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Madison Dearborn Partners To Acquire Majority Stake in Unison From Carlyle; Reid Jackson Quoted
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Madison Dearborn Partners To Acquire Majority Stake in Unison From Carlyle; Reid Jackson Quoted

Unison announced on Tuesday that the leading provider of procurement, supply chain and contract management software will receive a majority investment from Madison Dearborn Partners to help Unison enhance its innovative software offerings and growth trajectory.

“We are thrilled to welcome our new partners from MDP and look forward to their support as we continue to execute our strategy to provide innovative and reliable software solutions for federal organizations and government contractors,” said Reid Jackson, CEO of Unison.

Carlyle will sell its majority stake to MDP to provide additional resources and industry expertise. MDP will join as a major investor while Carlyle will remain a strategic partner as a minority investor. No financial terms have been disclosed. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2022 with Baird acting as the exclusive financial advisor.

“MDP brings a wealth of experience and additional financial resources that will allow Unison to accelerate our growth and deliver world-class software products to meet the evolving needs of our customers,” Jackson explained.

Unison has offered its clients differentiated solutions to help them transact and manage contracts more efficiently and comply with complex federal contracting requirements since 1983. A trusted partner with longstanding relationships and a track record of customer-led success, Unison serves all 15 U.S. cabinet-level agencies and has more than 200,000 product end users.

“MDP’s track record of successful partnerships with vertical enterprise software, procurement and supply chain, and government services and technology companies will greatly benefit Unison as we enter this pivotal new chapter in Unison’s history,” Jackson added.

About Unison

Unison’s secure cloud and on-premise software, marketplace, and information products “Power the Business of Government” by supporting more than 200,000 users in leading federal prime contractors, all U.S. cabinet-level agencies, and major Department of Defense programs.

For more than 30 years, Unison has continually advanced software and insight solutions to help customers efficiently achieve their missions.

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DHS S&T Soliciting Software Supply Chain Visibility Tools; Melissa Oh Quoted
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DHS S&T Soliciting Software Supply Chain Visibility Tools; Melissa Oh Quoted

The Science and Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security is soliciting tools capable of providing the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency with visibility into software supply chains to address possible security gaps.

S&T said Monday its Silicon Valley Innovation Program released the “Software Supply Chain Visibility Tools” topic call to hear from interested parties about their technical capabilities that CISA could use to strengthen the security of digital frameworks for essential services.

“This topic call highlights core capabilities that will help bring transparency into the digital building blocks used by organizations in both their business operations and in their cyber defenses,” explained Melissa Oh, managing director of SVIP.

The  Software Bill of Materials is one of the focus areas of the solicitation. The machine-readable inventory contains information about software components and dependencies as well as their hierarchical relationships.

“By leveraging SBOMs as key elements of software security, we can mitigate the risk to the software supply chain and respond to new risks faster, and more efficiently,” said Allan Friedman, senior adviser and strategist at CISA.

Responses to the solicitation are due Oct. 3rd.

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Atlantic Council Task Force Proposes Government Actions That Support Energy Sector Cybersecurity
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Atlantic Council Task Force Proposes Government Actions That Support Energy Sector Cybersecurity

A report by the Atlantic Council Task Force on Cybersecurity and the Energy Transition suggests possible measures for the government to help companies avoid cyberattacks on critical energy infrastructure.

The report, published Tuesday, says the U.S. is unprepared to secure the energy transition towards low-emission and high-efficiency technologies amid the lack of a unified strategic framework among public and private institutions in countering cyber threats.

The task force recommended that the government align its actions and take measures that support the private sector.

According to the group, the government should fortify the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s role in protecting critical assets, align executive and legislative oversight, create a comprehensive roadmap for industry and examine tax incentive structures.

Additionally, the task force urged the government to develop clear product and supply chain security guidelines, offer penetration testing assistance and simplify information sharing processes.

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USPTO Eyes Software as a Service to Manage Multicloud Infrastructure Security
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USPTO Eyes Software as a Service to Manage Multicloud Infrastructure Security

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is exploring potential software-as-a-service vendors as the agency looks to adopt a platform that can help secure a multicloud computing environment.

A notice posted Monday on SAM.gov indicates USPTO’s plan to acquire a SaaS Cloud Security Posture Management product for deployment to provider accounts within the agency.

USPTO said the offering should be capable of supporting cloud platforms from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google.

