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Army Directive Clarifies Roles of Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Army Futures Command
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Army Directive Clarifies Roles of Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Army Futures Command

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth has signed a directive stating that the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology will now oversee the military branch’s acquisition workforce and research and development efforts, including science and technology initiatives, Breaking Defense reported Wednesday.

The commanding general of Army Futures Command will coordinate with ASA(ALT) on matters related to acquisition and R&D, act as operational architect and capabilities developer for the future Army and be responsible for force development and design and operation of the service’s research laboratories and centers, according to a May 3rd directive.

“AFC assesses and integrates the future operational environment, emerging threats, and technologies to provide warfighters with the concepts and future force designs needed to dominate a future battlefield,” the directive reads.

Ellen Lovett, a spokesperson for the Army, said the directives issued by the service following the creation of AFC “had the unintended consequence of creating ambiguity in long-established acquisition authorities.

“This administrative change eliminates that ambiguity with clearly defined roles consistent with statute, and will better facilitate collaboration in our modernization and equipping enterprise,” said Lovett.

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Booz Allen Sustains Maximum-Rating Appraisals from CMMI; CTO Susan Penfield Quoted
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Booz Allen Sustains Maximum-Rating Appraisals from CMMI; CTO Susan Penfield Quoted

Booz Allen Hamilton’s Digital Solutions arm has once again earned the highest distinctions from the Capability Maturity Model Integration Institute.

The management and information technology consulting firm said Tuesday that its CMMI Services score came in at a maturity level 5 and its CMMI Development score also achieved an ML5 rating, the maximum possible score for either category.

“Maintaining these high maturity ratings identifies us as a market leader that can rapidly deliver high-quality solutions to meet our clients’ missions,” said Susan Penfield, chief technology officer at Booz Allen and a three-time Wash100 Award recipient.

The CMMI Institute measures an organization’s performance in various categories and, in turn, its effectiveness for potential customers. ML5-rated companies are seen as holding a sophisticated understanding of business goals and execution needs. They are also known to possess an ability to reach necessary endpoints and targeted results for their services, hardware and software development and engineering through planned processes.

Businesses with ML5 notoriety are also guaranteed to consistently update and customize their technological capabilities over time. The latest CMMI ratings for Booz Allen puts the organization in the elite group of only a handful of Fortune 500 companies with CMMI Development ML5 distinctions and just one of two Fortune 500 companies with a CMMI Services ML5 valuation.

Penfield added that the ratings will assure current and future clients that Booz Allen will be at the forefront of evolving and innovating their digital portfolios.

The new CMMI appraisals come during a busy year for Booz Allen Hamilton. In March, the company acquired Reston, Virginia-headquartered government services company EverWatch and made a strategic investment in Delafield, Wisconsin-based artificial intelligence company Synthetaic.

These new investments will likely accelerate the firm’s capabilities to deliver and offer the services and development CMMI has praised.

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GovConPay, FCE Partner to Ensure DOL Compliance in Government Contracting Industry; Joe Young Quoted
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GovConPay, FCE Partner to Ensure DOL Compliance in Government Contracting Industry; Joe Young Quoted

GovConPay, a provider of payroll and human resources services to government contractors, has partnered with employee benefits firm FCE Benefit Administrators to help the government contracting sector comply with Department of Labor requirements. 

The partnership comes as DOL expands its enforcement team nationwide by adding 100 investigators to its wage and hour division that supervises the collection of back wages for workers under the Services Contract Act, GovConPay said Tuesday.

Jessica Looman, acting administrator of the DOL Wage and Hour Division, said the department expects to hire more investigators in fiscal year 2022.

“We listened to our clients across the country who are concerned about SCA compliance. With penalties and sanctions becoming more frequent and often substantial, now is the time to put a strategic partner to work for you and your bottom line,” said Joe Young, president of GovConPay.

The partnership will work to provide customized turnkey technology designed to help government contractors ensure compliance with DOL requirements.

Noncompliance with the SCA requirements can lead to fines and penalties. Approximately $230 million in back wages for workers were recovered in fiscal year 2021, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

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QinetiQ Appoints Steve Iwicki to Lead C5ISR Business as EVP; CEO Shawn Purvis Quoted
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QinetiQ Appoints Steve Iwicki to Lead C5ISR Business as EVP; CEO Shawn Purvis Quoted

Steve Iwicki, a military and industry executive specializing in intelligence, has been added to the QinetiQ US team as executive vice president and general manager of its C5ISR business.

