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Gene Dodaro: Federal CFOs Should Work With CIOs to Set IT Investment Priorities
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Gene Dodaro: Federal CFOs Should Work With CIOs to Set IT Investment Priorities

Gene Dodaro, U.S. comptroller general and head of the Government Accountability Office, said federal chief financial officers seeking to improve the state of information technology programs within their agencies should prioritize legacy IT systems, examine the results of audits into such systems and work with agency chief information officers. 

Dodaro told Deloitte in an interview published Friday on The Wall Street Journal that federal CFOs should collaborate with CIOs to come up with an enterprise architecture that employs a systems integration framework.

“A close working relationship between CFOs and CIOs is critical; it will help the CFO set funding and investment priorities and put in place a monitoring program to oversee ongoing IT investments,” he noted.

Dodaro said CFOs should begin establishing priorities once they fully understand the IT needs of their agencies and examine the skills needed for Agile development.

“GAO issued an Agile project guide schedule that can help CFOs and CIOs institute leading practices, including guides on estimating costs and setting necessary requirements for new systems,” he noted.

Dodaro shared his views on the Department of the Treasury’s shared services approach and his insights on the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act and how FITARA helps agencies manage their software licenses and advance use of incremental software development.

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Eric Fanning, Robert Hale, Raj Shah, Ellen Lord Named to Defense Budgeting Reform Commission
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Eric Fanning, Robert Hale, Raj Shah, Ellen Lord Named to Defense Budgeting Reform Commission

Leaders of House and Senate Armed Services Committees have appointed former Department of Defense officials to a 14-member commission tasked with evaluating the effectiveness of DOD’s planning, programming, budgeting and execution process.

The new members of the Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution Reform are Eric Fanning, president and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association and former secretary of the Army; Robert Hale, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former DOD comptroller and chief financial officer; Raj Shah, managing partner of Shield Capital and former head of the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental; and Ellen Lord, senior adviser at The Chertoff Group and former undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, the House panel said Tuesday.

Fanning, Hale, Shah and Lord are all previous Wash100 Award recipients.

HASC Chairman Adam Smith, D-Calif., and HASC Ranking Member Mike Rogers, R-Ala., named Fanning and Shah, respectively, to the commission. SASC Chairman Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., selected Hale and Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., appointed Lord to the panel.

The appointees will also help explore potential alternatives to the current PPBE process and practices and come up with policy recommendations that will enable the Pentagon to deploy operational capabilities to maintain its advantage over near-peer competitors.

In accordance with the fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, the commission should submit its final report to the DOD secretary and House and Senate Armed Services panels no later than Sept. 24, 2023.

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Senators Agree With DNI Over Need to Prioritize Efforts to Improve Declassification System
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Senators Agree With DNI Over Need to Prioritize Efforts to Improve Declassification System

Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said they are encouraged by programs within the Intelligence Community to automate the declassification review process and welcome the move of Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines to recognize the risks posed by deficiencies in the current classification system to national security.

“We agree with the DNI that efforts such as these need to be better prioritized and funded, Wyden and Moran said in a joint statement published Thursday.

“There must also be a process by which the most effective modernization processes are identified as best practices and applied across the government,” they added.

Haines, a 2022 Wash100 Award winner, responded to an October 2021 letter by the lawmakers regarding the need to reform the U.S. declassification system. She also provided examples of declassification efforts that are underway within the IC.

The lawmakers also called for reforms of executive orders that govern classification and declassification.

“We have asked the DNI to coordinate with the National Security Council to make needed updates and we intend to reach out to the Administration to address this critically important reform,” Moran and Wyden noted.

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Anne Neuberger Arrives in Brussels to Prepare NATO for Potential Russian Cyberattacks
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Anne Neuberger Arrives in Brussels to Prepare NATO for Potential Russian Cyberattacks

The White House on Tuesday deployed Anne Neuberger, the country’s deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, to NATO to help allies disrupt potential Russian cyberattacks on Ukraine and prepare for possible retaliatory attacks on the U.S. and Europe once the alliance invokes sanctions on Russia, The New York Times reported.

