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Ron Ash Named Chief Operating Officer of Accenture Federal Services
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Ron Ash Named Chief Operating Officer of Accenture Federal Services

Accenture Federal Services announced on Tuesday that Ron Ash has been appointed as the company’s chief operating officer following the retirement of Kenny Mitchell in the role following 40 years of extraordinary service to Accenture.

“I’m immensely excited to step into the Chief Operating Officer role to accelerate our strategic priorities and help our clients achieve mission success,” Ron Ash enthusiastically explained.

His focus in the role will be accelerating strategic and operational priorities, as the company continues investing in its people and finding new ways to bring more value to clients and their missions.

Previously, Ash held the role as the Safety & Citizen Services Portfolio lead for AFS and was responsible for setting strategic direction, driving growth and ensuring successful delivery for clients across education, energy, global diplomacy, homeland security and law enforcement.

Over the course of his more than 25 years with Accenture Federal Services, Ron Ash has been integral in shaping and driving the company’s I&D priorities in critical senior positions.

Previously, Ash has served as the Client Account Lead for both the Department of State and Department of Justice business as well as leading AFS’ Strategy & Consulting Growth Platform and serving clients in multiple industries focused on Supply Chain Transformation.

“I also look forward to supporting the talented and diverse people at Accenture Federal Services to advance in their careers,” Ron Ash added. “This is truly an outstanding opportunity.”

In addition, Elaine Beeman will also become the company’s chief leadership officer following Kenny Mitchell’s retirement. Her responsibilities include employee experience and succession planning as well as advancing AFS’ leadership development efforts and driving the company’s Civilian portfolio.

About Accenture Federal Services

Accenture Federal Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Accenture LLP, is a U.S. company headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. Accenture’s federal business serves every cabinet-level department and 30 of the largest federal organizations.

Accenture Federal Services transforms bold ideas into breakthrough outcomes for clients at defense, national security, public safety, civilian and military health organizations.

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GovCon Expert Jim McAleese Hosting Free In-Depth Defense Virtual Event on Wednesday
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GovCon Expert Jim McAleese Hosting Free In-Depth Defense Virtual Event on Wednesday

Jim McAleese, founder of McAleese & Associates as well as an influential member of Executive Mosaic’s GovCon Expert program, will be hosting a virtual event on Wednesday, September 7th at 5:30pm (EST), no registration required, to share his invaluable insights regarding the most significant challenges facing the technology landscape and the federal sector heading into 2023.

GovCon Expert Jim McAleese, a three-time Wash100 Award recipient, will discuss how the global fight with China and other adversaries is impacting American business as well as how the tight labor market and challenges of the semiconductor industry are affecting prime contractors, the Defense Industrial Base and the Department of Defense (DoD).

Visit McAleese & Associates to see the live stream tomorrow at 5:30pm (EST) to see GovCon Expert Jim McAleese share his insights and highlights into the latest technologies, programs and innovations that will be critical for U.S. service branches and federal organizations as the budget planning begins for the upcoming 2024 fiscal year.

For instance, McAleese & Associates recently released a report indicating that defense stock prices have spiked 18 percent to 20 percent year-to-date and outperformed the S&P 500 as sector investors react to the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine. He also noted a 10 percent spike in DoD investment accounts for the 2022 and 2023 fiscal years.

McAleese added that investors generally expected at least an additional seven percent, or $54 billion, of FY 2023 DOD funding growth to at least $800 billion, compared with the $742 billion enacted in the current fiscal year.

GovCon Expert Jim McAleese Hosting Free In-Depth Defense Virtual Event on Wednesday

Don’t miss the In-Depth Defense Virtual Event from GovCon Expert Jim McAleese tomorrow!

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Army, USAF Battle Labs Collaborate Under DARPA’s Airspace Awareness Tech Program
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Army, USAF Battle Labs Collaborate Under DARPA’s Airspace Awareness Tech Program

The 805th Combat Training Squadron’s Shadow Operations Center-Nellis and the U.S. Army’s Mission Command Battle Lab have conducted a technology assessment under a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-backed program designed to facilitate airspace deconfliction and operations in a contested battlespace.

