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Executive Spotlight: Sean DuGuay, Principal of National Security & Defense for Capgemini Government Solutions
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Executive Spotlight: Sean DuGuay, Principal of National Security & Defense for Capgemini Government Solutions

Sean DuGuay, principal of National Security & Defense for Capgemini Government Solutions, recently spoke with ExecutiveGov regarding the challenges of implementing zero-trust technology as well as the renewed focus on data security in the federal sector and the compliance standards challenges that government agencies and others are working to meet.

In addition, DuGuay also touched on Capgemini’s efforts to drive digital transformation and stay ahead of the speed of innovation with recent acquisitions like VariQ to push the company’s growth strategy for the rest of 2022 and beyond during the latest Executive Spotlight interview.

“Capgemini has a rich company history and heritage of more than 50 years, with deep industry expertise in digital transformation and technology solutions and capabilities, earning recognition across the board. Although we are a global firm, our commercial presence is very significant in the North American market.

The beautiful thing about Capgemini Government Solutions is we get to leverage deep technical expertise in Cloud, Data, and SaaS/PaaS solutions. The government is looking for the latest and greatest technology that we can pull from our commercial clients, and in its work with the Federal Government, Capgemini is able to bring Silicon Valley innovation and lessons learned to an amazing client with incredible challenges. We have the technologies and technologists who know how to uncover and solve problems to help further their mission.”

You can read the full interview with Sean DuGuay below:

ExecutiveGov: What can you tell us about the implementation of the recent VariQ acquisition as well as how it benefited your portfolio, technical capabilities and driven value for your company and customers? What are your goals for the end of 2022 in the homeland security sector?

Sean DuGuay: “VariQ was a strategic acquisition for Capgemini. I was on the executive leadership team for VariQ and my new leadership role at Capgemini is awesome because of the depth and breadth of Capgemini capabilities that I now have behind me.  At VariQ we were rich in contract vehicles, including the Alliant-2 which provides access to best-in-class opportunities, but sometimes lacked the depth to compete on the biggest deals.  Now, I’m part of a $20B organization with the capabilities to tackle the toughest challenges that government has to offer.

In addition, Capgemini’s strength in a platform as-a-service offering will enable tremendous growth for us in the federal market. There have already been a number of contracts the government has put out and there are more to come in. There’s significant growth for Capgemini in the government space and all those specific areas.

My role with Capgemini is to lead the organic growth of our business within Homeland Security, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of State (DOS). I get to work with some of the brightest technology minds the industry can offer. These Capgemini employees are true problem solvers.

It’s a business leader’s dream to have these experts by your side, and my goal is to bring our clients the best offerings possible with true problem-solving capability and mission enhancement. I work with these clients daily and see their struggles, and I want to help solve them.  I want them, the taxpayers, and citizens to benefit from the best the government can bring.

We look forward to working with the Federal Government in cyber and new platforms as-a-service. Our company has contracts and portfolios throughout those areas, and we are excited about some upcoming opportunities to help both clients with their challenges.

I have almost 30 years of experience in the industry and was in the Marines for a decade prior. I’ve touched pretty much every aspect of this business at some point. If our Civilian or DoD market teams need some support, I will bring that to the table for them and Capgemini. That’s the team mentality that I love about this company and something that’s pretty rare to find in our industry. We all help each other and, quite frankly, this is the most fun I’ve had in quite a while.”

ExecutiveGov: With the influence of emerging technologies impacting every aspect of business, how has your company been able to drive digital transformation efforts to stay ahead of innovation in the federal landscape for yourself and your customers?

Sean DuGuay: “Since Capgemini has more than 340,000 employees across 50 different countries that are touched by our technology, you can’t help but want the best-in-class and it’s been fun to see the growth in this company thus far. One day I’m talking to a federal client about a major issue they are having and the next day I’m talking with a technologist across the country on a way to solve it.

As we look at the technology trends like cloud, data, API, connectivity, DevOps and software development, it’s astonishing to see that Capgemini can help in all these areas. I’ve had a lot of experience with emerging technologies and digital transformation efforts, which the pandemic only accelerated across the board.

The federal government was forced to adapt and pivot to meet the needs of the mission, which is obviously extremely important to all of us. It was very difficult to stay secure and 80 percent of the government believes that digital business is moving and progressing far too quickly to properly adapt to the new processes and landscape changes.

In addition, the pandemic made cyber resiliency much more challenging. As you look at those numbers and the challenges the government is currently facing, that’s really where the VariQ acquisition and the commercial side of Capgemini’s cyber group come into play. That’s a major building block for increased efficiency, scalability and agility.”

ExecutiveGov: With zero-trust technology becoming a major focal point moving forward, what can you tell us about the difficulties of implementing zero-trust architectures and focusing on data security?

Sean DuGuay: “Zero-trust has very quickly become a popular buzzword.

