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Magellan Joins Centene’s Health Care Enterprises for $2.2B; Federal CEO Oscar Montes Quoted
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Magellan Joins Centene’s Health Care Enterprises for $2.2B; Federal CEO Oscar Montes Quoted

Managed health care company Magellan Health has been acquired by Centene Corporation, along with its subsidiary, Magellan Federal, for $2.2 billion.

As a result of the deal, Magellan will be added to the Health Care Enterprises, a cohort of organizations owned by Centene that operate independently. The deal was announced in January 2021 and completed by January 2022.

“Joining with Centene allows us to leverage the scale and strength of Centene, a Fortune 25 company, as we accelerate the introduction of innovative solutions that address the complex care challenges that our federal customers and participants face,” said Oscar Montes, Magellan Federal CEO.

Alongside Magellan, Centene hopes to be able to offer whole-health, integrated healthcare services that cut costs for high-need populations.

In addition, the partnership will focus on meeting behavioral and specialty health needs and crafting differentiated platform capabilities.

Montes was recently the subject of a GovCon Executive Who Cares feature at GovCon Wire. In the interview, Montes discussed Magellan Federal’s participation in the Hidden Helpers Coalition, which gives aid to children and teens who act as caregivers for their military parents.

He also described how the organization’s mission is to educate health care providers about the uniquely challenging experience military children have.

“Here at Magellan Federal, our job is to support behavioral health and resilience of military service members, veterans, civil servants, and their families. As such, the Hidden Helpers initiative directly aligns with our company’s ethos,” added Montes.

Joining forces with Centene will ensure the continuation of these and other outreach efforts by Magellan.

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NCI Secures Prime Spot on $800M U.S. Army TEIS IV Contract; CEO Paul Dillahay Quoted
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NCI Secures Prime Spot on $800M U.S. Army TEIS IV Contract; CEO Paul Dillahay Quoted

NCI Information Systems announced on Thursday that the company has won a prime position on a ten-year, $800 million U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command’s (USAISEC) Total Engineering and Integration Services (TEIS) IV multiple-award, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract from the service branch.

“Our team was honored to be selected again to support the TEIS program and to have the opportunity to continue to serve our Army customers. NCI takes great pride in supporting USAISEC programs, as we’ve done for well over a decade,” said Paul A. Dillahay, president and CEO of NCI, as well as a 2022 Wash100 Award recipient.

Under the contract, NCI will continue to provide USAISEC with engineering and integration services, including cybersecurity at locations around the world. NCI will support work on the TEIS IV contract at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., and at U.S. Army facilities and deployments worldwide.

The TEIS IV contract requires support around the globe at secure locations to provide secure infrastructure, planning, design, development, testing and related services. NCI has a long history of success in supporting the U.S. Army and government in a range of challenging environments and will continue that work under the TEIS IV program.

“We look forward to continuing our outstanding work by providing cutting-edge engineering, cybersecurity and integration services to the Army, including leveraging our Empower AI Platform™, to help them achieve mission success around the world,” Dillahay added.

The TEIS IV is a follow-on to TEIS III, also supported by NCI, and enables the Army to invest in technology and development to ensure command and control operations on a global scale, as well as the security and efficiency of our nation’s warfighters.

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Kathryn Huff Nominated DOE Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy
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Kathryn Huff Nominated DOE Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy

President Joe Biden has nominated Kathryn Huff, principal deputy assistant secretary for the office of nuclear energy at the Department of Energy, to serve as assistant secretary for nuclear energy at DOE.

In May 2021, Huff joined DOE from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she served as assistant professor at the department of nuclear, plasma and radiological engineering, head of the advanced reactors and fuel cycles research group and Blue Waters assistant professor at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

“Dr. Huff has been a trailblazer for her entire career as a leading nuclear scientist, and she brings endless enthusiasm and curiosity to her work,” said DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

“If confirmed, she would continue her groundbreaking work at DOE to advance zero-carbon nuclear energy technologies to tackle the climate crisis and provide affordable, secure, and reliable energy for all Americans,” added Granholm.

Huff previously served as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California in Berkeley within the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium and the Berkeley Institute for Data Science.

She is a member of the American Nuclear Society and a past chair of ANS’ Nuclear Nonproliferation and Policy Division and Fuel Cycle and Waste Management Division.

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Rep. Carolyn Maloney Announces Fair Pricing with Cost Transparency Act
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Rep. Carolyn Maloney Announces Fair Pricing with Cost Transparency Act

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., has issued a discussion draft of a bill that would require contractors to provide uncertified cost information if requested to ensure that the government is paying a fair price on services and products they procure from companies.

The Fair Pricing with Cost Transparency Act “will enable government contracting officers to ensure the government is paying a fair price. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to work with me on this reform,” Maloney, chairwoman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said in a statement published Wednesday.

The proposed legislation would apply to the Department of Defense and other government agencies as well as contracts a year after the measure’s enactment.

The measure would also direct agencies to submit a congressional report on their compliance within 18 months of the bill’s passage.

Maloney co-sponsored the bill with Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., chairman of the House panel’s subcommittee on environment; Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., chairman of the subcommittee on national security; and Jackie Speier, D-Calif.

