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VA to Phase Out $1.8B in Non-Mission-Critical, Duplicative Contracts
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VA to Phase Out $1.8B in Non-Mission-Critical, Duplicative Contracts

The Department of Veterans Affairs has started canceling 585 non-mission-critical or duplicative contracts worth about $1.8 billion combined following a review of nearly 2,000 professional services contracts.

VA said Monday the contract cancellations mark the first step in its ongoing audit of approximately 90,000 contracts totaling more than $67 billion.

Redirecting Over $900M 

After identifying duplicative contracts, VA can now shift approximately $900 million toward healthcare, services and benefits for veterans.

According to the agency, mission-critical contracts are not included in the reductions.

“Under President Trump, VA is focused on becoming more efficient, responsive and accountable to the Veterans, family members, caregivers and survivors we are charged with serving. We are putting Veterans first at VA,” said VA Secretary Douglas Collins.

“That means finding new and better ways to do our jobs and focus our resources. Every dollar we spend on wasteful or duplicative contracts is one less dollar we can spend on Veterans, and given that choice, I will always side with the Veteran,” added Collins.

Multilevel Review Process

VA conducted a multilevel review process involving VA senior leaders, contracting officials and career subject-matter expert employees.

Under the process, VA career employees assessed the contracts based on how they support the department’s beneficiaries and veterans. They were also given the option to stop a contract from being terminated if they thought the move would negatively impact the delivery of VA healthcare benefits and other services to beneficiaries.

Canceled contracts include those providing administrative services that the department can perform on its own, such as leadership coaching, staff mentoring and meeting agenda preparation. VA also moved to eliminate contracts offering the exact same services, such as third-party certifications for items like enhanced-use leases.

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TSMC to Invest $100B More in Arizona Chip Manufacturing Operations
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TSMC to Invest $100B More in Arizona Chip Manufacturing Operations

President Donald Trump on Monday announced that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. will make an additional $100 billion investment in its U.S. advanced chip manufacturing operations, bringing TSMC’s total American investments to approximately $165 billion.

“This will create hundreds of billions of dollars in economic activity and boost America’s dominance in artificial intelligence and beyond,” Trump said Monday at the White House.

The president joined TSMC Chairman and CEO C.C. Wei during the announcement.

Expansion Plans

Wei said the $100 billion investment will fund the construction of three new fabrication plants, two advanced packaging facilities and a research and development center in Arizona.

“It’s going to create thousands of high-paying jobs … We are going to produce many chips to support AI’s progress and to support the smartphone’s progress,” the Taiwan-based company’s chief executive said during the announcement.

The latest investment builds on TSMC’s ongoing $65 billion investment in its semiconductor manufacturing operations in Phoenix, Arizona.

TSMC said Tuesday it expects the expanded investment to generate tens of thousands of high-tech jobs in R&D and advanced chip manufacturing and support 40,000 construction jobs in Arizona over the next four years. 

The announcement reflects TSMC’s commitment to supporting U.S. customers, including Apple, NVIDIA, AMD, Qualcomm and Broadcom.

Arizona Fab

TSMC’s Phoenix-based chip manufacturing plant operates with more than 3,000 employees and has been in the volume production phase since late 2024.

In addition to its Arizona site, the company runs a fab in Washington and design service centers in Texas and California.

Other Investments to Advance AI

In January, OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle announced plans to invest up to $500 billion over the next four years in Stargate, a new joint venture tasked with establishing a new AI infrastructure to advance U.S. leadership in the technology and create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the country.

Register here to join the Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 Artificial Intelligence Summit on March 20, to hear more about cutting-edge AI innovations from industry and government experts.

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Norman Knight Named Acting Deputy Director of NASA’s Johnson Center
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Norman Knight Named Acting Deputy Director of NASA’s Johnson Center

Norman Knight has been appointed acting deputy director of the Johnson Space Center at NASA.

Norman Knight’s 25-Year NASA Career

The agency said Monday Knight is a NASA lifer who’s been with the agency for almost 25 years. He currently serves as the director of Johnson’s Flight Operations Directorate where he oversees a 2,400-strong workforce tasked with mission operations for NASA human spaceflight programs. He is also responsible for astronaut and aircrew training as well as aircraft operations.

