,” Shyu said during the Q&A session.

Shyu, a 2022 Wash100 Award winner, noted the Pentagon plans to spend a significant portion of its fiscal 2023 budget to increase testing capability.

When asked about the obstacles currently facing hypersonics, she cited staffing as a major concern especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. She cited various programs the department created to boost recruitment, such as the SMART scholarship program, Special Immigration Visa for post-doctorate graduates, as well as projects that promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics in higher education.

The DOD official added that one of the department’s commitments moving forward is to collaborate with commercial companies to help scale up production while lowering the cost of developing and testing hypersonic and other defense weapons.

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US Chamber of Commerce Report: Government Digitization Could Generate $1T Annually
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US Chamber of Commerce Report: Government Digitization Could Generate $1T Annually

A U.S. Chamber of Commerce report has found that the federal government uses 9,858 unique forms and handles more than 106 billion forms on an annual basis to process government services requests of U.S. citizens.

The report titled Government Digitization: Transforming Government to Better Serve Americans showed that the public spent 10.5 billion hours on government paper forms in 2021 and the cost to citizens of using such forms reached $117 billion.

The document also listed areas where agencies can prioritize digitization: individual income tax return; health records; passport applications and renewals; social security applications; and green card applications.

According to the report, government digitization could generate approximately $1 trillion annually worldwide and help agencies eliminate waste, reduce costs, enhance efficiency, build up resilience and improve the ability to serve Americans.

“Increased government digitization doesn’t just mean saved time and money, it also means providing greater accountability and access to underserved communities when it comes to utilizing government services,” said Jordan Crenshaw, vice president of the Chamber Technology Engagement Center at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The report offers recommendations for Congress to advance government services digitization, such as using its oversight authority to determine barriers to government modernization and continuing to appropriate funding for the Technology Modernization Fund.

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Former Red Hat Exec Tricia Fitzmaurice to Lead New Accounts as VP of Sales at Rancher Government Solutions
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Former Red Hat Exec Tricia Fitzmaurice to Lead New Accounts as VP of Sales at Rancher Government Solutions

Experienced government technology executive Tricia Fitzmaurice has joined Rancher Government Solutions, a company that provides open source and security-focused products to the public sector, as its vice president of sales.

At RGS, Fitzmaurice will be responsible for seeking new accounts and expanding the market impacts of the company’s Kubernetes, cloud and technology evolution services, the Reston, Virginia-based company said Monday.

Lynne Chamberlain, CEO of RGS, commented that Fitzmaurice’s addition to the company is well-timed with the company’s growth, as the organization underwent a rebranding and restructuring in 2021, changing from Rancher Labs to their current name and gaining new ownership under SUSE.

Chamberlain went on to say that Fitzmaurice’s reputation in the U.S. government and adjacent industries in addition to her track record, career history and unique insights are likely to propel RGS toward new successes while working to best satisfy clientele.

Fitzmaurice began her almost three-decade career as an account manager at IBM overseeing OCR services for businesses in the U.S. and Canada. Subsequently, she headed up government accounts at i2 Technologies and served in positions such as public sector senior account executive and director of national security programs, law enforcement and justice at Red Hat, where she worked for a total of eight years.

While at Red Hat, the executive collaborated with high-ranking government officials on information technology modernization and cloud migration initiatives. She also won honors at the company like Account Manager of the Year, Chairman’s Award Winner and Deal of the Year as well as earning placement in the President’s Club multiple times over.

Prior to coming aboard at RGS, Fitzmaurice was regional vice president of federal civilian agencies and national security programs at software company UiPath, where she was in charge of assisting government personnel with the implementation and adoption of automated technologies across enterprises.

Fitzmaurice is poised to share her expertise in secure supply chain operations and government mission execution in her new role at RGS.

“The work Lynne and the entire RGS team has put into ensuring the Rancher solution stack is supported with security and operational readiness as the highest priorities for our federal customers is extremely impressive,” Fitzmaurice remarked, adding, “I’m excited for the opportunity to join this very talented organization.”

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Vendors Demo VTOL Systems for Future Navy Expeditionary Combat Operations
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Vendors Demo VTOL Systems for Future Navy Expeditionary Combat Operations

More than a dozen vendors showcased a range of systems designed to provide vertical takeoff and landing capabilities to the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps during a two-week demonstration event held at an unmanned aircraft systems test site at the University of Maryland.

A team from the Navy and Marine Corps Small Tactical UAS Program Office subjected the VTOL systems, which represented different configurations, to standardized tests in a push to determine their potential applications in expeditionary combat operations, Naval Air Systems Command said Monday.

The Family of Small UAS team also assessed the systems’ range, endurance, electro-optical and infrared imagery quality, audibility and other set of capabilities.

The team seeks to use the performance data to identify systems that can be considered for operational testing and inclusion in the FoSUAS programs of record.

“We want to show off what is available right now for future procurements to our Navy expeditionary community,” said Col. Victor Argobright, program manager of PMA-263.

