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USAID Announces $4.5B Additional Support to Ukraine; Treasury’s Janet Yellen Quoted
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USAID Announces $4.5B Additional Support to Ukraine; Treasury’s Janet Yellen Quoted

The U.S. government will distribute $4.5 billion in direct budget support to Ukraine to help the latter deal with economic, political and social pressures driven by Russian invasion.

The U.S. Agency for International Development said Tuesday it will coordinate with the departments of the Treasury and State to disburse the funds to Ukraine in two tranches before the end of 2022.

According to USAID, the additional funding will bring the U.S. government’s total direct budgetary support to Ukraine to $13 billion.

“These funds will begin disbursing in the coming weeks and help the Government of Ukraine defend against Russia’s illegal war by bolstering economic stability and supporting core government services, including wages for hospital workers, government employees, and teachers as well as social assistance for the elderly and vulnerable,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.

“In addition to providing economic support, the Treasury Department and U.S. government will continue to use all of our tools, including our historic sanctions coalition, to weaken Putin’s war machine,” Yellen added.

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Marine Corps Reserve to Purchase Small Watercraft for Design 2030 Experimentation; Brig. Gen. Douglas Clark Quoted
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Marine Corps Reserve to Purchase Small Watercraft for Design 2030 Experimentation; Brig. Gen. Douglas Clark Quoted

The U.S. Marine Forces Reserve is teaming up with the Defense Innovation Unit and the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory to acquire commercially available small watercraft for the 2030 Service-level Force Design experimentation.

The reserve force said Monday that it has selected four small boats to be used to support Service-level experimentation and analysis across littoral, reconnaissance and counter reconnaissance and signature management to aid expeditionary advanced base operations. 

“What we’re doing here is generating opportunities for our Reserve Marines to get involved in Service-level innovation efforts and to help inform Force Design 2030 future capability requirements,” said Brig. Gen. Douglas Clark, 4th Marine Division commanding general.

The four selected vendors recently demonstrated their products at the Marine Corps Reserve Training Center in Tampa, Florida. Event attendees include DIU acquisition representatives, senior military leaders and Navy and Marine Corps experts who helped vet the watercraft.

The 4th Assault Amphibian Battalion will lead the expeditionary missions and therefore manage the contract awards next year, as well as the conceptualization and limited engineering experimentation.

The acquisition is being processed through DIU’s Commercial Solutions Opening solicitation. Procurement funds will come from the National Guard and Reserve Equipment Appropriation authorized by Congress.

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Mattermost’s Brendon Kruk on Taking Action in the Great Competition Era
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Mattermost’s Brendon Kruk on Taking Action in the Great Competition Era

The Potomac Officers Club sat down with Brendon Kruk, sales executive at Mattermost, to talk about U.S. foreign policy, driving change in the federal landscape and more during his recent Executive Spotlight interview. Kruk has over two decades of experience and expertise in software and providing technology to the federal government, and in his conversation with POC, he spoke on the importance of software innovation in global competition.

In this excerpt from his interview, Kruk discussed the changes he would enact in the federal government if he had free rein:

“I think we all work for the same team and want to achieve the same goals. What I see the most in the federal landscape is devoted workers that would like to accomplish their mission, but are hamstrung by red tape, overregulation and lack of congressional leadership. At such a crucial time for U.S. national security, my view is that our first three changes would revolve around recognition of the massive security threat posed by the rising power of China. I lived through the Cold War and studied the foreign policy of the USSR, and I do not have a comfortable sense of the urgency of the entire U.S. federal government to confront this challenge.”

Read more of Kruk’s answer to the question in his Executive Spotlight interview. Visit PotomacOfficersClub.com to learn more about the platform’s membership options and benefits.

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Space Force Establishes Coordination Office at INDOPACOM; Gen. David Thompson Quoted
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Space Force Establishes Coordination Office at INDOPACOM; Gen. David Thompson Quoted

The U.S. Space Force has launched an operational component at the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii, Defense One reported Tuesday.

The new unit, which will be led by Brig. Gen. Anthony Mastalir, marks the beginning of the agency’s efforts to establish permanent military facilities outside the continental U.S.

According to Gen. David Thompson, vice chief of space operations for the Space Force, the organization’s new INDOPACOM coordination office will be run by 21 military and civilian employees, who will work on projects with the National Reconnaissance Office and other members of the intelligence community. The component will also manage offerings from commercial companies and INDOPACOM’s allies and partners.