Neuberger’s visit highlighted intelligence assessments that cyberattacks on Ukraine’s government ministries, electric grid and communications systems would likely come before a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“We have been warning for weeks and months, both publicly and privately, that cyberattacks could be part of a broad-based Russian effort to destabilize and further invade Ukraine,” the White House said in a statement.

Nueberger, a two-time Wash100 Award winner, was scheduled to speak with the North Atlantic Council in Brussels to inform them of possible disruptive cyberactions during a conflict. She will then travel to Poland to meet with officials in charge of cyberdefense efforts.

Ukraine is set to perform experiments in the next few weeks that include connecting to other power grids in Europe and detaching from Russia’s electric supply network.

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Idaho National Lab Completes Prototype of DOE Electrically Heated Microreactor
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Idaho National Lab Completes Prototype of DOE Electrically Heated Microreactor

Machinists from the Idaho National Laboratory have built a full-scale prototype of a microreactor that uses an external electricity source for heating instead of the traditional nuclear fission process.

INL said Monday the Microreactor Applications Research Validation and Evaluation system will undergo trials to verify the design of an envisioned 100-kilowatt thermal reactor for a planned U.S. nuclear microgrid.

The MARVEL prototype, developed under a Department of Energy project, will be used to test the reactor’s natural circulation for cooling, electricity-generating engines for removing heat decay, four control drums for absorbing and reflecting neutrons in case of an accident and various remote monitoring capabilities.

According to Yasir Arafat, MARVEL technical and project lead, testing a prototype is required because models alone could replicate flow and heat dynamics inside a reactor to a high degree of reliability and confidence.

Once trials are completed, INL plans to develop and install a demonstration microreactor at its Transient Reactor Test facility and achieve criticality with the energy source by 2024 for external research work.

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Space Force Posts RFI for National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Program
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Space Force Posts RFI for National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Program

The U.S. Space Force has released a request for information on the capabilities of commercial launch service providers to send national security payloads to space starting in fiscal 2025.

The USSF’s Space Systems Command Launch Enterprise will accept comments from companies interested to compete for the National Security Space Launch Phase 3 contracts until Feb. 24th, according to the RFI on SAM.gov.

SSC/LE is interested in information such as the availability of launch capabilities, the concept of operations, business case analysis and alternate approaches to inform the Phase 3 acquisition strategy.

The service branch’s ongoing market research follows an industry day held on Aug. 17th. United Launch Alliance and SpaceX currently provide launch services under Phase 2 contracts that are expected to end in fiscal 2027.

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Army Launches New Supercomputing Research Center Facilities in Mississippi
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Army Launches New Supercomputing Research Center Facilities in Mississippi

The U.S. Army’s Engineer Research and Development Center has opened a pair of new facilities for the Supercomputing Research Center in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

The facilities provide 10,000 square feet of space for large-scale supercomputers and will house one of the five DOD Supercomputing Resource Centers, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said on Jan. 24th.

ERDC’s Information Technology Lab administered a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new facilities on Jan. 20th. The facilities also feature a technology made by Entergy to provide backup power via natural gas generators.

“The Supercomputing Research Center has long been a source of groundbreaking research and innovative problem solving within ERDC, and I have no doubt this new facility will only amplify that,” said David Horner, director of ITL.

SRC offers high-performance computing resources to address the Department of Defense’s challenges. The government allotted funds for the new facilities in 2018.

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FCC Appoints New Bureau Chiefs, General Counsel; Jessica Rosenworcel Quoted
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FCC Appoints New Bureau Chiefs, General Counsel; Jessica Rosenworcel Quoted

The Federal Communications Commission has made five appointments that determine the leadership of four bureaus and the FCC’s legal functions.

