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Steve Cover Appointed Chief Technology Officer at CentralSquare Technologies; David Zolet Quoted
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Steve Cover Appointed Chief Technology Officer at CentralSquare Technologies; David Zolet Quoted

Career technology and software executive Steve Cover has joined the public sector-serving CentralSquare Technologies as its chief technology officer.

The Lake Mary, Florida-based company said Thursday that in his new role, Cover will identify ways to deliver product and customer value in agile software development through strategy.

Welcoming the new CTO, David Zolet, CEO of CentralSquare, commented that Cover arrives during a promising growth period for the company.

“Steve’s deep experience with designing and developing cutting-edge technology solutions will further drive innovation to solve our customers’ mission-critical challenges,” Zolet, who is a four-time Wash100 Award winner, added.

Cover will leverage nearly 30 years of career experience as CTO of CentralSquare. He has amassed significant experience in the technology industry, including 11 years as a development manager at Microsoft, senior vice president of information technology at UnitedHealth Group and vice president of technology at Horizon Software International.

Subsequently, Cover was executive vice president and principal consultant at LeadingAgile, where he led broad-scale development initiatives for clients such as an international IT business with more than 10,000 employees.

Before coming to CentralSquare, Cover occupied the position of vice president of human capital management engineering at Ultimate Kronos Group, where he was responsible for conceptualizing workflows for a large engineering company.

The executive’s specialties include establishing alignments between products and business strategy, performing agile transformation, administering software-as-a-service, designing software architecture and executing product modernization.

Comer’s appointment follows CentralSquare’s hire of three new members to its executive team in March, including Dara Brenner as chief product officer and Weston Helms as vice president of corporate development.

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Deltek Capitalizes on Productive Partnership with TIP Technologies Acquisition; Mike Corkery Quoted
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Deltek Capitalizes on Productive Partnership with TIP Technologies Acquisition; Mike Corkery Quoted

Deltek has formed a deal to acquire management services software company TIP Technologies, in a move aimed to result in a robust portfolio of offerings for the organizations’ aerospace and defense customers.

Specifically, the purchase of TIP Technologies will equip Deltek with quality management system and manufacturing execution system capabilities and help them serve government contracting organizations and engineer to order firms, the Herndon, Virginia-based company said Thursday.

The acquisition builds on an existing, ongoing collaboration between the two companies and is intended to “create a more effortless way for our customers to get the combined benefits of our collective solutions,” according to Mike Corkery, CEO and president of Deltek.

Corkery, who is a two-time recipient of the Wash100 Award, additionally stated that TIP Technologies’ QA and MES skill sets are well-matched to Deltek’s accounting, manufacturing and supply chain administration qualifications.

TIP Technologies has already successfully integrated its programs and tools with Deltek’s Costpoint platform.

The deal is expected to complete in the third quarter of 2022, barring certain conditions and criteria are met. The agreement stipulates that Deltek will assume ownership of TIP Technologies’ assets.

TIP Technologies is a Wisconsin-based business with an international reach. Their team introduced an integrated quality assurance software with a commercial, off-the-shelf strategy in the late 1980s and early 1990s that was considered ahead of its time. The acquired business already shares many clients with its buyer, including Qarbon Aerospace.

In May, Deltek and TIP Technologies completed a digital transformation project for Qarbon Aerospace, evolving the latter organization’s system architecture from a legacy solution SAP to Deltek Costpoint under the Project Bulldozer initiative.

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Bipartisan Legislation Looks to Increase Oversight of National Security Consulting Firms to Prevent Chinese, Russian Influence
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Bipartisan Legislation Looks to Increase Oversight of National Security Consulting Firms to Prevent Chinese, Russian Influence

Sens. Joni Ernst, Gary Peters and Maggie Hassan have introduced legislation that seeks to prevent China, Russia and other countries of concern from influencing U.S. national security contracting.

The Combating Obstructive National Security Underreporting of Legitimate Threats Act aims to increase oversight of consulting firms and government contractors advising on Chinese and Russian militarization efforts and to streamline government agency policies to bar the organization from national security contracts, Ernst said Wednesday.

Consulting firms would be required to disclose any potential conflict of interest concerning national security and other relevant information with foreign adversarial parties. In addition, these could be used for contract denial or contractor suspension and debarment under the CONSULT Act. The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council would also be directed to update federal acquisition regulations.

“America’s adversaries, like China and Russia, are aggressively working against our national security interests; so why then would we allow government contractors closely tied to these adversaries to advise our military and Pentagon officials?” said Ernst. “The U.S. is playing a dangerous game; it’s past time we put safeguards in place to ensure no firms hired by the federal government are working simultaneously to support the agenda of our adversaries like China and Russia.”