The move gives the service branch direct access to INDOPACOM’s commander, Adm. John Aquilino, and is expected to further the integration of space capabilities with other branches of the military, Thompson said.

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Peraton Attains AWS Premier Tier Services Partner Status; Rebecca McHale Quoted
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Peraton Attains AWS Premier Tier Services Partner Status; Rebecca McHale Quoted

Peraton has attained Premier Tier Service Partner status in the Amazon Web Services Partner Network.

The title is given to organizations who hold multiple partner program validations and have a strong track record of delivering technical expertise to a large number of customers, the Reston, Virginia-based company announced on Monday.

“Achieving APN Premier Tier Services Partner status is a testament to our dedication, commitment, and investment to successfully guide our customers across the digital transformation continuum,” said Peraton CIO Rebecca McHale.

Peraton specializes in numerous AWS competencies and service areas. The company’s Cloud Migration competency aids in the improvement of application infrastructure security and modernization and reducing costs.

The AWS DevSecOps competency enables Peraton to offer a wide range of services and capabilities for integrating infrastructure management, code deployment, software automation and performance monitoring while maintaining security.

Peraton is also able to boost efficiency and reduce costs for clients spanning the federal government, states and local markets with its AWS competency.

AWS service areas of expertise include application services, which enable Peraton to deliver technology offerings to support digital reform across organizations, and managed services, which center around operating within the cloud and providing applications and data to cater to each client’s mission requirements.

Peraton has a strong relationship with AWS as a Partner Network Member. The enterprise holds over 700 AWS certifications and is an AWS Managed Service Provider and AWS Solution Provider.

“Less than two percent of Amazon partners within the network of 100 thousand organizations from more than 150 countries receive premier tier status,” emphasized Chris Valentino, Peraton’s chief strategy officer.

Within the partnership, Peraton has worked across defense, intelligence, health care and civilian markets in delivering AWS services in GovCloud, Commercial Cloud Services and commercial areas, which provides its customers with AWS Cloud perks when updating applications and infrastructure.

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DOE Selects 8 Companies to Commercialize Clean Energy Technologies; Jennifer Granholm Quoted
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DOE Selects 8 Companies to Commercialize Clean Energy Technologies; Jennifer Granholm Quoted

Eight private companies have been selected by the Department of Energy to receive a total of $100 million in funding to provide technologies for clean energy production.

As tasked by the order, these organizations will develop new technologies to bolster clean energy infrastructure, the department announced on Wednesday.

“These projects will catalyze the commercialization of promising technologies so that they are available to be broadly deployed across the country in support of reaching our clean energy future,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm.

The companies represent the second cohort of awardees under the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy’s Seeding Critical Advances for Leading Energy technologies with Untapped Potential program, which funds the development of technologies deemed feasible for domestic commercialization and deployment.

The chosen companies and their respective award amounts and tasks are:

  • Ampaire Inc. – $9 million for hybrid electric propulsion technology for aircraft
  • CorePower Magnetics, Inc. – $5 million for domestic manufacturing of high-power density magnetic components
  • Imagen Energy – $12 million for compact electric vehicle fast charger
  • InventWood – $20 million for MettleWood production
  • Kent Houston Offshore Engineering – $17.5 million for floating offshore wind turbine technologies equipped with a NASA-developed passive control system
  • Niron Magnetics – $17.5 million for rare earth-free Clean Earth Magnet
  • Quidnet Energy – $10 million for Geomechanical Pumped Storage
  • Via Separations – $9.75 million for innovative membrane modules

 

ARPA-E’s first SCALEUP funding award was granted to nine projects in 2019. The new awards bring the program’s total funding to over $170 million.
 

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Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force Demos Ballistic Missile Exercise
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Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force Demos Ballistic Missile Exercise

The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force tested two sea-based variants of its standard missile 3 interceptors by executing two live-fire exercises in Hawaii known as the Japan Flight Test Mission-07, which is in partnership with the U.S. Navy. 

Shown on the first exercise was the SM 3 Block IIA intercepting a medium-range ballistic missile T4-E target, while the second live fire exercise demonstrated the SM 3 Block IB and SM 2 Block IIIB missiles intercepting a short-range ballistic missile target, as well as an anti-warfare aerial target BQM-177, Missile Defense Agency said Monday.