Alejandro Roark, formerly the executive director of HTTP, will serve as chief of FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, the commission said Monday. HTTP is a CEO roundtable of national Latino civil rights organizations working to promote technology access and adoption across U.S. Latino communities.

Debra Jordan, deputy chief of FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, has been promoted to serve as the same bureau’s chief. She has represented the commission in efforts that tackle cybersecurity, national security and supply chain risk management.

Jordan also served with Naval Facilities Engineering Command as command information officer.

Holly Saurer, who has served as the FCC chairwoman’s legal adviser for media, will return to the commission’s media bureau to serve as chief. She held various roles at the bureau including deputy bureau chief and senior legal adviser.

Loyaan Egal, formerly the deputy chief at the foreign investment review section within the Department of Justice’s national security division, will serve as chief of FCC’s Enforcement Bureau on an acting basis. Egal returns to the bureau, where he previously led what is now known as the fraud division.

Lastly, Michele Ellison will become FCC’s full-time general counsel, following her tenure as acting general counsel over the past year. She has advised on policy tackling national security, broadband data and 5G.

“Ensuring modern communications reach every corner of the country isn’t possible without the
leadership of incredible, capable experts throughout the Commission,” said Jessica Rosenworcel, FCC’s chairwoman.

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Navy’s Future USS Fort Lauderdale Now Ready for Delivery Following Acceptance Trials
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Navy’s Future USS Fort Lauderdale Now Ready for Delivery Following Acceptance Trials

A new Huntington Ingalls Industries-built San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship demonstrated its construction quality and compliance with U.S. Navy requirements during recently completed acceptance trials.

The milestone now allows the shipbuilding contractor to prepare the future USS Fort Lauderdale for delivery to the service branch in the following weeks, the Naval Sea Systems Command said Monday.

Once in service, LPD 28 will become the Navy’s 12th San Antonio-class vessel and will support amphibious assault, special operations, expeditionary warfare and disaster relief missions by transporting servicemen and military equipment.

“With the completion of both Builder’s and Acceptance trials, we are confident that LPD 28 has proven the operational readiness of the vessel and the capabilities it will soon bring to the fleet,” shared Capt. Cedric McNeal, a program manager within the Navy’s Amphibious Warfare Program Office.

Aside from LPD 28, Huntington Ingalls, through its Ingalls Shipbuilding division, is currently working on the next two Navy transport vessels with a third one to start in spring.

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Lawrence Wong Added as Veritas Technologies SVP and Chief Strategy Officer; CEO Greg Hughes Quoted
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Lawrence Wong Added as Veritas Technologies SVP and Chief Strategy Officer; CEO Greg Hughes Quoted

Lawrence Wong, a former Accenture exec, has been named senior vice president and chief strategy officer of Veritas Technologies.

The role will entail Wong creating and implementing a cloud strategy to build on Veritas’ growth and acquisitions, the Santa Clara, California-based enterprise data management company said Tuesday.

“The enterprise is looking for guidance on how to navigate today’s digitally complex world, and the need for a trusted partner to help them on their journey to the cloud is more important than ever,” said Greg Hughes, chief executive officer at Veritas.

Wong’s position is a new creation and expects him to work in collaboration with the company’s leadership. He will report to Hughes.

At Accenture, Wong helmed the U.S. west cloud first business as managing director and member of the global leadership council. He specialized in helping customers migrate data and business plans to the cloud.

Additionally, Wong has leadership experience at McKinsey & Company, Hewlett Packard and a number of startup software companies. The appointment of Wong follows Veritas’ installment of four public sector advisory board members in October 2021.

Wong believes he is well suited to help Veritas and its customers address some of the most pressing problems facing tech-adjacent businesses, such as “operating in increasingly fragmented and complex multi-cloud environments with unprecedented data growth.”

The new board members are intended to assist the company in ensuring they’re meeting cybersecurity and data protection needs, guidance that Wong will no doubt take into account in his new role.

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