/
Intel Selects April Miller Boise to Lead Legal, Trade, Government Affairs as EVP, CLO
Published on
Intel Selects April Miller Boise to Lead Legal, Trade, Government Affairs as EVP, CLO

April Miller Boise, former Eaton Corp. executive, has joined Intel as executive vice president and chief legal officer.

In her new position, Miller Boise will manage Intel’s global legal, trade and government affairs function, effective July 6, the Santa Clara, California-headquartered company said Thursday. She will report to Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger.

“Our ambitious goals for Intel are set against an increasingly complex legal and policy environment, and April’s breadth of skills and experience make her a critical addition to our leadership team as we pursue the largest transformation in the company’s history,” remarked Gelsinger.

During her over 25 years of work in a variety of industries, Miller Boise has held senior-level positions such as general counsel, head of global mergers and acquisitions and corporate secretary. She spent over a decade at Cleveland, Ohio-based business law firm Thompson Hine LLP, occupied the role of senior vice president, CLO and corporate secretary for Meritor Inc and was most recently EVP and CLO at Eaton Corp.

At Intel, Miller Boise will be added to and strategically advise the executive leadership team as well as serve on the board of directors. Gelsinger said that Miller Boise’s amalgamation of business acumen and law experience made her a particularly strong candidate for her new job.

Miller Boise described Intel as “a world-class legal, trade and government affairs organization” and expressed anticipation to partner with the Intel leadership team at a “pivotal time” in the company’s history.

The newly hired Intel CLO is succeeding the retiring, longtime company stalwart Steven Rodgers. Miller Boise previously served on the board of directors of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati and is currently a board member at Trane Technologies.

/
Former HHS Exec Mike Peckham Transitions to Private Sector with KPMG Appointment
Published on
Former HHS Exec Mike Peckham Transitions to Private Sector with KPMG Appointment

Seasoned financial executive Mike Peckham has been appointed managing director on the advisory team at KPMG’s federal government unit.

Transitioning from a decade-plus spent with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Peckham is expected to channel his insights on finance and technology into his new role at KPMG U.S. Government and Public Sector, the company said Thursday.

Peckham will bring experience in program management, systems implementation and grants management to KPMG. Over the course of his time with HHS, Peckham held a number of positions, including director of payment management services, chief of the general accounting branch, HHS ReInvent grants management lead and executive director of the HHS DATA Act Program Management Office.

Before retiring from HHS in December 2021, Peckham was acting chief financial officer and director of the financial management portfolio for the Program Support Center. His passion lies in affecting positive change by locating new solutions to time-tested dilemmas. Some of the strategies Peckham has rallied behind include human-centered design, agile methodologies, microservices architecture and using new technologies to inform data-centric business maneuvers.

In 2020, Peckham received the HHS Deputy Secretary’s Coin to commemorate his strategizing for forward-thinking reforms. He was a proponent of automating manual workflows and developed new approaches to service delivery. His work with artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotic process automation and blockchain technologies will prove useful in his new advisory job at KPMG.

“When you spend a lifetime thinking ‘there has to be a better way to do this’ and then you get the opportunity to not only influence, but lead positive change – how can anyone possibly say no,” Peckham wrote in a LinkedIn post reflecting on the transformation initiatives he participated in late in his career at HHS.

In a reversal of Peckham’s trajectory, former managing director of KPMG’s federal advisory division Kristyn Jones was nominated by President Biden in December to assume the role of comptroller and assistant secretary of the Air Force for financial management. Jones was subsequently confirmed and sworn in at a ceremony in May.

/
NNSA Completes Exascale Computing Facility Modernization Project at LLNL
Published on
NNSA Completes Exascale Computing Facility Modernization Project at LLNL

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has formally completed a facility modernization project that marks the beginning of the transition of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to a new supercomputing platform.

DOE said Wednesday the Exascale Computing Facility Modernization project upgraded the laboratory’s existing cooling capacity and electrical system and added new transmission lines, switches and substations to power NNSA’s first exascale computer.

The supercomputing platform, dubbed El Capitan, will perform at a capacity of at least 1 quintillion calculations a second to provide exascale-class computing service to LLNL, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories.

“We are pleased that this project has received approval for CD-4. It plays a vital role in supporting NNSA’s goal of bringing a more advanced computing capability to the complex.” said Mike Lang, federal program manager for the Advanced Simulation and Computing program.

Cray, a division within Hewlett Packard Enterprise, built the El Capitan exascale computer under a $600M contract NNSA awarded in 2019 to support the agency’s nuclear weapons stockpile maintenance initiatives.

//
CISA Introduces Cyber Innovation Fellowship Initiative; Jen Easterly Quoted
Published on
CISA Introduces Cyber Innovation Fellowship Initiative; Jen Easterly Quoted

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency plans to enlist up to eight industry professionals for a four-month stint as inaugural members of the Cyber Innovation Fellows program.

CISA said Tuesday it will accept nominations for the fellowship until July 8 and expects the first cohort to start their part-time, company-sponsored work at the agency this fall.

Fellows will offer technical perspectives to agency teams on vulnerability management, threat hunting and incident response during the program.

“This new effort will allow us to partner even more closely with top talent from the private sector as they become part of our team for a few days each month to help us tackle some of the most complex cybersecurity challenges we face as a nation,” said Jen Easterly, director of CISA and a 2022 Wash100 winner.

Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton Nominated as Next Chief of Strategic Command
Published on
Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton Nominated as Next Chief of Strategic Command

U.S. Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton has received nomination from President Biden to serve as commander of the U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.