The Project on Government Oversight, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Transparency International are some of outside organizations that support the CONSULT Act.

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NRO Launches First National Security Mission Onboard Rocket Lab Spacecraft; Chris Scolese Quoted
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NRO Launches First National Security Mission Onboard Rocket Lab Spacecraft; Chris Scolese Quoted

The National Reconnaissance Office’s first national security payload was launched to orbit onboard a Rocket Lab spacecraft as part of the agency’s Rapid Acquisition of a Small Rocket program.

Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket carrying the NROL-162 mission lifted off from the company’s launch complex in New Zealand, NRO said Wednesday.

NROL-162 is the first of the two national security missions Rocket Lab is contracted to send to space for the agency under the RASR contract. The second mission called NROL-199 is scheduled for launch aboard the Electron vehicle on July 22.

NRO developed the twin missions in collaboration with the Australian defense department to expand the U.S. space-based intelligence collection capabilities.

“This collaboration with Australia bolsters our partnership and strengthens the foundation for future coordination as we work to secure and expand our intelligence advantage in a competitive space environment,” said NRO Director Chris Scolese, a three-time Wash100 Award recipient.

The agency will use the NROL-162 mission to provide a wide range of information to national
decision-makers and intelligence analysts.

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USAF Concludes Booster Test Series for Lockheed-Built Hypersonic Weapon; Brig. Gen. Heath Collins Quoted
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USAF Concludes Booster Test Series for Lockheed-Built Hypersonic Weapon; Brig. Gen. Heath Collins Quoted

The U.S. Air Force has finished tests of the booster performance of a hypersonic weapon system that Lockheed Martin designed to help the service reach time-sensitive targets.

USAF put the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon through another test off the Southern California coast, nearly two months after the prior demonstration took place, the branch said Wednesday.

Tuesday’s flight test was the second time that the ARRW had flown captively on a B-52H Stratofortress bomber aircraft. The first one was completed on May 14. 

“We have now completed our booster test series and are ready to move forward to all-up-round testing later this year,” said Brig. Gen. Heath Collins, program executive officer for weapons and director of USAF’s armament directorate.

Lockheed expects the AGM-183A AARW system to reach early operational capability status sometime in 2023.

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GSA’s Robin Carnahan Announces ‘One-Stop Shop’ for Federal Fleet Electrification
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GSA’s Robin Carnahan Announces ‘One-Stop Shop’ for Federal Fleet Electrification

General Services Administration Administrator Robin Carnahan has unveiled a new “one-stop shop” for federal agencies seeking to procure zero-emission vehicles and install electric vehicle charging stations in support of the Biden administration’s goal of electrifying the federal fleet.

During a visit to the University of Michigan’s Mcity Test Facility, Carnahan said GSA offers a range of specialized acquisition resources to streamline the procurement of necessary infrastructure, including charging stations, for federal facilities, the agency reported Wednesday.

The effort is in line with an executive order signed by President Biden that sets a goal of transitioning the federal fleet to 100 percent zero-emission vehicle purchases by 2035 and 100 percent zero-emission light-duty vehicle acquisitions by 2027.

“Electrifying the federal fleet will have enormous benefits, and we want to make it as easy as possible for federal agencies to make this transition,” Carnahan said.

In April, GSA awarded 16 companies, including nine small businesses, blanket purchase agreements for supplying electric vehicle supply equipment to federal agencies.

The agency expects to award later in the summer new governmentwide construction and design/build indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts for the installation of charging station infrastructure at federal locations across the U.S.

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KBR to Lead Cyber Defense Research and Development for UK Ministry of Defense; EMEA President Andrew Barrie Quoted
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KBR to Lead Cyber Defense Research and Development for UK Ministry of Defense; EMEA President Andrew Barrie Quoted

KBR announced on Thursday that the company will lead the research and development for the next three years to develop and support self-defending, self-recovering cyber defense concepts with the UK Ministry of Defense (MOD), through Frazer-Nash Consultancy, a KBR company.

For the last two decades in the cybersecurity industry, KBR has delivered advice and provided its expertise to advance holistic cyber defense that covers technology, people and processes in order to protect an organizations’ systems and data as well as analyze and mitigate their cyber risks. 

“KBR and Frazer-Nash are renowned for helping organizations safeguard their systems and protect their critical assets and processes through teams that are at the forefront of innovation,” said Andrew Barrie, managing director of Frazer-Nash Consultancy and the president of KBR’s Government Solutions EMEA business.

The work will also be paired with the MOD’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) in order to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to develop cyber defense concepts that can be tested and evaluated against attacks in a simulated military environment as a significant part of the Autonomous Resilient Cyber Defense (ARCD) project.

