NASA Armstrong Concludes Final Calibration Tests on Navy’s Super Hornet
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NASA Armstrong Concludes Final Calibration Tests on Navy’s Super Hornet

NASA Armstrong Research Center has completed complex loads of calibration tests on an F/A-18E Super Hornet aircraft from the U.S. Navy at its Flight Loads Laboratory in Edwards, California.

The final phase of loads calibration testing focused on the aircraft’s vertical tails and performed a total of 87 load cases during which 84 hydraulic actuators were operated by the test engineers, NASA said Friday.

The team performed a simultaneous operation of 56 actuators to measure the structures’ response to the load applied to the aircraft.

“Our goal when we test any customer-supplied component or jet, is to return it undamaged (unless a test objective requires testing to failure),” said Larry Hudson, chief test engineer at NASA Armstrong Flight Loads Laboratory.

“After 87 load cases, our test approach and systems were able to do just that ­– obtain quality test data and deliver the test article back undamaged,” he added.

Hudson noted that the most recent testing incorporated the data generated from the second testing phase that focused on Super Hornet’s wings and wrapped up in March. Testing on the aircraft’s horizontal tails was concluded in October 2021. 

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GovCon Expert Rich Wilkinson Talks 2022 Gauge Report Results; GovCon Challenges
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GovCon Expert Rich Wilkinson Talks 2022 Gauge Report Results; GovCon Challenges

Rich Wilkinson, senior director of industry marketing at Unanet, published his latest feature article as a key member of Executive Mosaic’s GovCon Expert program to highlight the results of the recently released 2022 GAUGE Report and other topics. 

More specifically, GovCon Expert Rich Wilkinson discussed that 68 percent, of the more than 1,100 executives who were surveyed in the government contracting (GovCon) community, are positively optimistic about their businesses despite some growing concerns in the sector regarding greater competition for government contracts and new talent recruitment challenges.

“The theme of the sixth annual GAUGE Report is ‘Reimagining how we work,’ and this year’s findings reveal several important ways in which government contracting firms are indeed reimagining their approaches to recruiting, retaining and managing people,”  GovCon Expert Rich Wilkinson explained. 

In addition, he also shared that close to 70 percent of respondents are employing a fully remote or hybrid work environment and viewing the changes in a positive light, but 49 percent of respondents also reported that recruiting and maintaining their workforce has worsened as a result of the pandemic.

“Each year since 2017, the GAUGE Report has provided government contracting firms with important benchmarks to measure themselves against their peers in five key areas,” Wilkinson continued. He also took a closer look into a few of our most compelling findings in the areas of government contract compliance, accounting, utilization, growth and efficiencies. 

Visit GovConWire to read the full feature from Unanet’s Rich Wilkinson and learn more about Executive Mosaic’s GovCon Expert program. 

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State Department Initiates Efforts to Advance Use of Software Bills of Materials; Zetra Batiste Quoted
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State Department Initiates Efforts to Advance Use of Software Bills of Materials; Zetra Batiste Quoted

The State Department is creating a working group to come up with guidance and procedures on how to gather and store software bills of materials as part of efforts to improve its supply chain risk management, Federal News Network reported Friday.

“We’re not there yet,” Zetra Batiste, enterprise chief information security officer for cybersecurity SCRM at the State Department’s bureau of information resource management, said of SBOM adoption. 

“However, we do realize the need for ongoing collaboration with industry and government stakeholders to ensure that we’re harmonizing that federal effort on automating and building a repository of SBOMs for reciprocity,” Batiste added.

She said the department should address some challenges to advance the use of SBOMs, including the need for SBOMs to be machine-readable and automatically generated. She noted that the C-SCRM team is developing a platform to ingest SBOMs.

Batiste noted that the agency currently performs continuous monitoring of software to detect vulnerabilities and works with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to facilitate threat information sharing.

IRS Expands Customer Service Workforce as Part of Inflation Reduction Act Implementation
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IRS Expands Customer Service Workforce as Part of Inflation Reduction Act Implementation

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has hired 4,000 customer service representatives to provide phone assistance for the 2023 taxpayer filing season, as part of a larger initiative to make agency-wide improvements.

Funds for the additional workforce are sourced from the Inflation Reduction Act, which allocates $79.6 billion to the IRS through fiscal year 2031, the IRS said Thursday.

The agency plans to recruit 1,000 more people in customer support by the end of the year and complete their training by Feb. 20, 2023. They are expected to study taxpayer rights, respond to tax inquiries, and address technical account management issues.

IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said that the pandemic has “overwhelmed” their phone lines, but they are “moving quickly to use new funding to help taxpayers during the busy tax season.”

He added the agency will have more phone support “than any time in recent history” next year and encouraged taxpayers to visit the agency’s website for tax-related questions as an alternative.

Aside from CSRs, the IRS also intends to boost its manpower in areas such as information technology and compliance. Job opportunities may be posted on USAjobs.gov in the coming weeks.

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FedRAMP Reports Over 4K Reused Cloud Security Packages in FY 2022
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FedRAMP Reports Over 4K Reused Cloud Security Packages in FY 2022

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program saw the number of cloud security packages reused by agencies increase by 132 percent from fiscal year 2020 to FY 2022.

FedRAMP reported a total of 4,573 reused cloud security packages in FY 2022, up 60 percent from FY 2021 figure of 2,864, according to a blog post published Thursday.

The program also cited some of its milestones in the previous fiscal year, including the release of updated authorization playbook and marketplace designations document for cloud service providers and acceptance of the first Open Security Controls Assessment Language or OSCAL- formatted System Security Plan from a CSP.

FedRAMP facilitated more than 300 meetings with agencies and CSPs and hosted 25 listening and feedback sessions in FY 2022.

The program’s website has recorded more than 2.5 million views since launch, while its Agency Liaison Program now has 139 liaisons from 79 participating agencies.

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Space Force Appoints Doug Wiggers Chief of Logistics & Joint Supply Chain
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Space Force Appoints Doug Wiggers Chief of Logistics & Joint Supply Chain

Doug Wiggers, former Commander of the U.S. Air Force 11th Logistics Readiness Squadron, has been chosen to lead logistics and joint supply chain operations at the U.S. Space Force, according to his LinkedIn post on Friday.

He spent more than seven years at the Air Force in various logistics and engineering posts in Texas, Wichita, Kansas, and the U.S. island territory of Guam.

Previously, Wiggers was chief of mobility in the Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve and the Resolute Support Mission, where he oversaw logistics efforts associated with $4.7 billion in U.S. foreign military sales to Afghanistan.

He completed his master’s degree in business administration at the University of Phoenix in 2011 before entering the USAF Air Command and Staff College in 2014, and the USAF Air War College in 2020.

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Pentagon Issues FY 2022-2026 Strategic Management Plan; Kathleen Hicks Quoted
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Pentagon Issues FY 2022-2026 Strategic Management Plan; Kathleen Hicks Quoted

The Department of Defense has released a document that outlines the secretary of defense’s strategic priorities for fiscal years 2022 through 2026 in alignment with the National Defense Strategy.

The Strategic Management Plan lists DOD’s four strategic goals and these are making the right technology investments and transforming the future force, strengthening the defense ecosystem’s resilience and adaptability, taking care of its people and cultivating the workforce and addressing institutional management priorities, DOD said Friday.

“This Plan establishes accountability to measure our progress in realizing our National Defense Strategy. It also demonstrates to the President, Congress and most importantly the American people, the Department’s commitment to transparency,” Kathleen Hicks, deputy secretary of DOD and a 2022 Wash100 Award winner, wrote in her introduction to the SMP.

Each strategic goal comes with several objectives. To strengthen the defense ecosystem’s resilience, the objectives include delivering sustainable logistics to support DOD, enhancing cybersecurity and increasing the resiliency of command, control and communications systems.

The plan came a day after the Pentagon issued the public versions of NDS, Nuclear Posture Review and the Missile Defense Review.

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Christine Wormuth Shares Strategies to Transform Army by 2030 & 2040
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Christine Wormuth Shares Strategies to Transform Army by 2030 & 2040

Christine Wormuth, Secretary of the U.S. Army, said that she would like her tenure to be remembered through delivering the Army of 2030 and reducing harmful behavior in the service.

In an interview with Government Matters, Wormuth elaborated on one of six areas she cited to transform into the Army of 2030, saying that they are “working from ground to space” to engineer sensors to “make a transparent battlefield” that would give them combat advantage.

She discussed strategies that the Army is developing based on lessons from the Ukraine invasion. This includes designing low signatures for soldiers using mobile phones to avoid getting targeted and enhancing unmanned aerial system defenses to counter drone threats.

