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DHS Officials Share Efforts, Challenges in Agency’s Data Use
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DHS Officials Share Efforts, Challenges in Agency’s Data Use

Two leading Department of Homeland Security officials discussed ongoing efforts to enhance data use within the agency during a recent Advanced Technology Academic Research Center webcast, Nextgov reported Thursday.

Kathleen Kaplan and Elizabeth Puchek, chief data officers of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. Customs and Immigration Services, respectively, said their organizations already improved how they handle information since a 2019 law that created their roles.

Kaplan shared that FEMA is currently ongoing a data refresh to sort data entering her agency based on source and quality and Puchek noted that USCIS is also preparing for a similar initiative to maintain the integrity of its database.

Despite progress, the two officials noted several challenges to their data goals such as competition for time and funding with other offices and poor technologies for information sharing between different agencies.

In 2019, the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act became law, mandating 24 Chief Financial Officers Act federal civilian agencies to establish chief data offices.

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DOI Interior Business Center Modernizes FRTIB’s Financial System
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DOI Interior Business Center Modernizes FRTIB’s Financial System

A business-focused organization within the Department of the Interior has completed an effort to modernize and standardize the financial, procurement and travel systems for the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board.

The Interior Business Center said Monday it used the PRISM software-as-a-service to streamline procurement activities as part of FRTIB’s Financial Systems Modernization Project.

PRISM’s procurement cycle integrates information across the initiation, solicitation and awarding phases of procurement programs.

The board will also use E2 Solutions’ web-based travel management system to organize, authorize and process trips of federal officials.

DOI expects the SaaS implementation to centralize financial, procurement, travel and investment management into one integrated source.

Expanding FRTIB’s financial management services also involves pre-built integrations with IBC’s existing capabilities including business analytics, reporting and decision making support.

IBC also helped FRTIB decommission legacy systems.

FRTIB is tasked to oversee the Thrift Savings Plan, a retirement savings plan for members of the federal workforce and military branches.

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Army’s Paul Puckett: Borrowed Cloud Strategies Won’t Fully Support Mission Needs
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Army’s Paul Puckett: Borrowed Cloud Strategies Won’t Fully Support Mission Needs

Paul Puckett, director of the U.S. Army’s Enterprise Cloud Management Agency, said adopting generalized cloud implementation approaches may result in unnecessary expenses.

He said that “copy-pasted” cloud approaches may just end up making an agency spend for unneeded resources that won’t be used in the future, Federal News Network reported Thursday.

Puckett said he recommends cloud designs that make use of all included capabilities in a way that supports the mission.

“We need to start designing systems and services that are intended as a distributed architecture that are intended to leverage elastic scalability,” he stated.

The agency director noted that defining parameters and mission objects can lay the ground for the intended technical design.

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Laurie Leshin Returns to NASA as Director of Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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Laurie Leshin Returns to NASA as Director of Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Laurie Leshin, the president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, will serve as the new director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and vice president of the California Institute of Technology, effective May 16.

She will succeed retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Larry James, who serves as JPL’s interim director and will retain his role as deputy director upon succession, JPL said Thursday. James has been filling in for Michael Watkins, who retired in August.

Leshin brings over two decades of leadership experience, having held roles at NASA and the White House.

The established geochemist and space scientist was the director of science and exploration at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. She received a promotion to become the center’s deputy director for science and technology in 2008.

The space science professional transitioned out of NASA in 2011 to serve as the dean of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s school of science.

Leshin helped President George W. Bush implement U.S. policy on space exploration in 2004 and became part of President Barack Obama’s advisory board on the National Air and Space Museum in 2013.

She is also the recipient of multiple awards including the Meteoritical Society’s Nier Prize and NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal.

Caltech manages the JPL federally funded research and development center for the space agency.

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GovCon Expert Jerry McGinn: Commission on PPBE Presents Opportunity for DoD to Match Commercial Industry’s Innovations
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GovCon Expert Jerry McGinn: Commission on PPBE Presents Opportunity for DoD to Match Commercial Industry’s Innovations

GovCon Expert Jerry McGinn, executive director of the Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University, has shared his thoughts on how the defense acquisition system might strategize within the newly established Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Education (PPBE) Reform.

McGinn, who is a former senior U.S. Defense Department acquisition official and a 2022 Wash100 Award winner, wrote in a Jan. 20, 2022 article for DefenseNews.com that he believes innovations and initiatives for gaining new business into the defense-industrial base have been stymied by old rules and methodologies.

Visit Wash100.com to cast a vote for GovCon Expert Jerry McGinn as one of your TEN votes to advocate for your favorite leaders in the federal and government sectors.

In the article, he argues that commercial industry operates based on portfolio management and allows for a greater flexibility than the “top-down process” of the Department of Defense’s current budgetary system, which he says “relies heavily on advance planning and detailed cost estimates of projects and technologies spanning years into the future.”

According to McGinn, who co-wrote the article with Eric Lofgren, a senior fellow at the Center for Government Contracting, the Department of Defense is less primed to respond to evolving technologies or new threats that may develop due to its current PPBE processes.

New systems such as Joint All-Domain Command and Control require a budgeting approach that will be responsive to “modularity, iteration and speed,” McGinn writes.

McGinn provides three tenets through which he feels the new PPBE Reform commissioners might make progress:

“Be bold in vision.” With this directive, he suggests the DoD model their budgeting practices after the commercial maneuvers and strategies that he feels are driving innovation.

“Be focused in approach.” McGinn cautions the committee to not bite off more than it can chew and hone its efforts into three focus areas: “(1) portfolio management; (2) reporting and transparency; and (3) budget build process.”