The office wants a CSPM tool that can facilitate continuous monitoring of cloud services to ensure compliance with agency policies, the Federal Information Security Management Act and industry standards.

Interested parties should submit capability statements no longer than five pages until July 25th.

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Adarryl Roberts on DLA’s Cloud Adoption, Governance Councils
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Adarryl Roberts on DLA’s Cloud Adoption, Governance Councils

Almost 91 percent of Defense Logistics Agency’s applications are now in the cloud and Adarryl Roberts, program executive officer at DLA, said the agency plans to transition its secret environment to the cloud by the end of fiscal year 2023 and continue to advance the adoption of software-as-a-service offerings in all environments, Federal News Network reported Monday.

“Our move to the cloud is really centered around dissecting the current business models that we operate in within DLA and identifying the business problems or needs that could benefit from different technology within the cloud, like artificial intelligence, some data management methods and other technologies,” Roberts told FNN in an interview.

Roberts said he believes it is important to understand and manage the cost of compute, storage and utilization as DLA moves to a pay-as-you-go framework for cloud services.

DLA has established three governance councils – Enterprise Operations Planning Council, Digital Transformation Board and Acquisition Enterprise Innovation Council – to advance digital transformation across its mission areas, according to the report.

These councils use Technology Business Management and other value-based frameworks and Roberts said DLA brings together mission goals, risks and budget data through these frameworks to know the business value of a program or project.

“In these boards, we ask questions about the status of the initiatives. How many initiatives do we have? What’s our priority for some of these enhancements or development?” he said.

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NASA’s Webb Telescope Produces Infrared Image of Distant Universe
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NASA’s Webb Telescope Produces Infrared Image of Distant Universe

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has generated an infrared image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, also known as Webb’s First Deep Field.

The agency said Tuesday the deep field captured by the telescope’s Near Infrared Camera features the galaxy cluster as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago and represents a composite produced from images at various wavelengths totaling 12.5 hours.

Lockheed Martin and the University of Arizona developed the telescope’s NIRCam. President Biden revealed the image during an event at the White House Monday. The space agency will unveil the full suite of first full-color images, dubbed spectra, on Tuesday.

The Webb telescope built by an industry team led by Northrop Grumman took off in December aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from the European Space Agency’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The space science observatory is NASA’s joint effort with ESA and the Canadian Space Agency and is designed to explore the solar system and exoplanets and detect light from the first galaxies.

Northrop said Webb has completed key mirror alignments, checked off 17 scientific instrument nodes and executed the cooling of its four scientific instruments since its arrival at Lagrange Point 2 in January.

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Daniel Muse Promoted to Chief Financial Officer at Iron Bow Technologies; Rene LaVigne Quoted
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Daniel Muse Promoted to Chief Financial Officer at Iron Bow Technologies; Rene LaVigne Quoted

Seasoned financial executive Daniel Muse has been elevated to the role of chief financial officer at the public and private sector-serving organization Iron Bow Technologies.

Transitioning from the position of senior vice president of financial operations, which he started in February, Muse will now preside over Iron Bow’s finance, accounting, order operations and facilities functions, in addition to spearheading all mergers and acquisitions, the Herndon, Virginia-based company said Monday.

Rene LaVigne, CEO of Iron Bow and a Wash100 Award recipient, praised Muse’s six months of work with the company and anticipates an ongoing, fruitful collaboration with the newly appointed CFO in the future, through what he foresees as opportunities for growth.

Muse has overseen financial efforts as a CFO at three prior companies: Sevatec, FCI Enterprises and Solerity. All three companies had an IT element to their offerings and his roles were focused on the economic aspect of the delivery of these services to government customers.

The executive is a certified public accountant as well as a certified financial analyst and has leveraged this dual expertise performing investment banking work at Stifel Financial Corporation for a decade in addition to time spent at Goldman Sachs.

According to Muse, the “dynamic” nature of Iron Bow and its “unique position to provide government and commercial customers with the support they need most” is what drew him to the organization.

“I look forward to continued partnership with the rest of the leadership team and our primary shareholders at HIG to build upon the company’s solid foundation and help lead the business through this exciting period of growth,” Muse added.

Muse’s appointment follows Iron Bow’s June installment of former Commonwealth of Virginia chief information officer Nelson Moe as sales strategy principal for the company’s SLED business unit and their January hire of Sean Robertson as senior vice president of sales operations.