The firings were carried out by two Maya-class destroyers: JS Maya and JS Haguro, respectively. 

Both types of interceptors were made by Raytheon Technologies unit Raytheon Missiles & Defense, the company reported in a separate release on Monday. 

MDA Director and Vice Admiral Jon Hill commented, “The success of this joint test marks a critical milestone in demonstrating, for the first time, a live fire of an SM-3 Blk IIA from a Japanese ship.”

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DHS to Hold Vendor Outreach Event for SBIR 23.1 Presolicitation
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DHS to Hold Vendor Outreach Event for SBIR 23.1 Presolicitation

The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization and the DHS Small Business Innovation Research program will hold a virtual event on Nov. 29 and 30 to discuss the forthcoming SBIR 23.1 pre-solicitation with the industry.

The inaugural SBIR Pre-Solicitation One-on-One Vendor Outreach Matchmaking Event will enable small businesses focused on research and development to meet with subject matter experts to learn about the pre-solicitation notification, DHS said Monday.

Each small business will have 12 minutes to ask specific questions related to the SBIR topic area requirements.

The SBIR 23.1 program will focus on seven topic areas: accurate and real-time hardware-assisted detection of cyber attacks; air cargo manifest analysis to aid screeners; first responder credentialing; machine learning-based integration of alarm resolution sensors; mission-critical services server-to-server communication, voice communications, 3GPP standards; reduced order modeling of critical infrastructure protect surfaces; theoretical classification methodologies to enable detection with predicted signatures.

SBIR 23.1 Phase I is anticipated to have an estimated 21 awardees. Phase I contracts will be awarded as firm-fixed-price while Phase II contracts will be cost-plus-fixed-fee, according to a notice posted Thursday on SAM.gov.

DHS also set a webinar on Dec. 13 to discuss the upcoming SBIR 23.1 solicitation.

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Douglas Bush: Army Looks at Possible Munitions Programs for Multiyear Contracts
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Douglas Bush: Army Looks at Possible Munitions Programs for Multiyear Contracts

Douglas Bush, assistant secretary of the U.S. Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, said Patriot missiles, Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems and High Mobility Artillery Rocket System or HIMARS launchers are produced and purchased in large volumes and among the munitions programs that could be candidates for a multiyear contract, C4ISRNET reported Monday.

A bipartisan measure introduced as an amendment to the annual defense authorization bill would give the Department of Defense procurement authorities to use multiyear contracts to purchase large amounts of munitions to replenish U.S. stockpiles and send supplies to Ukraine to help counter Russian invasion.

“A great advantage of multiyear contracts is usually you save a lot of money, you stabilize the industrial base and you stabilize suppliers,” Bush told reporters Monday. “The downside of multiyears is you don’t quite have as much flexibility year to year.”

The Army is looking at potential munitions programs that could be procured through multiyear contracts should Congress pass the measure.

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David Shive Highlights Expansion Opportunities for GSA’s COMET Contract Vehicle
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David Shive Highlights Expansion Opportunities for GSA’s COMET Contract Vehicle

David Shive, chief information officer of the General Services Administration, said positive outcomes from the CIO Modernization and Enterprise Transformation contract vehicle have resulted in its expansion beyond the Federal Acquisition Service systems and generated more interest from additional internal GSA customers looking to modernize their systems and services.

Speaking at a recent ACT-IAC webinar, Shive said that the COMET contract, which was initially awarded to 12 contractors in 2019, is now used in “broader parts of the GSA business portfolio” including the Public Buildings Service and corporate systems.

Shive added that new task orders under COMET could cover a broader scope of technology areas, with a focus on DevSecOps skills.

“The contract was originally let to manage many of the system modernization and transformation efforts that are underway in the Federal Acquisition Service. We’ve generated enough good business outcomes there that we’re expanding the use into broader parts of the GSA business portfolio,” Shive said.

Future COMET opportunities could also include integration services in support of GSA’s Workplace 2030 initiative, which is one of the focus areas of PBS.

GSA has awarded four task orders under COMET to Booz Allen Hamilton, Perspecta, ITG and Sevatec for IT operations and maintenance work.

In December 2021, the agency added eight new small businesses to the contract vehicle to support its digital transformation efforts.

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