Knight previously served as deputy director of flight operations and technical assistant for the Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations. He was the chief of the Flight Director Office for six years, where he oversaw all aspects of human spaceflight operations, including the International Space Station, exploration missions and commercial spaceflight.

The NASA executive also served as the flight director of the Space Shuttle and the ISS, where he oversaw several space missions. He started his NASA career as a Space Shuttle mechanical systems flight controller.

Steven Koerner, acting director of the Johnson Space Center, said, “Norm has an accomplished career within the agency. His leadership, expertise, and dedication to the mission will [undoubtedly] drive our continued success.”

“Human spaceflight is key to our agency’s mission and our Johnson team is unified in that goal,” said Knight. “The successes we see every day are the evidence of that. It never ceases to amaze me what our team is capable of.”

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Johns Hopkins APL Says AI Can Improve Wargames Planning
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Johns Hopkins APL Says AI Can Improve Wargames Planning

Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, or APL, is integrating large language models to enhance the impact of wargaming and similar exercises in the U.S. military. The lab said Monday that artificial intelligence can automate much of the work that goes toward developing and running wargames. 

What Is the Importance of Wargaming?

Wargames are critical to the U.S. military’s training strategy. The games simulate real-world scenarios, allowing commanders to analyze and improve skills and capabilities at the tactical, operational and strategic levels. 

Wargames, tabletop exercises and similar activities theoretically result in warfighters and military personnel that are well-equipped to carry out their respective missions.

How AI Can Enhance Wargames

APL is integrating generative AI into the Advanced Framework for Simulation, Integration and Modeling, or AFSIM, one of the most commonly used tools in the military and the broader defense community to simulate multi-domain conflicts. 

According to the lab, combining modeling and simulation with AI can significantly reduce the time needed to plan and execute wargames from several months to just a few days.

“Senior leaders in the Department of Defense have been seeking something like this for more than a decade, and I think we are finally at the point where the demand signal and the technology are in alignment,” commented Andrew Mara, head of APL’s National Security Analysis Department. “Pair that with an outstanding team here at APL and I think we have a chance to change the very nature of wargaming in the national security community.”

APL will continue to explore the potentials of AI in wargaming. Efforts are ongoing to make the advantages of wargaming readily available to decision-makers. 

“Our long-term vision is to create a tool that allows decision-makers at many different levels to arrive at the kind of insights that come from wargaming in a form that lives on their personal computers and allows them to run a lot of repetitions in a short period of time, instead of a full-blown exercise that takes months of planning,” shared Kevin Mather, an analyst from NSAD.

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Loyal Wingman Prototypes Receive Air Force Designations
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Loyal Wingman Prototypes Receive Air Force Designations

The U.S. Air Force has given its two Collaborative Combat Aircraft prototypes official Mission Design Series designations.

Meaning of the Designation

The CCA being developed by General Atomics has been designated YFQ-42A while the CCA being developed by Anduril Industries has been designated YFQ-44A, the Air Force said Monday. The prefix “Y” means the aircraft is still in the prototype stage; the prefix “F” means the aircraft’s basic mission is that of a fighter; and the prefix “Q” means the aircraft is unmanned. The numbers “42” and “44” indicate the design number while the letter “A” at the end indicates that the unit is the model’s first version.

CCA Program

Also called loyal wingmen, CCAs are large uncrewed aircraft that are envisioned to operate alongside crewed fighter jets or fly alone or in groups. CCAs will be powered by jet engines and driven by artificial intelligence that would enable collaboration with human pilots.

The Air Force had received designs from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Atomics and Anduril but in 2024 decided to move forward with the latter two. Moving forward, the prototypes will be subjected to testing and evaluation, with subsequent insights informing future steps for the CCA program.

New Chapter of Aerial Warfare

Commenting on the MDS designations, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said the prototypes “are going to be ready to fly this summer.”

“For the first time in our history, we have a fighter designation in the YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A. It may be just symbolic, but we are telling the world we are leaning into a new chapter of aerial warfare. It means collaborative combat aircraft, it means human-machine teaming,” Allvin added.