Finally, “be pragmatic in implementation.” Under this suggestion, McGinn recommends the instigation of pilot portfolios throughout the DoD to workshop new ideas and strategies, beginning first with “software-intensive program offices.”

McGinn believes these steps to be crucial in evolving the U.S.’s resource allocation process in order to meet possible threats head-on and keep pace with technological advances.

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Lawmakers Urge Federal Officials to Staff National AI Research Resource Task Force
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Lawmakers Urge Federal Officials to Staff National AI Research Resource Task Force

A group of House and Senate lawmakers called on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Science Foundation to staff a task force working on recommendations for the implementation of a National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource.

The legislators want NAIRR to help democratize access to computing tools and other resources needed by AI researchers across the country.

“Without staff, especially those with with expertise on how AI resources can be used to support the development of ethical and safe AI, we are worried that it will be difficult to accomplish the exciting aims of the NAIRR, especially in the statutorily required amount of time,” the lawmakers wrote in a Wednesday letter to heads of NSF and OSTP.

Lawmakers commended the administration’s efforts to come up with an AI Bill of Rights and noted that there are “unique synergies” between the NAIRR task force’s work and the AI Bill of Rights.

“On the AI Bill of Rights side of the ledger, we urge you to add the right to participate in making and testing AI technology, including access to resources like the NAIRR,” they noted.

The letter to OSTP Director Eric Lander and NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan was signed by Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., and Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. and Anthony Gonzalez, R-Ohio.

FedScoop reported the NAIRR Task Force is expected to submit to Congress its final report by November.

NAIRR task force has conducted several meetings to discuss recommendations on data resources, user tools, testbeds and other testing resources.

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White House Seeks to Improve Water Sector’s Cybersecurity Posture With Action Plan
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White House Seeks to Improve Water Sector’s Cybersecurity Posture With Action Plan

The White House has introduced an action plan that outlines measures that will be carried out in the next 100 days to improve the water sector’s cybersecurity.

The administration developed the water sector action plan in partnership with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Environmental Protection Agency and the Water Sector Coordinating Council, the White House said Thursday.

CISA and EPA will encourage water utilities to take part in a pilot program for industrial control systems information sharing and monitoring and work with partners in the private sector to come up with protocols for sharing data.

The action plan will help water systems owners and operators field technologies that could assist in monitoring their infrastructure and providing situational awareness.

“The plan will initially focus on the utilities that serve the largest populations and have the highest consequence systems; however, it will lay the foundation for supporting enhanced ICS cybersecurity across water systems of all sizes,” the White House fact sheet reads.

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GPO Task Force to Offer Recommendations for All-Digital Federal Depository Library Program; Hugh Nathanial Halpern Quoted
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GPO Task Force to Offer Recommendations for All-Digital Federal Depository Library Program; Hugh Nathanial Halpern Quoted

Hugh Nathanial Halpern, director of the Government Publishing Office, has designated a task force to examine the feasibility of making the Federal Depository Library Program all-digital.

The 23-member task force will provide recommendations for how to implement and run a digital FDLP and submit a final report to the GPO director by December, GPO said Wednesday.

GPO expects the feasibility study to look into the current state of federal depository libraries and federal agencies’ dissemination of publications.

“Technology has changed since GPO began putting information online in 1994, and so has our Agency,” said Halpern. 

“It is crucial to our democracy that GPO continue to adapt and meet our customers where they are. Thank you to the members of the library community and all of our partners for their commitment to making Government information even more accessible in the future. I look forward to the Task Force’s recommendations,” he added.

The Task Force on a Digital Federal Depository Library Program is composed of members from the Depository Library Community, Depository Library Council, library associations and federal agencies.

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Lisa Guess to Represent Cradlepoint and Ericsson on FCC’s Technological Advisory Committee
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Lisa Guess to Represent Cradlepoint and Ericsson on FCC’s Technological Advisory Committee

Lisa Guess, senior vice president of solutions engineering for cloud technology company Cradlepoint, has been selected for membership by the Federal Communications Commission’s Technological Advisory Committee.

Guess will represent all of Ericsson, the Swedish telecommunications company that acquired Cradlepoint in 2020. Cradlepoint CEO George Mulhern announced the news in a LinkedIn post on Friday.

The Technological Advisory Committee is responsible for counseling the FCC on technical matters and is organized under the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

It’s made up of leaders in technological fields who assist the FCC in creating policies and growing new innovation pathways to support the tech economy.

Guess is an experienced engineer with over 30 years of experience. She began her career at Shell Oil and has held senior level positions at Nortel Networks, Brocade Communications and Atrica.

Prior to coming to Cradlepoint, she spent 10 years as vice president of systems engineering at Juniper Networks, where, among other tasks, she identified product gaps in order to create revenue opportunities.

At Cradlepoint she oversees the product development team and specializes in systems optimization. Her facility with team-building saw her exponentially expand the global sales development team. She has been with the company for over three and half years.

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NIST Revises Procedures for Security Control Assessments
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NIST Revises Procedures for Security Control Assessments

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has updated its recommended procedures to assess the implementation of security and privacy controls.

NIST said Wednesday it added new assessment procedures and a new automation-friendly structure in revision five of Special Publication 800-53A, also titled “Assessing Security and Privacy Controls in Information Systems and Organizations.”

The new procedures are made to align with updated controls for privacy and supply chain risk management.

SP 800-53A offers a risk management framework designed to make assessment procedures flexible and customizable based on an organization’s specific needs.

The updated procedures are also intended to support continuous monitoring programs and make assessments more efficient.

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