In a general officer announcement the Department of Defense posted Wednesday, Lloyd Austin, DOD secretary and two-time Wash100 Award recipient, said Cotton is also tapped for appointment to the grade of general.

Cotton is the current commander of the Air Force Global Strike Command at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana. He leads AFGSC as it delivers strategic deterrence, global strike capability and combat support to USSTRATCOM and other geographic combatant commands.

His Air Force career includes experience in commanding at the squadron, group and wing levels as well as serving as deputy director of the secretary and chief of staff of the Air Force Executive Action Group and vice commander and commander of the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom AFB in Montana.

//
Army Issues Unmanned Aircraft Engineering Support RFP
Published on
Army Issues Unmanned Aircraft Engineering Support RFP

The U.S. Army has issued a solicitation for a potential $88 million small business set-aside contract to procure engineering support services for soldier unmanned aircraft systems.

Interested businesses can submit proposals until June 28, and the Army plans to will evaluate offerors using the “best value” sourcing method, according to a notice posted Wednesday on SAM.gov.

A selected contractor will help the military branch engineer Group I reconnaissance aircraft platforms and handheld ground control stations.

The indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract has a 12-month base ordering period, four 12-month option periods and an additional six-month extension.

Systems under the procurement effort include the RQ11B, RQ20A and the Tactical Open Government-Owned Architecture.

/
GAO Assesses Pentagon’s Weapons System Acquisition Programs
Published on
GAO Assesses Pentagon’s Weapons System Acquisition Programs

The Government Accountability Office has found that the Department of Defense has made efforts to accelerate the development and deployment of weapons systems, but most of DOD’s major defense acquisition programs continue to face schedule delays.

GAO reviewed 29 MDAPs and found that 17 of these programs reported delays in deploying capabilities in the past year, according to a report published Wednesday.

DOD is also ramping up its use of the middle tier of acquisition pathway in programs, but the congressional watchdog found that programs using the MTA pathway do not intend to secure ample product knowledge before kicking off follow-on efforts.

“This approach increases the risk that these follow-on efforts may encounter cost, schedule, or technical challenges during development or production,” the GAO report reads.

GAO recommended that the Pentagon update its instruction for industrial base assessments “to define the circumstances that would constitute a known or projected problem or substantial risk that a necessary industrial capability may be lost.”

The agency made the recommendation after it found that the department’s instructions do not clearly define certain phrases related to conditions under which programs should carry out industrial base assessments, which seek to help DOD ensure that certain industry capabilities are available and satisfy future and existing national security needs.

/
DHS Rolls Out Mobile App for Intelligence Data Sharing
Published on
DHS Rolls Out Mobile App for Intelligence Data Sharing

The Department of Homeland Security has released a new tool for federal personnel, law enforcement officers and first responders to share intelligence data from mobile devices.

Homeland Security Information Network users can download and install the DHS Intel app on iOS devices to gain access to relevant information, updates and reports, department officials Melissa Smislova and Eric Hysen wrote in a joint blog post published Wednesday.

HSIN was built in 2006 to help government organizations and their private sector partners exchange sensitive but unclassified data to address missions.

The new app allows a user to also receive alerts about the availability of intelligence products and bookmark materials for future use. DHS plans to release the tool for Android devices in the summer.

//
John Sherman, Craig Martell Discuss Focus Areas; Initiatives of DOD’s Chief Digital and AI Office
Published on
John Sherman, Craig Martell Discuss Focus Areas; Initiatives of DOD’s Chief Digital and AI Office

John Sherman, chief information officer of the Department of Defense and a 2022 Wash100 Award winner, took part in a fireside chat alongside newly appointed chief digital and artificial intelligence officer at DOD Craig Martell, during a virtual symposium on Wednesday to discuss how they will work together and the initiatives that the office of CDAO will focus on going forward.

One of the initiatives Sherman and Martell talked about is the Artificial Intelligence and Data Accelerator, which Sherman said will be one of the office of CDAO’s flagship activities, DOD said Wednesday.

Sherman said ADA seeks to enable “AI data and visual service experts to really see what the problems are for the respective combatant commanders and what they need to be able to get after and unlock their data, think about what sort of AI and ML capabilities would help them get ahead of their particular problem sets.”

Sherman also discussed with Martell other focus areas of CDAO, such as enabling machine learning and AI across combatant commands to help advance Joint All Domain Command and Control and leveraging AI as DOD pursues zero trust adoption.

“Those are some of the main big things, but there’s going to be innumerable other things as we look at leveraging commercial SATCOM, as we look at other C3 areas, and as we work together just to make sure that CDAO has the very best technology to get after your mission sets,” he added.

During the discussion, Martell also talked about DOD’s relationship with industry and the need to build up the talent pipeline.

The CDAO office achieved full operating capability status on June 1 and will manage DOD’s policy formulation and strategy development for AI, data and analytics.

/
Biniam Gebre Drops Out of Federal Procurement Chief Nomination
Published on
Biniam Gebre Drops Out of Federal Procurement Chief Nomination

Biniam Gebre, former senior managing director at Accenture and head of management consulting for the company’s federal business arm, has withdrawn his name from consideration as the next administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy within the Office of Management and Budget, Government Executive reported Wednesday.

“The nominee chose to forgo the confirmation process to pursue other opportunities,” a White House official told the publication in a statement. 

The official added the Biden administration will consider other nominees for the role. In August 2021, President Biden announced his intent to nominate Gebre to lead OFPP.

Gebre has more than 20 years of experience in the private sector and government, including time as acting commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration within the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He previously served as a partner at Oliver Wyman and McKinsey & Co.

1 … 884 885 886 887 888 … 2,703