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Pentagon Issues Cloud Security Playbook
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Pentagon Issues Cloud Security Playbook

The Department of Defense has released a playbook designed to help software development managers, mission owners and developers improve the cybersecurity of applications hosted in cloud environments.

The Cloud Security Playbook, cleared for public release on Feb. 26, seeks to address the most common cloud security vulnerabilities and threats and intends to help mission owners hosting software in the cloud quickly achieve an Authorization to Operate, or ATO.

The document comes in two volumes. The first volume aims to prepare organizations for using a cloud and intends to enable users to understand key concepts, such as the shared responsibility model, the impact level and the requirement of a DOD provisional authorization or ATO for cloud services.

Preparing Organizations for Cloud Adoption

The playbook suggests several actions to prepare an organization for using a cloud, such as setting up a cloud governance team, developing a cloud migration strategy and establishing a budget to implement the cloud migration strategy.

Other measures outlined in the document are developing organizational policies on cloud usage, creating a cloud exit strategy, defining the roles and responsibilities of those who will have cloud access and training the workforce on cloud security.

Implementing Secure Identity, Credential & Access Management

The document calls for the implementation of identity, credential and access management, or ICAM.

Recommended actions under this section include implementing and enforcing the principle of least privilege, or PoLP; implementing PoLP for each cloud resource; requiring phishing-resistant multifactor authentication; using context-based access control policies and review policies prior to deployment and periodically after deployment to identify potential gaps; and considering requiring administrators to access cloud resources using privileged access workstations.

The initial volume also covers other key plays, such as establishing secure network access, deploying with infrastructure as code, using a cloud-native application protection platform, employing defensive cyberspace operations and deploying user and entity behavior analytics.

Cloud Security Playbook Volume 2

The playbook’s second volume addresses ways to secure containers and microservices, defend DevSecOps pipelines, mitigate third-party risks and ensure the security of artificial intelligence systems and application programming interfaces.

To defend DevSecOps pipelines, recommended actions include adopting a zero-trust approach, using encryption with a FIPS 140-2 approved algorithm, minimizing the use of long-term credentials, implementing endpoint detection and response tools and integrating security testing into the pipeline.

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OSC Seeks Industry Feedback on New TraCSS Pathfinder
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OSC Seeks Industry Feedback on New TraCSS Pathfinder

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Space Commerce is seeking industry input on a new pathfinder project.

Proposed Collision Avoidance Gap Pathfinder Project

The OSC said Friday the proposed Traffic Coordination System for Space, or TraCSS, Pathfinder project — the Collision Avoidance, or COLA, Gap Pathfinder — will be used to assess existing commercial technologies for immediate identification and cataloging of space objects following launch and deployment.

The OSC released the draft performance work statement for the potential project on Friday. Responses can be submitted until March 15. The proposed COLA Gap Pathfinder project is expected to begin in late spring or early summer of 2025.

In September 2024, COMSPOC, ExoAnalytic Solutions and Slingshot Aerospace were selected by the OSC to deliver space situational awareness services for the TraCSS pathfinder project. Kayhan Space and SpaceNav, meanwhile, were chosen to conduct data quality monitoring for low Earth orbit and geostationary Earth orbit observations.

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Guy Torres Named IRS Acting Chief Procurement Officer
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Guy Torres Named IRS Acting Chief Procurement Officer

Guy Torres announced on LinkedIn Saturday that he has been selected as the acting chief procurement officer of the Internal Revenue Service.

Who Is Guy Torres?

The new acting CPO has worked in the military, private sector and government and possesses extensive experience in business strategy, account development, federal acquisition and contracting operations. 

Before his promotion, he served as the deputy CPO of the IRS for more than three years. He was tasked with managing the daily operations of the agency’s procurement programs. In that role, he helped the government exceed its small business goals across all socio-economic classifications in fiscal year 2022.

Torres’ private sector career includes serving as director of the homeland security portfolio at PAE, where he spearheaded the company’s business development and acquisition strategies. Torres spent over four years at Northrop Grumman as the Department of Homeland Security account executive. He was also part of Salient CRGT as vice president of strategic initiatives.