Zero Trust is extremely important as stated in the Executive Order from January 2021. As more companies heard or reacted to the executive order, they began to offer zero-trust in-a-box offerings, but you can’t just package zero-trust into a box.

Every government agency is in a different situation in terms of its security and digital transformation efforts. ‘Zero-trust as an offering’ just means that these companies have a way to talk to their customers and understand their challenges to be compliant with the EO.

Working with multiple federal clients has revealed they have decades of technologies all combined with overlapping interdependencies, intertwined like a bowl of spaghetti. If you pull at one and try to fix it, you’ll impact another strand attached. Sometimes, zero-trust can be a thin thread and you need to be careful. Having strong subject matter experts who understand these challenges before they make recommendations is key to a solid offering.

The other issue with untangling all these strands of capability is that it all costs money, resources and time. There’s no such thing as plug-and-play for zero-trust. It doesn’t come in a box.”

ExecutiveGov: With CMMC and other compliance standards changing to push the best business practices for federal contractors and companies, what can you tell us about the challenges of maintaining those standards and making changes to your own policies to remain compliant?

Sean DuGuay: “Capgemini has some of the most impressive people I’ve ever seen who are getting us through the complexities of the CMMC processes, and we’re looking to be one of the first federal contractors to become CMMC certified.  We’ve completed all our internal audits and we’re scheduled for the certification audit this year.

At its core, CMMC is intended to determine the current maturity of an organization’s cybersecurity initiatives. The keyword is maturity, as most companies and government agencies have been reactive instead of proactive over the past few years.

That’s the great thing about our company. Capgemini brings everything together because our capabilities are solid and reliable. We are at the forefront of helping the federal government improve its cybersecurity posture and maintaining the required standards.”

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BlueHalo Lands $1.4B Space Force Contract for Satellite Technological Development; CEO Jonathan Moneymaker Quoted
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BlueHalo Lands $1.4B Space Force Contract for Satellite Technological Development; CEO Jonathan Moneymaker Quoted

BlueHalo has won a $1.4 billion contract from the U.S. Space Force to support and execute the Satellite Communication Augmentation Resource program.

The Arlington, Virginia-based defense and space contractor said Tuesday it will oversee SCAR program activities across the full lifecycle, from preliminary plans through full-scale construction. The SCAR endeavor is positioned to supply an automated, adaptable assembly line of constantly evolving satellites via BlueHalo’s intricate radio-frequency technologies.

“Between the rapid proliferation of new space satellite constellations at a relentless rate and the criticality of the U.S. maintaining its strategic advantage as a Nation in space in the face of advancing adversaries, new technologies had to be brought to bear,” explained Jonathan Moneymaker, CEO of BlueHalo.

Moneymaker, who is a 2022 Wash100 Award recipient, also expressed his admiration for BlueHalo’s team of engineers, scientists and support staff for fostering the company’s Broad Area Deployable Ground terminal enabling Resilient communication (BADGER) that makes the SCAR program possible.

BADGER builds on BlueHalo’s proprietary Multi-band Software Defined Antenna (MSDA) platform, a phased array technology that streamlines mission operations via agile and re-configurable beamforming tiles. BADGER offers a multi-band and actionable ground communications apparatus with the MSDA as its basis.

In order to accomplish the SCAR mission, BlueHalo is set to collaborate with Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, who brings its OpenSpace platform to the table. OpenSpace is a software-powered satellite ground system that realizes scalable deployments in a flexible, cloud-agnostic, virtualized environment. Kratos is receiving a contract award valued at $160 million, tasking the company with software, services and various system components.

The contracts are a function of the Space Rapid Capabilities Office, a direct reporting division of the U.S. Space Force. According to Dan Gillings, sector president of BlueHalo, work will take place primarily at the company’s newly updated Albuquerque, New Mexico facility and participation in the SCAR program will generate 60 new engineering and manufacturing jobs.

BlueHalo’s Space Force contract win follows a series of recent contracts for the company. Earlier this month, it was announced they will furnish the Department of Defense with Titan Counter-Unmanned Aerial System kits. Additionally, in April, BlueHalo received a contract from the U.S. Army to equip the service branch with its laser weapon platform, LOCUST.

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Dawn Meyerriecks to Bring Government, Technology Expertise to ColdQuanta Board; CEO Scott Faris Quoted
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Dawn Meyerriecks to Bring Government, Technology Expertise to ColdQuanta Board; CEO Scott Faris Quoted

Former Central Intelligence Agency and NASA executive Dawn Meyerriecks has been elected to the board of directors of quantum technology company ColdQuanta.

In her new advisory role, Meyerriecks will leverage a three-decade career developing new products and services at major government and technology organizations, the Boulder, Colorado-based company said Tuesday.