Iwicki’s new position will find him boosting QinetiQ’s robotics and sensor services programs and aligning their work to public and private sector needs, the defense technology company said Tuesday.

Shawn Purvis, CEO and president of QinetiQ US and a two-time Wash100 Award recipient, shared that she believes Iwicki will be “a tremendous asset” to the company’s expanding profile and said his adjoined military and industry history “will help to enable our position at the forefront of disruptive technology and expand into core areas of cyber and IT modernization.”

The executive brings two decades of experience as a U.S. Army intelligence officer to his new role at QinetQ. He will also apply a facility for strengthening organizational revenue growth and disciplined program execution from his time at Leidos, General Dynamics Information Technology, SOS International and Octo.

The main thrust of Iwicki’s work at the latter companies was delivering C5ISR platforms and strategies; he was responsible for the administration of programs in Iraq, Afghanistan, Dijbouti and various other CENTCOM-, EUCOM- and PACOM-occupied countries.

In addition, Iwicki has overseen business units with $350 million in annual revenue and task-forces of over 1,500 team members. Prior to coming to QinetiQ, he was chief operating officer at Ashburn, Virginia-based technology company VivSoft, which serves public sector clientele.

He is currently president of the National Military Intelligence Foundation and a member of the Industry Advisory Council of American Military University, as well as a published author and frequent spokesperson on defense and intelligence issues for government agencies and media outlets.

“I look forward to working together to build our portfolio of product and service offerings through creative problem solving and team development,” Iwicki commented regarding his new role.

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GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks Authors New Zero Trust White Paper; Anacomp CEO Tom Cunningham Quoted
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GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks Authors New Zero Trust White Paper; Anacomp CEO Tom Cunningham Quoted

Chuck Brooks, a highly esteemed cybersecurity leader as well as an influential member of Executive Mosaic’s GovCon Expert program, recently authored a new white paper with Anacomp, to discuss the how federal organizations can meet the guidelines provided by CISA and the DHS in order to implement cybersecurity and zero-trust data-centric strategies. 

GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks, an advisory board member of Anacomp, authored the new white paper in order to address the paradigm shift as a call for an inventory of all assets as foundational to implementing a Zero Trust Architecture. 

“Our new white paper can help organizations prioritize an actionable inventory of critical assets like data,” said Tom Cunningham, Anacomp’s CEO. “Anacomp’s D3 Data Discovery solution can aid organizations by automating identification and mitigation of high-value and high-risk unstructured and structured data before damaging data breaches occur.”

GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks Authors New Zero Trust White Paper; Anacomp CEO Tom Cunningham Quoted

However, building Zero Trust in organizations represents a significant challenge due to the technology and training required to combat the growing sophistication of cyberthreats. 

As GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks explains in the latest white paper, planning for Zero Trust must start with a strong risk management framework, including a complete inventory of all assets such as data that is at risk. You can’t protect what you don’t know you have.

Please visit Anacomp.com to download the white paper.

About GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks

Chuck Brooks, the white paper’s author, has extensive expertise serving as a two-time presidential appointee, leadership at the Department of Homeland Security, teaching cybersecurity and risk management at Georgetown University, and authoring dozens of articles on cyber tech and policy for publications such as Forbes, Huffington Post, The Hill, and others. 

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Kathlyn Gibbs to Drive NeoSystems’ Channel Program as Partners & Alliances VP
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Kathlyn Gibbs to Drive NeoSystems’ Channel Program as Partners & Alliances VP

Kathy Gibbs was elevated to the role of vice president of partners and alliances at NeoSystems as part of the information technology company’s initiative to boost its channel program.

NeoSystems said Tuesday Gibbs, who was a senior account executive, will now be responsible for building and leading a revamped effort aimed at developing a more expansive partner ecosystem in support of the company’s strategic growth in 2022.

The NeoNetwork is a program that seeks to deliver a portfolio of managed IT, hosting and security platform and corporate services to customers. It will offer more financial incentives to referral partners and provide a new teaming process, expanded technical support and channel enablement portal.

“With a renewed emphasis on strategic growth, we are focused on the further development of our partner and alliances ecosystem… Together with our partners, we are building new solutions to meet the increased demand to enable operational agility for our clients,” said Gibbs.