When asked about the successes of Project Convergence, she highlighted progress in bringing together the Armed Forces to jointly design their weapon systems and sensors for interoperability so that they can exchange data. The project is planning a similar collaboration this year with Australian and U.K. allies, establishing a “combined operation, not just a joint operation.”

In 2040, Wormuth envisions the Army to be more sophisticated in the use of artificial intelligence and biotechnology.

She explained that even as they are planning for 2030, she is brainstorming with Army Futures Commander Gen. James Rainey about the operating concepts and capabilities needed in 20 years so that they can work with industry and determine foundational investments.

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SUSE Acquires NeuVector to Enhance Container Security
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SUSE Acquires NeuVector to Enhance Container Security

SUSE, a company specializing in enterprise-level open-source solutions, has acquired NeuVector, a growing company specializing in full-lifecycle container security. The acquisition has a total value of $130 million, which comes from both SUSE’s cash balance and the distribution of over 695,000 new shares.

The acquisition of NeuVector will advance SUSE’s secure software value proposition and ensure a streamlined container security program for the company’s customers, the Nuremberg, Germany-based organization announced on Friday.

“The integration of NeuVector into SUSE Rancher will create an unbeatable enterprise container management security platform that delivers the end-to-end container security our customers are asking for,” said SUSE CEO Melissa Di Donato.

She also commented on customer demand for security in their cloud-native strategies and emphasized the complementary relationship between NeuVector and SUSE’s current product lineup.

Building on SUSE’s acquisition of Rancher, an open-source software developer, the company aims to incorporate NeuVector into its enterprise container management platform, SUSE Rancher. The company expects an extension of opportunities for cross-selling to its customers and an increase in revenue growth. SUSE also plans to focus on their go-to-market strategy with a goal of advancing company objectives.

In line with the ambitions discussed during SUSE’s recent IPO, the acquisition will expand the company’s reach in equity markets to support tuck-in acquisitions. The company will open-source the NeuVector platform, continuing its promise to supply interoperable solutions.

According to research conducted by S&P Global Market Intelligence, container security is recognized as an important factor in the establishment of cloud-native platforms at the corporate level, especially in industries dealing with secure information.

Fei Huang, co-founder of NeuVector, discussed the growing number of customers implementing zero-trust architecture and looking for solutions.

“Coupled with SUSE Rancher’s unique strength which offers full management of all Kubernetes distributions across any environment, our joint customers will also be able to secure the development of their containerized applications from core to cloud to edge environments,” said Huang.

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Human Capital Predicted to Be Top ERM Priority, New Guidehouse Survey Reports
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Human Capital Predicted to Be Top ERM Priority, New Guidehouse Survey Reports

Human capital has overtaken cybersecurity and privacy as the predicted top priority risk area in the next three to five years, according to a survey of federal government leaders.

While cybersecurity and privacy maintained its spot as the top risk area garnering management focus, current patterns in Enterprise Risk Management suggest changing tides as the field develops further. 

The annual survey, which is conducted by Guidehouse and the Association for Federal Enterprise Risk Management, collects commentary from federal executives regarding ERM. The 2022 edition of the study was released by the Chicago, Illinois-based company on Thursday.

Guidehouse ERM Director Kate Sylvis identified employee retention, morale and engagement as popular responses in the human capital category. She also commented on the expanding ERM advancements across the public sector.

“We continue to see federal agencies exhibiting overall ERM performance levels reflective of an emerging capability – and expanding incremental positive trends related to effectiveness, integration, culture and risk appetite,” Sylvis stated.

Beyond human capital, Sylvis revealed that one-third of those surveyed see environmental and social issues creating risk for their agencies within the next three years, further emphasizing the state of transformation surrounding ERM.

Agencies have already begun to adapt to these changes, with 90 percent of respondents mentioning updates to their risk appetite statements during the past three years. On the technological side, the use of enterprise Governance Risk and Compliance tools is rising, with 12 percent of respondents reporting that they use one of these tools as their primary program for tracking risk data.

Other advancements have been made in the area of “tone at the top, executive support for risk management,” which was identified as the greatest area of growth in handling both present and future risks.

Despite the growing number of agencies implementing new ERM strategies, concerns surrounding budget parameters have increased, with 65 percent of respondents reporting that their budgets have stayed the same and six percent reporting that their budgets have decreased over the past year.

Organization culture and leadership styles have also caused challenges in implementing formal ERM programs.

Looking into the future, respondents flagged the consolidation of ERM with other management processes in areas of strategy, performance and budget projects as having considerable room for improvement.

Full results of the survey can be found here.

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