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DOD May Take Months to Determine 5G Safety Risks to Aircraft; Capt. Patrick Gargan Quoted
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DOD May Take Months to Determine 5G Safety Risks to Aircraft; Capt. Patrick Gargan Quoted

AT&T and Verizon have started rolling out their 5G networks on the C-band spectrum and the U.S. military may take months before it can determine the potential safety risks of such networks to radar altimeters of aircraft, Defense News reported Wednesday.

Tankers, cargo planes and other military aircraft use radar altimeters to measure the distance between the plane and the ground especially when landing in adverse weather conditions. 

Capt. Patrick Gargan, a spokesman for the U.S. Air Force, said the Department of Defense is working with the Federal Aviation Administration on the 5G issue and established a “Joint Interagency FiveG Radar Altimeter Interference” team to help determine 5G networks’ impact on avionics through the development of “quick reaction tests.”

Gargan noted that tests are scheduled to kick off in January, but results from such tests are not expected until late summer of 2022.

He said military services have released bulletins to fleets asking them to warn aircrews of a potential interference. A system is also being set up to facilitate reporting of possible interference.

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Army Needs Industry Expertise for Problem Solving Environment
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Army Needs Industry Expertise for Problem Solving Environment

U.S. Army Special Operations seeks contributors to the development of a prototype environment for technology problem solving spanning multiple categories.

USASOC said Tuesday in a SAM.gov notice it asks potential contributors for ideas that can address issues associated with complex data integration.

USASOC’s Enterprise Cloud Management Office envisions a cloud-based environment where multiple, industry-based problem solvers can work together to address issues with the support of an environment manager.

ECMO needs the capability to observe data interoperability while following the Defense Information Systems Agency’s zero trust architecture standards. The office requires running this capability in a hybrid/multi-cloud infrastructure while aligning with modern SecDevOps approaches.

The environment is intended to help the Army address these needs, as well as workforce matters, via commercial cloud services, artificial intelligence and machine learning for informed decision making.

Interested parties may submit participation responses through Feb. 8th.

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DARPA Announces Solicitation for Warfare Strategy Analytics
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DARPA Announces Solicitation for Warfare Strategy Analytics

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency seeks proposals of machine-generated, campaign-scale analytics that can produce warfare strategies, and plans to award $39 million for associated development efforts.

The Strategic Chaos Engine for Planning, Tactics, Experimentation and Resiliency or SCEPTER program seeks analytic engines that can deliver machine-generated strategies for evaluation-based warfare planning, DARPA said Tuesday in a SAM.gov notice.

Work under SCEPTER will run for a 36-month period divided equally into two phases.

Interested parties may submit proposals containing technical and cost details covering only phase one, as DARPA plans to release phase two instructions to participants before the initial phase’s completion.

DARPA expects to accommodate multiple awards under SCEPTER and will provide resources based on proposal quality and fund availability.

The agency will entertain submitted questions through Feb. 14 and will accept proposals through March 11.

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MDA Supports Flight Test of AWS Missile Defense System for Israel; Vice Adm. Jon Hill Quoted
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MDA Supports Flight Test of AWS Missile Defense System for Israel; Vice Adm. Jon Hill Quoted

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency and its Israeli counterpart tested a system designed to intercept missile threats outside of the atmosphere.

The Arrow Weapon System‘s radars detected a target, which was then pursued by a pair of Arrow-3 interceptors in central Israel, MDA said Tuesday when the test took place.

The two countries jointly developed AWS, which will serve as a central part of Israel’s four-layer defense array. The Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile defense systems compose two parts of this array, as the Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 interceptors make up the other half.

“MDA remains committed to assisting the government of Israel in upgrading its missile defense capability against current and emerging threats,” said Vice Adm. Jon Hill, the agency’s director.

Moshe Patel, director of Israel’s missile defense organization, said the AWS team has significantly extended the system’s capabilities since tests in Alaska in 2019.

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AFRL Space Vehicles Director Eric Felt to Lead Space Force Acquisition Team
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AFRL Space Vehicles Director Eric Felt to Lead Space Force Acquisition Team

Col. Eric Felt, director of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate, has been appointed deputy executive director of the U.S. Space Force’s Space Architecture, Science and Technology Directorate.

Felt will oversee the creation of a new Space Force acquisition function and support technology development efforts for the space-focused service branch, the 505th Command and Control Wing said Tuesday.

He will bring to his new role experience leading a directorate focused on space missions; communications; position, navigation and timing; missile warning; space domain awareness; and space control.

He will leave the leadership of the Space Vehicles Directorate at Kirtland Air Force Base New Mexico to Space Rapid Capabilities Office’s Col. Jeremy Raley in July and subsequently head to the Pentagon.

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FedRAMP Updates Authorization Guidance for Cloud Service Providers
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FedRAMP Updates Authorization Guidance for Cloud Service Providers

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program has released updated two-volume guidance aimed at helping cloud service providers understand the process of certification from the cybersecurity risk management program.

Volume 1 of the updated Cloud Service Providers Authorization Playbook provides help in devising a strategy to achieve authorization, while Volume II details ways to develop a security package to speed up the certification review process, FedRAMP said Tuesday.

Various information inside the playbook includes the authorization process, FedRAMP designations, elements of an authorization package and artifact development tips.

According to the program, it expects the document to help not only applicant cloud service providers but also other cybersecurity stakeholders.

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