“Dawn is a respected leader who brings a wealth of knowledge and global expertise to help us apply our cold atom technical advances to solve some of the world’s most complex problems,” said Scott Faris, CEO of ColdQuanta.

Meyerriecks began her career as a technical consultant at the multidisciplinary corporation TRW, which has since become a part of Northrop Grumman. She then worked for a decade and a half in NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory as a senior engineer and project manager and subsequently held the positions of chief technology officer of the Defense Information Systems Agency and technical director for the Joint Interoperability and Engineering Organization.

While at DISA, Meyerriecks spearheaded the chartering and administration of a new global information grid enterprise services organization, a communications architecture that protects, handles and directs Department of Defense information and data.

The executive has additionally worked in senior-level roles at AOL and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Her most recent position was the deputy director of the CIA for science and technology, wherein she presided over an international team of thousands to offer technical, programmatic, operational and policy services. She was also responsible for the first restructure in nearly 60 years in order to align mission and intelligence collection needs while attuning standards to societal and health issues.

Regarding her new board residence, Meyerriecks shared, “I’m hopeful that my expertise and perspective will help the company further its goal of uniting the world’s systems with its transformative quantum technology.”

Meyerriecks is the eighth member of the ColdQuanta board. Her appointment follows the hire of Faris as CEO, which came concurrently with the company’s business reorganization in September.

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Devo Technology Drives New Contracts, Public Sector Partnerships; GM Dan Wilbricht Quoted
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Devo Technology Drives New Contracts, Public Sector Partnerships; GM Dan Wilbricht Quoted

Devo Technology announced on Monday that since the cloud-native logging and security analytics company was designed as “In-Progress” for full authorization through the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) back in February, Devo has continued to drive its momentum in other critical areas of public sector business.

Most notably, Devo Technology has been accepted as a partner in the Public Sector Program (PSP) with Amazon Web Services, which has increased the collaboration and resources for Devo to deliver end solutions that help customers solve their problems.

Devo Technology has also partnered with DLT to provide streamlined access to emerging technology solutions through existing government contract vehicles. In addition, Devo also increased its ability to sell its products and solutions to government entities through new availability with the General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule.

The company has also achieved “Supplier Status” with OMNIA Partners and integrated the Devo platform to help AFS collect all log traffic and correlate and set up alerts to monitor and look for any suspicious behavior in core sets of network devices and key systems.

“The Devo Platform was built for those on the front lines of defending U.S. cyber posture in a radically expanding risk landscape,” Dan Wilbricht, Public Sector GM at Devo, said following the FedRAMP announcement back in Feb. 2022.

“Devo’s dedication to achieving full FedRAMP authorization acknowledges the importance of providing federal agencies the best cybersecurity and logging solutions possible, so they can have insight into and defend their networks and focus on continuing to support the American people,” Wilbricht explained.

For the company’s growth, Devo Technology also had a 200 percent increase in personnel to grow the company’s public sector team significantly across direct and channel sales, solution engineering and marketing. The Devo Platform continues to provide exceptional quality services to ensure absolute commitment for the company’s customers in the public sector.

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FBI Names Robert Brown as Executive Assistant Director of S&T Branch
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FBI Names Robert Brown as Executive Assistant Director of S&T Branch

Robert Brown was tapped by FBI Director Christopher Wray to serve as the executive assistant director of the Science and Technology Branch, responsible for leading the Criminal Justice Information Services, Laboratory and Operational Technology divisions at the bureau’s headquarters in Washington.

FBI said Monday Brown was the assistant director of the operational technology unit that works to ensure continued bureau operations through technology-based offerings.

Brown’s career includes time serving as a special agent assigned to the Miami Field Office in the early 2000s and as a supervisory special agent with the Transfer Unit in the Human Resources Division at Headquarters in 2009. From there, he moved to the Charlotte Field Office in North Carolina to oversee the Raleigh Resident Agency.

In 2014, Brown took charge of the Columbia Field Office in South Carolina as an assistant special agent. His other assignments in the succeeding years were with the Criminal Investigative Division at HQ, the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate and the Louisville Field Office.

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NGA Unveils Public Availability of Human Geography Population Datasets; Roger Marin Quoted
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NGA Unveils Public Availability of Human Geography Population Datasets; Roger Marin Quoted

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has opened its human geography population datasets to the public to assist in emergency response operations, human health and security risk assessment and other humanitarian activities.

NGA said Monday it collaborated with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to enable the public availability of its LandScan Global and LandScan High-Definition data sets to enhance data sharing between the government and the public.

LandScan Global shows the distribution of population at about 1 km resolution over an average 24-hour period while LandScan HD provides population distribution at 90 m resolution for select areas worldwide.

Both datasets use land use and infrastructure data from various sources and incorporate occupancy estimates from ORNL’s population density tables project.

“Understanding the geographic distribution of populations is critically important, both in times of crisis and in the development of informed strategies for the future,” said Roger Marin, director of the office of geography at NGA.