DARPA’s Air Space Total Awareness for Rapid Tactical Execution program seeks to automate the capability to come up with a single operational picture of airspace to help speed up joint-fires execution, the Air Force said Saturday.

In February 2021, DARPA tapped Raytheon Technologies to build an artificial intelligence tool meant to address airspace deconfliction under the ASTARTE initiative.

The Raytheon contract led to the development of the Airspace Tactical Automation System, also known as ATLAS.

“To aid in the product development and maturation of ATLAS, the ShOC-N collaborated with the MCBL to organize, plan, and test a simulated battlespace designed to replicate airspace complexities inherent in a joint area of responsibility,” said Lt. Col. John Ohlund, 805th CTS commander.

“The ShOC-N’s modeling and simulation team utilized Modern Air Combat Environment to transmit blue air tracks over the Army Persistent Experimentation Network to the MCBL,” added Ohlund.

The joint battle labs expect the next evaluation of ATLAS to occur in the fall of 2022 and to have an integrated simulation and modeling environment that includes a set of software platforms, dubbed as Theatre Battle Management Core Systems, used to plan and carry out military aerial missions.

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GSA Rule Seeks to Address Barriers to Worker Organizing for Federal Contractors; Robin Carnahan Quoted
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GSA Rule Seeks to Address Barriers to Worker Organizing for Federal Contractors; Robin Carnahan Quoted

The General Services Administration has released a final rule that will allow union organizers to access GSA-controlled facilities to educate government contractors’ employees about union membership, collective bargaining and organizing.

The policy amending Federal Management Regulation comes in response to a recommendation by the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, GSA said Friday.

“Today’s rule removes barriers to worker organizing and collective bargaining for federal contractors, allowing union membership to become more accessible,” said GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan.

The rule seeks to clarify that activities related to worker organizing are not restricted or covered by the general prohibition on distributing, soliciting and posting materials in or on property controlled by GSA.

GSA will open the rule for public comments over a period of 60 days and expects the collected feedback to inform task force projects and future rulemaking.

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White House Eyes Nickolas Guertin for Assistant Secretary of Navy for R&D, Acquisition
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White House Eyes Nickolas Guertin for Assistant Secretary of Navy for R&D, Acquisition

President Joe Biden announced his plan to nominate Nickolas Guertin, director of operational test and evaluation in the office of the secretary of the Department of Defense, to serve as assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition.

Guertin serves as senior adviser to the DOD secretary on live-fire testing and assessment of the Pentagon’s weapons system, the White House said Friday.

He has over 40 years of civilian and military experience in ship construction and maintenance, submarine operations and testing and development of sensors, weapons and combat management products.

He has carried out applied research for academia and government in cyber-physical and software-reliant systems at Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute.

Guertin is a Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act certified in engineering and program management and a retired Navy Reserve engineering duty officer.

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Ali Zaidi to Become National Climate Adviser, John Podesta to Advise President Biden on Clean Energy
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Ali Zaidi to Become National Climate Adviser, John Podesta to Advise President Biden on Clean Energy

President Biden will promote Ali Zaidi as successor to National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy, who is slated to step down from the role on Sept. 16, and will appoint think tank executive John Podesta to serve as senior clean energy innovation and implementation adviser.

Zaidi, who currently serves as McCarthy’s deputy, will also become vice chair of the National Climate Task Force, the White House said Friday.

He held climate-related positions under the Obama administration and was chairman of climate policy and finance and deputy secretary for energy and environment for the state of New York.

Podesta chairs the board of directors at the Center for American Progress, a public policy research institute he also founded.

He previously coordinated climate policy and initiatives for the Obama administration, participated in the U.N. Secretary General’s High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda and served as chief of staff at the White House during Bill Clinton’s presidency.