Torres also served as director of information technology contracting at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and was a fellow at the American Council for Technology – Industry Advisory Council. He also worked at the Small Business Administration as the deputy director for the department of grants and procurement and as the national director of the historically underutilized business zone program. Torres was unit chief at the FBI and a supervisory contract specialist at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Prior to that, Torres was supply chain team lead at IBM. He also served in the U.S. Marine Corps for almost 10 years, holding various leadership positions.

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DIU’s William McHenry: Rightsizing IC, DOD Starts With Reassessment of Mission Relevance
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DIU’s William McHenry: Rightsizing IC, DOD Starts With Reassessment of Mission Relevance

William “Mac” McHenry, senior adviser to the director at the Defense Innovation Unit, said rightsizing the Intelligence Community and the Department of Defense requires a strategic approach. The first step in implementing this approach is conducting a thorough assessment of each agency’s core mission.

Mission Review Process

In an article published Friday on RealClearDefense, McHenry said the mission review process calls for “challenging established assumptions” and considering insights from former agency staff and other external perspectives to determine “potential blind spots.”

“This process may reveal that some organizations are performing functions that are no longer critical or that have become redundant due to the evolution of other agencies or the emergence of new technologies. In such cases, outright elimination of the agency or a substantial realignment of its mission may be the most appropriate course of action,” the retired U.S. Marine Corps Reserve colonel added.

Organizational Positioning

According to McHenry, the next step is assessing whether an agency is better positioned within the government to perform the mission effectively.

“This analysis should consider not only the current organizational structure but also potential alternatives,” he noted.

Task Analysis

McHenry, who also serves as intelligence community lead at DIU, said the strategic approach also involves deconstructing the agency’s mission into constituent tasks by identifying essential and supporting tasks to better understand the organization’s operational requirements.

He noted that distinguishing between supporting and essential tasks could help agency leaders make informed decisions about staff requirements and resource allocation.

Experimentation and Personnel Structure

The last two phases McHenry discussed are experimenting with different approaches and considering the personnel structure.

According to the DIU executive, the experimentation phase may involve implementing process improvements, restructuring workflows or exploring new technologies to help identify effective ways to meet mission objectives.

“This experimentation phase should be data-driven, with clear metrics established to measure the success of different approaches. Pilot programs can be used to test new ideas on a smaller scale before implementing them agency-wide,” he wrote. “This iterative process of experimentation and refinement is essential for ensuring that downsizing efforts do not inadvertently compromise mission effectiveness.”

When considering the personnel structure, agencies may uncover the need for new skill sets, which could incite them to launch recruitment or retraining initiatives.

McHenry stressed that determining the organizational structure, the number of personnel and the required skill sets “should be derived from the needs of the mission, not the other way around.”

McHenry will be one of the panelists at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 Artificial Intelligence Summit on March 20. Register here to join this important event.

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David Smith Named Acting Defense Health Agency Director
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David Smith Named Acting Defense Health Agency Director

David Smith has been appointed as the acting director of the Defense Health Agency, replacing Army Lt. Gen. Telita Crosland.

DHA Leadership Transition

In a statement, Stephen Ferrara, the acting assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, announced Smith’s designation on Friday, noting that the new appointee will hold the role while the Department of Defense “conducts the normal nomination process” for a permanent appointee to the post.

He added that Crosland retired from the service and thanked the two-time Wash100 Award winner for serving the United States for over three decades.

Ferrara described the acting DHS chief as “a steady hand with decades of experience in the military health system. “I ask everyone to support Dr. Smith and the entire DHA team as we stabilize and strengthen our system serving the most lethal fighting force on the planet,” he added.

David Smith’s DOD Career Highlights

Before his new assignment, Smith led efforts by the DOD to ensure medical readiness for U.S. service members as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for health readiness policy and oversight. Earlier, he was the chief medical adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and served as director of medical resources, plans and policy division on the Chief of Naval Operations staff.

Smith completed his medical degree at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and earned his master’s from the University of Cincinnati. In 1977, he received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois.

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