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Northrop-Built Autonomous Helicopter Deployed Aboard Navy’s USS Jackson
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Northrop-Built Autonomous Helicopter Deployed Aboard Navy’s USS Jackson

The U.S. Navy has deployed a Northrop Grumman-built Fire Scout autonomous helicopter aboard an Independence-class littoral combat ship to support maritime intelligence, reconnaissance, surveillance and targeting missions in the Indo-Pacific area.

The MQ-8C on USS Jackson marks the unmanned aircraft system’s first operational deployment to the region, Northrop said Monday.

Lance Eischeid, director of the company’s Fire Scout program, said the helicopter has helped the service branch perform counter-narcotic operations in the first deployment to the Caribbean Sea.

“While Fire Scout will still be active on remaining littoral combat ships, the system is being built into the Constellation-class frigate design, most notably the USS Constellation (FFG-62), as well as other ship classes,” said Capt. Dennis Monagle, a program manager at Naval Air Systems Command.

The Navy plans to utilize the runway-independent aircraft platform on guided-missile frigates and for shore operations as part of the branch’s Expeditionary Advance Base Operations vision.

Northrop envisions its MQ-8C performing other roles such as cargo transportation, anti-submarine warfare and mine countermeasures.

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Gregory Pollock: DOD Looks at Climate Change Challenges Via Scenario Planning, War Games
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Gregory Pollock: DOD Looks at Climate Change Challenges Via Scenario Planning, War Games

Gregory Pollock, principal director for Arctic and global resilience at the Department of Defense, said DOD is considering climate change through war games and scenario planning and is working with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, U.S. Africa Command and U.S. Southern Command to address climate challenges, DOD News reported Monday.

“[It’s] really who adapts to this changing environment best that’s going to win in strategic competition, but we need to get ourselves organized to think about what the commodities of real significance [are, and their] real relevance for the future,” Pollock said Thursday during a virtual panel.

Pollock discussed DOD’s efforts to include climate change considerations in the budget, National Defense Strategy and other strategic documents.

“This is a real recognition on behalf of the department of the ways in which climate change is fundamentally altering the strategic context in which the joint force operates,” Pollock said.

“And we must adapt to those changing circumstances and adapt better and faster than do our competitors,” he added.

Joseph Bryan, senior adviser for climate and chief sustainability officer, also joined Pollock during the panel discussion and talked about how climate change shapes DOD’s capability and relationship with allies and competitors.

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SBA’s Virtual Expo to Feature Tech Startup Presentations; Isabella Casillas Guzman Quoted
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SBA’s Virtual Expo to Feature Tech Startup Presentations; Isabella Casillas Guzman Quoted

Twelve companies have won the opportunity to present at the Small Business Administration’s inaugural virtual exposition for projects funded by the agency’s research and technology transfer programs.

America’s Seed Fund Startup Expo will feature presentations on entrepreneurial ventures in the areas of agricultural technology, climate and energy, national security and supply chain resiliency, SBA said Monday.

The federal government awards early-stage R&D funds through the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs.

“With the launch of America’s Seed Fund Expo, we will showcase exceptional entrepreneurs who have leveraged federal research and development funding through the SBIR Program in key industries and connect them to resources to advance their game-changing innovations right here in America,” said Isabella Casillas Guzman, administrator of SBA.

Applicants for the competition included businesses with minority-owned, women-owned, small disadvantaged and HUBZone designations.

The winning startup companies are:

  • General Probiotics
  • Nucleic Sensing Systems
  • Shellfish Solutions, doing business as Blue Trace
  • Amorphic Tech
  • FGC Plasma Solutions
  • Hydroplane
  • BadVR
  • Enduralock
  • Psyonic
  • Chromatic 3D Materials
  • Delta Development Team
  • Re:3D
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Brett Holmgren: State Department’s Intell Branch to Form Open Source Coordination Office
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Brett Holmgren: State Department’s Intell Branch to Form Open Source Coordination Office

Brett Holmgren, assistant secretary for intelligence and research at the State Department, said the bureau of intelligence and analysis will establish a new office that will act as a “central point of contact” for training, policy and tradecraft about open source intelligence, Federal News Network reported Monday.

The Strategic Open Source Coordination Office will also test and buy open source tools, deliver them abroad and oversee contracts.

“Being able to leverage open source in a fundamentally different way than we’ve done so to date will allow us to share our best insights at the unclassified, FOUO, or the sensitive but unclassified level, on new platforms to our diplomats overseas,” Holmgren said on FNN’s Inside the IC program.

The new office is part of the bureau’s INR 2025 strategic plan that has five pillars, including elevating strategic analysis and redefining intelligence support to diplomacy.

Holmgren said the INR 2025 strategy also prioritizes digital modernization and diversity in recruitment efforts.

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