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DOD Calls for Comments on Further Development of Digital AI Marketplace
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DOD Calls for Comments on Further Development of Digital AI Marketplace

The Department of Defense’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office is seeking input on the development of features for a new initiative as part of the Pentagon’s artificial intelligence marketplace.

In a SAM.gov notice, CDAO said industry, academia and government organizations are welcome to provide comments and suggestions for the Tradewind Solutions Marketplace, which is a digital environment of competed video pitches accessible to customers.

The office looks to align features with Marketplace objectives such as providing a platform where industry and academia can promote data, analytics, digital and AI/machine learning products and services and enabling DOD organizations to search, review, compare, negotiate and acquire the mentioned offerings.

CDAO and its marketplace manager IN3 set an open comment period for the effort. The anticipated Tradewind Solutions Marketplace MVP “go-live” date is in the first quarter of the fiscal year 2023.

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DOE Selects 10 Projects to Develop Next-Generation Data Management, Visualization Tools
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DOE Selects 10 Projects to Develop Next-Generation Data Management, Visualization Tools

The Department of Energy has selected 10 projects to advance big data movement and analysis and develop data management and visualization tools.

DOE said Thursday it will invest a total of $23.9 million in the projects over a period of three years to address challenges in managing data sets produced by scientific experiments and supercomputers.

Data management projects will focus on optimizing the management of data that must be moved and analyzed using machine learning and other mathematical techniques. Supported research will also advance the use of smart storage and networking hardware to improve the efficiency of data processing.

Moreover, projects to advance visualization techniques include research on new approaches to creating informative and interactive visualization of complex scientific data supporting DOE’s mission space.

“These efforts will enable data to be processed and stored at higher rates across the edge, cloud, and high-performance computing environments, and develop new visualization methods to explore that data, form hypotheses, and convey conclusions to a broad spectrum of audiences,” said Barbara Helland, associate director of science for advanced scientific computing research at DOE. 

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Construction Begins on New National Advanced Air Mobility Center of Excellence in Ohio
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Construction Begins on New National Advanced Air Mobility Center of Excellence in Ohio

The construction of the new National Advanced Air Mobility Center of Excellence at Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport in Ohio has begun with a groundbreaking ceremony held on Aug. 23.

The $9.35 million NAAMCE will support the development of electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles and other advanced air mobility initiatives of the Air Force Research Laboratory, NASA and the Ohio Unmanned Aircraft Systems Center, AFRL reported Thursday.

AFRL will use the center to advance the Air Force’s Agility Prime research and development project aimed at accelerating the development of commercial eVTOL aircraft.

“What AFWERX has done with Agility Prime is they have capitalized on the fast-paced industry technology advancements, and they have followed it up trying to nest the military requirement and a piece of it and not hindering in any way the commercial development,” said Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle, commander of AFRL.

The groundbreaking ceremony was attended by Reps. Mike Turner, Warren Davidson and Mike Carey and other local government officials.

In a separate announcement, Turner said the NAAMCE will strengthen Ohio’s defense sector and create new opportunities to facilitate economic growth in the Springfield region.

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Pentagon Releases Action Plan to Mitigate, Respond to Civilian Harm
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Pentagon Releases Action Plan to Mitigate, Respond to Civilian Harm

The Department of Defense has released a new action plan outlining a series of efforts aimed at mitigating civilian harm during future combat operations and exercises.

Lloyd Austin, secretary of defense and a 2022 Wash100 Award winner, directed the development of the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan to enhance the Pentagon’s approach to considering, assessing and responding to civilian harm resulting from military operations, DOD reported Thursday.

In a memorandum issued in January, Austin also ordered the establishment of a Civilian Protection Center of Excellence to institutionalize the advancement of knowledge and tools designed to prevent civilian casualties during combat.

The CoE is expected to achieve full operational capability by fiscal year 2025.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said DOD will work to incorporate civilian harm mitigation into military education, training and exercises as part of the action plan’s implementation.

“We envision the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence actually leading much of that and ensuring that this type of curriculum and these types of lessons learned are built into the education process of our military officers and civilians,” Ryder said.

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