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Johns Hopkins APL Promotes Erik Johnson to Chief of Staff
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Johns Hopkins APL Promotes Erik Johnson to Chief of Staff

Erik Johnson, a two-decade veteran of the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, has been promoted to chief of staff at APL.

The former deputy chief of staff replaced Ron Luman, who retired from the Laurel, Maryland-based research organization in January, and is now responsible for helping the nonprofit’s executive council set its agenda for strategic decision-making, APL said Tuesday.

Johnson previously served as a managing executive within APL’s force projection sector, which pursued system prototyping projects and developed technologies in various areas such as artificial intelligence, hypersonics and autonomy during his tenure at the segment.

In his new capacity, he aims to help the lab position itself to support national requirements over the next two decades.

“The magnitude and scope of the technology breakthroughs our sponsors and warfighters need in this evolving national security environment are daunting,” the APL chief of staff said.

“That puts it on us to answer the call and respond to those challenges.”

Johnson served as assistant weapons officer on the U.S. Navy’s USS Wyoming submarine earlier in his career.

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Lt. Gen. Maria Barrett Assumes Army Cyber Command Leadership
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Lt. Gen. Maria Barrett Assumes Army Cyber Command Leadership

Lt. Gen. Maria Barrett was named as the fifth commanding general of U.S. Army Cyber Command, succeeding Stephen Fogarty, who retired from the military service branch after almost four decades of service, DVIDS reported Tuesday.

Barrett officially took over the leadership of ARCYBER in a change of command ceremony on Tuesday at Fort Gordon in Georgia.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville, who facilitated the transfer of the ARCYBER colors to Barrett, said the event is also a way to highlight the efforts of the command and the cyber warriors under it. He also cited Fogarty’s leadership, technical expertise and professionalism, as well as expressed belief in Barrett’s ability to lead the command.

Barrett’s military career includes time serving as deputy director of current operations, J-3, Cyber Command; deputy commanding general, Joint Force Headquarters—Cyber, ARCYBER; and deputy commander (operations), Cyber National Mission Force, USCYBERCOM.

Some of her recognitions are the Distinguished Service Medal; Legion of Merit; Joint Service Achievement Medal; and Army Achievement Medal.

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Senate Bill Seeks to Create R&D Strategy for Distributed Ledger Technology; Sens. Roger Wicker, Cynthia Lummis Quoted
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Senate Bill Seeks to Create R&D Strategy for Distributed Ledger Technology; Sens. Roger Wicker, Cynthia Lummis Quoted

Sens. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., have introduced a bill that would direct the federal government to coordinate research and development initiatives on distributed ledger technologies.

The National R&D Strategy for Distributed Ledger Technology Act would require the Office of Science and Technology Policy to come up with a national strategy for R&D with regard to DLT and its applications, the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee said Monday.

“It is imperative that we maintain global leadership in the development of emerging technologies, including distributed ledger technology,” Wicker said. “This bill would launch pivotal exploration into this promising and novel architecture for computing and data storage.”

The measure would also direct the National Science Foundation to continue backing DLT-related research and the National Institute of Standards and Technology to take part in an applied research project to investigate and demonstrate the potential benefits of DLT.

“Distributed ledger technology has the potential to make commerce more secure and transparent, as well as reduce marketplace friction. … We need to make sure existing regulations do not stand in the way of innovation,” Lummis said.

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Marine Corps Highlights Need for Digital Interoperability in 2022 Aviation Plan
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Marine Corps Highlights Need for Digital Interoperability in 2022 Aviation Plan

The U.S. Marine Corps has released its 2022 Aviation Plan highlighting the importance of digital interoperability within its fleet of aircraft, Breaking Defense reported Tuesday.

The document states that the capability to fuse, sense and share information at tactical speeds within the Joint Force, allies and partners increasingly characterizes the future Marine Air Ground Task Force or MAGTF.

According to the aviation plan, MAGTF DI seeks to develop and deploy capabilities within a multiplatform aerial layer to link the space layer, ground-based maneuver units and higher echelons via redundant access points into the Joint All Domain Command and Control networks and the Naval Tactical Grid. 

“The goal of MAGTF DI is to provide the required information to the right participants at the right time, to overcome an adversary, while improving efficiency and effectiveness. MAGTF DI aims to provide greater situational awareness, accelerate the kill chain, and enhance survivability to outmaneuver and defeat the threat,” the document reads.

According to the publication, the plan includes the strategic vision by the service’s deputy commandant for aviation and projects the Marine Corps’ future aviation fleet.

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