During the demonstrations, participating vendors engaged with representatives from various Navy components including the Naval Special Warfare Command and Naval Construction Force.

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Pentagon Seeks Information on Updated AI Talent Procurement Contract
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Pentagon Seeks Information on Updated AI Talent Procurement Contract

The Department of Defense is seeking information on potential industry sources capable of providing staffing support for its artificial intelligence, machine learning and data science initiatives.  

The Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, together with the Army Contracting Command-Rock Island, is exploring options for a new AI Talent blanket purchase agreement, according to a notice posted Thursday on SAM.gov.

AIT 2.0 seeks to address some roadblocks identified in the original BPAs awarded in September 2020 to scale up the procurement process for AI and data science staffing support.

CDAO determined that the labor pool established for the initial AIT contract does not provide enough scope to support the Pentagon’s all AI activities.

The $7.5 million call order ceiling of the existing contract has impaired orders from larger agencies and limits existing orders to less than five-year periods of performance.

In addition, AIT 1.0 is not a fully decentralized agreement, resulting in lengthy procurement timeline.

CDAO aims to remove these challenges by allowing DOD agencies to ask for any positions within the task scopes, eliminating limit on call order amounts and making AIT 2.0 fully decentralized from award.

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Senate Bill to Give Pentagon Weapons Procurement Authority to Support Ukraine
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Senate Bill to Give Pentagon Weapons Procurement Authority to Support Ukraine

A pair of bipartisan Senate lawmakers has introduced an amendment to the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act that would allow the Department of Defense to procure high-priority weapon systems to support the Ukrainian military, DefenseNews reported Tuesday.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., the panel’s ranking member, proposed the legislation to give DOD the authority to award multi-year contracts to replenish the weapon stockpiles provided to Ukraine.

Pentagon would be permitted to buy certain munitions manufactured by defense contractors including BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies over fiscal 2023 and 2024.

The legislation also aims to ease several legal restrictions on defense procurement through fiscal 2024, waive the certified cost or pricing data requirement and grant special emergency procurement authorities reserved for acquisitions supporting contingency operations.

Reed and Inhofe has opened the deliberation on the FY 2023 NDAA that would authorize $817 billion for DOD and $29 billion for the Department of Energy’s national security programs.

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Former Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael Mullen and Six Others Join Defense Innovation Board
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Former Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael Mullen and Six Others Join Defense Innovation Board

Gen. Lloyd Austin, secretary of defense and 2022 Wash100 Award winner, hosted the inaugural meeting of the Defense Innovation Board (DIB) on Monday featuring seven new board members, including former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Michael Mullen.

Mullen served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff between 2007 and 2011 with great praise for his bold and original thinking in the work of strengthening the U.S. military and creating a fantastic reputation as an “honest broker” by policymakers and senior military officers.

In addition, Mullen also served as the 28th chief of Naval Operations with the U.S. Navy from July 2005 to Sept. 2007. He was only the third officer in Navy history to be appointed to four different four-star assignments. He retired from the Navy after over 42 years of service in 2011. 

As a DIB member alongside some of the most significant leaders of consequence, Mullen will work to reinforce Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s top priorities to defend our nation through innovation and modernization of the Department of Defense under the leadership of DIB Board Chair Michael Bloomberg.

The following six executives have also joined the Defense Innovation Board:

 

 

  • Dr. Gilda Barabino, President at Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering

 

  • Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder of LinkedIn, Co-Founder of Inflection AI, Partner at Greylock
     
  • Ryan Swann, Chief Data Analytics Officer at Vanguard
     
  • William “Mac” Thornberry, Former Chairman of the Armed Services Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives and Member of the Board of Directors at CAE 

 

The inaugural DIB meeting on Monday was a closed session for its members to discuss the highest priorities and challenges facing our national security and other critical areas to begin leveraging the collective experience of the board to provide an edge in technology and innovation moving forward. 

The Defense Innovation Board was created in 2016 to play a significant role in the development of innovation, technology, talent, and best practices from the commercial sector, and to build a culture of innovation and experimentation in DoD.

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Army to Discuss EW Software Requirement With Potential Offerors
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Army to Discuss EW Software Requirement With Potential Offerors

The U.S. Army will host an industry day on Nov. 10 as a prelude to a request for proposals for the service branch’s Electronic Warfare Planning Management Tool development project.

A notice posted Monday on SAM.gov indicates the service expects to commence the solicitation process in the second quarter of 2023 among prime vendors under the Responsive Strategic Sourcing for Services contract vehicle.

The Army previously worked with an unnamed original equipment manufacturer to develop EWPMT software and tested the platform during the government’s 2021 fiscal year.

All service units then deployed the original version in FY 2022 to plan and manage EW missions.

The forthcoming procurement effort is for work to further develop the software based on the baseline technology. Other services listed in the notice include integration, testing, maintenance and configuration management.

Interested participants should register by Nov. 4 to attend the event virtually or in person.

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