The latest technologies will be used by Frazer-Nash and Dstl to deliver high-risk, disruptive options centered around AI-driven and cyber defense decision-making as well as informed cyber sensing. In fact, the cyber sensing capabilities will be integrated into the concept demonstrator.

“Dstl are excited to be working with KBR and Frazer-Nash on this vanguard project, delivering cutting-edge response and recovery concept demonstrators over the next three years, with the potential to transform cyber resilience for MOD,” said Zoe Fowle, Dstl’s cybersecurity Programme Manager.

About KBR

We deliver science, technology and engineering solutions to governments and companies around the world. KBR employs approximately 28,000 people performing diverse, complex and mission critical roles in 34 countries.

KBR is proud to work with its customers across the globe to provide technology, value-added services, and long- term operations and maintenance services to ensure consistent delivery with predictable results. At KBR, We Deliver.

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DARPA Seeks Proposal Abstracts for Warfighter Readiness Prediction Tool Development Program
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DARPA Seeks Proposal Abstracts for Warfighter Readiness Prediction Tool Development Program

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is soliciting proposal abstracts for a three-phase program that seeks to develop a handheld sensor prototype designed to assess warfighter readiness by evaluating a soldier’s physiological states based on molecular biomarkers.

DARPA said Wednesday the tool developed under the four-year Smart Non-invasive Assays of Physiology program would be configured to the Department of Defense’s various needs for training, readiness assessment and mission planning.

“Portable, multi-plexed, multi-omic measurement technologies have the potential to enable ongoing monitoring of health and disease outside of traditional care delivery settings,” said Gopal Sarma, SNAP program manager at DARPA.

“While SNAP is focused on DoD applications in warfighter readiness, our plan is that the technologies generated will have a transformative impact on civilian medicine, public health, and national security,” Sarma added.

The first phase of the SNAP program will focus on the development of molecular sensors and related models used for predicting performance in a physical task and proof-of-concept capabilities for embedded sensing and readout.

The second phase will deal with building molecular sensors and associated models to predict performance in a cognitive task, while the third phase will focus on refining a fully integrated tool to predict performance in both physical and cognitive tasks.

“SNAP devices will provide an objective and reliable source of actionable information about a warfighter’s physiological readiness state, thus facilitating mission-critical risk mitigation,” Sarma said.

DARPA will hold a Proposers’ Day on July 21 and accept proposal abstracts through Aug. 11.

Full proposals are due Sept. 15.

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OMB Releases Updates on President’s Management Agenda Priorities
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OMB Releases Updates on President’s Management Agenda Priorities

The Office of Management and Budget has provided quarterly updates on the President’s Management Agenda and announced progress on three priority goals, which are strengthening the federal workforce, improving federal service delivery and customer experience and managing the business of government.

The team for managing the business of government priority outlines two strategies and these are promoting lasting improvements in the federal acquisition system and building capacity in federal financial management, according to a Performance.gov blog post published Friday.

For the first strategy, the team listed three goals: build a diverse and resilient federal marketplace; ensure interoperability and sharing of acquisition tools and data; and develop an inspired, engaged acquisition workforce.

Goals under the second strategy are strengthening the governance of areas of federal financial assistance common across agencies to advance the government’s ability to implement the president’s vision and statutory requirements through federal programs and building a robust financial assistance community that identifies and strengthens the core competencies of grants managers.

The business of government priority area leaders are Don Graves, deputy secretary of the Department of Commerce; Andrea Palm, deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services; and John Tien, deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

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Department of the Air Force Finishes Preliminary Environmental Review of 6 Site Options for SPACECOM HQ
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Department of the Air Force Finishes Preliminary Environmental Review of 6 Site Options for SPACECOM HQ

The Department of the Air Force has wrapped up the draft environmental assessment of six locations it is considering for the headquarters of U.S. Space Command.

The department conducted the evaluation in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act and opened the draft document for public comments for a period of 30 days, the Air Force said Wednesday.

The Space Force said Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, was named the preferred location for SPACECOM’s headquarters.

The other five alternative sites being considered for the command’s permanent home were Albuquerque, New Mexico; Cape Canaveral, Florida; Bellevue, Nebraska; Colorado Springs, Colorado; and San Antonio, Texas.

These six sites were selected among 24 states that were considered to serve as the command’s headquarters.

Public comments will be taken into consideration and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, a three-time Wash100 awardee, will make the final basing decision and choose the site that would allow SPACECOM to accelerate the process of achieving “full operational capability” status, according to a Breaking Defense report.

The Space Force said the DAF is expected to decide on SPACECOM’s headquarters by the spring of 2023.

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