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Redhorse Appoints Rob Sheen as CGO, Noah Klemm as Chief Delivery Officer; CEO John Zangardi Quoted
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Redhorse Appoints Rob Sheen as CGO, Noah Klemm as Chief Delivery Officer; CEO John Zangardi Quoted

Two former Novetta executives have been appointed to senior-level positions at government information technology organization Redhorse Corporation.

Rob Sheen has been named chief growth officer at Redhorse and Noah Klemm has been tapped as chief delivery officer, the San Diego, California-headquartered company said Monday. The new hires are effective immediately and Sheen and Klemm are expected to partner on upcoming initiatives with the chief financial officer and chief operating officer.

The pair of new executives’ work together will entail shaping the direction of the company’s expansion as well as facilitating an organizational responsiveness to clients’ objectives.

In his new role, Sheen will tackle the cultivation, qualification and completion of pipeline needs, in addition to selecting and analyzing potential mergers and acquisitions and presiding over business development endeavors.

Expressing his excitement for Sheen’s appointment, John Zangardi, CEO of Redhorse and a recent Wash100 Award winner, commented, “Rob will bring his deep expertise for integrating capabilities, operational concepts, and technology to drive growth initiatives through business capture and strategic planning.”

Previously, Sheen has worked at a number of notable government- and government contracting-adjacent companies. He began his career as an associate systems engineer at Lockheed Martin and held roles such as programmer analyst lead at CACI and manager of program management at Sapient.

He spent the last 11 years at Novetta, first as program manager of defense intelligence and then as senior vice president of client operations. In the most recent position, Sheen led Novetta’s information exploitation, cyber and mission solutions task forces while spearheading deployment, implementation and operational execution for customers.

As chief delivery officer at Redhorse, Klemm is slated to chart the scope of the company’s long-term growth plans as well as be responsible for the integration of new assets and acquisitions. The executive is additionally poised to administer new technological discoveries and see them through their full life cycle.

Welcoming Klemm, Zangardi shared that the new CDO’s installment “comes as Redhorse looks to better deliver digital modernization and data analysis capabilities for programs and key initiatives across the national security and federal customers.”

Klemm worked at Novetta for over two decades, holding roles such as vice president of operations and, mostly recently, national security commercial director and chief of staff. During the company’s recent merger with Accenture Federal Services, he was in charge of enabling the combination of their respective national security business units. He was also well-known at Novetta for overseeing back-office conglomeration of human resources, benefits, recruiting, security, information technology and project operations.

The two new appointees will work closely with Nancy St. Louis, who was hired as chief operating officer of Redhorse in February.

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DOD Unveils Learning Agenda Framework for Security Cooperation; Michelle Strucke Quoted
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DOD Unveils Learning Agenda Framework for Security Cooperation; Michelle Strucke Quoted

The Department of Defense has established the Learning and Evaluation Agenda for Partnerships framework to set a common standard for evidence building for the security cooperation community.

The LEAP framework was developed by the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Partnerships and outlines priorities to enhance evidence-building activities over the next five years, DOD said Friday.

The Pentagon said the framework aligns with standards and best practices set by the Office of Management and Budget for evidence-based policymaking and builds on DOD’s first comprehensive program of assessment, monitoring and evaluation.

“It includes the most critical learning questions for security cooperation and prioritizes a range of evidence-building activities, including evaluations, monitoring, research studies and tabletop exercises,” said Michelle Strucke, deputy assistant secretary of defense for global partnerships.

DOD aims to get a better understanding of the effectiveness and efficiency of security cooperation activities across the department and inform decision-making.

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DOE Announces Atmospheric Research Projects to Improve Climate Change Predictions; Jennifer Granholm Quoted
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DOE Announces Atmospheric Research Projects to Improve Climate Change Predictions; Jennifer Granholm Quoted

The Department of Energy has selected 22 projects led by 18 universities and two research organizations to receive $14 million in funding to help the government understand Earth’s atmosphere and improve climate change predictions.

DOE said Thursday the research projects will play a critical role in meeting the Biden administration’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.

The projects will focus on various research topics including clouds and aerosol effects on solar energy, the impact of aerosols on thunderstorms and interactions of clouds with aerosols and tiny particles suspended in the atmosphere.

“We must expand our understanding of changing weather patterns and equip scientists, researchers, and lawmakers with every possible tool to tackle the climate crisis,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

Research proposals were submitted to a funding opportunity under the Atmospheric System Research program and the awardees were selected through a competitive peer-review process.

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