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Stephen Gray: New Monitoring Capabilities Help USAF Manage Supply Chain Threats
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Stephen Gray: New Monitoring Capabilities Help USAF Manage Supply Chain Threats

A top U.S. Air Force sustainment official revealed that the service adopted capabilities for tracking defense components suppliers in a bid to manage supply chain risks, Federal News Network reported Wednesday.

According to Stephen Gray, director of the 448th Supply Chain Wing, said the ability to monitor its supply chain will enable the Air Force to find out the type and location of possible disruptions on its distribution network.

Speaking on the Federal Insights: Supply Chain program, Gray pointed out that service leaders can use such insights in deciding which high-risk suppliers and commodities to prioritize whenever the need arises.

Despite the investments, the official noted that the Air Force still faces the threat of inflated prices of products due to pandemic-caused logistics issues, which he conceded would strain the military’s budget.

“We just think from our businesses readiness perspective and being prepared for disruptions, that we need to keep our eye on the ball.” said Gray. “We think the lessons learned that we found in the COVID-19 pandemic will serve us well for the next one.”

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Washington State Secretary Kim Wyman to Lead CISA’s Election Security Efforts
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Washington State Secretary Kim Wyman to Lead CISA’s Election Security Efforts

Kim Wyman, Washington’s secretary of state, has been appointed to serve as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s senior election security lead. She will work with election officials across the U.S. to protect the country’s election infrastructure, CISA said Tuesday.

“I am honored to be able to share nearly three decades of experience and expertise to support CISA’s efforts to safeguard our election systems from cyber-attacks and enhance the public’s confidence in our elections,” she said.

Wyman became Washington’s 15th secretary of state in 2012 and prior to that, was the elections director of Thurston County. She oversees corporation filings, state libraries and elections on both state and local levels as Washington’s secretary.

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DOC Announces New Chair, Members of FirstNet Authority Board; Secretary Gina Raimondo Quoted
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DOC Announces New Chair, Members of FirstNet Authority Board; Secretary Gina Raimondo Quoted

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has appointed Stephen Benjamin, mayor Columbia, South Carolina, as the new chairman of the Board of the First Responder Network Authority.

Benjamin joins 10 other newly appointed and reappointed public safety, technology and finance leaders in sitting on the board and ensuring the development of a nationwide public safety broadband network, the Department of Commerce said Tuesday.

To be developed by FirstNet Authority and AT&T, the proposed network is envisioned by DOC to enable communications between first responders and personnel across the federal government during emergency situations.

The new members serving in their first three-year terms are:

  • Benjamin, also vice chair of the Global Parliament of Mayors
  • Alexandra Fernandez Navarro, commissioner of the Puerto Rico Public Service Advisory Group
  • Kristin Graziano, member of the Major Country Sheriffs of America
  • Peter Koutoujian, resident of the Major County Sheriffs in America
  • Warren Mickens, retired vice president of CenturyLink Communications
  • Sylvia Moir, retired police chief of the Tempe Police Department in Arizona
  • Jocelyn Moore, member of the DraftKings board of directors

Meanwhile, the other leaders reappointed for their second terms are:

  • Richard Carrizzo, chief of the Southern Platte Fire Protection District in Kansas City, Missouri
  • Brian Crawford, executive vice president and chief administrative officer of Willis-Knighton Health System
  • Billy Hewes, mayor of Gulfport, Mississippi
  • Paul Patrick, a division director at the Utah Department of Health

 

“Their backgrounds and experience reflect the diversity of FirstNet network users and will enable the Board to look to the future for investment opportunities and sound financial management to maintain the only public-private nationwide public safety broadband network,” explained Raimondo.

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Gen. Mark Milley on China’s Hypersonic Weapons Test
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Gen. Mark Milley on China’s Hypersonic Weapons Test

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a four-time Wash100 Award winner, said China’s test of a hypersonic weapons technology in August is “very concerning,” The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

“I don’t know if it’s quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it’s very close to that,” Milley said in a television interview that aired Wednesday. “It has all of our attention.”

China is advancing the development of nuclear weapons capabilities, ballistic missile submarines and new missile silos. Milley added that the East Asian country is also “expanding rapidly” across land, air, maritime, space and cyberspace domains.

“We’re in one of the most significant changes in what I call the ‘character of war,’” Milley said. “We’re going to have to adjust our military going forward.”

He noted that the U.S. is also pursuing development and experimentation work on hypersonics, robotics and artificial intelligence, among other technologies.

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Amentum Team Awarded $21B Savannah River Site Integrated Mission Completion Contract; CEO John Vollmer Quoted
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Amentum Team Awarded $21B Savannah River Site Integrated Mission Completion Contract; CEO John Vollmer Quoted
John Vollmer
John Vollmer, CEO of Amentum

Amentum, a leading contractor of the Department of Energy (DOE), announced on Thursday that Savannah River Mission Completion (SRMC), a joint venture team comprised of Amentum, BWXT Technical Services Group, Fluor Federal Services, DBD and Wesworks, has been awarded a potential ten-year, $21 billion single-award Master Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract.

“We are pleased to have been awarded this contract. Amentum and our heritage companies have a long history of supporting the DOE’s environmental management programs and have managed numerous projects at the Savannah River Site,” said John Vollmer, CEO of Amentum and a six-time Wash100 Award recipient.

SRMC will be responsible for liquid waste operations, the closure of waste tanks, the operation of the Savannah River Site’s Defense Waste Processing Facility, the Salt Waste Processing Facility and associated production and disposal facilities.

“We look forward to working with our DOE client, partners, regulators, and community stakeholders to further advance the Department of Energy’s mission of safe cleanup of legacy liquid waste at the Savannah River Site,” Vollmer added.

The Savannah River Site is 310 square miles located near Aiken, S.C. on the Savannah River bordering South Carolina and Georgia.

“Amentum and our partners have a tremendous track record treating waste and managing nuclear operations around the DOE complex,” said Mark Whitney, president of Amentum’s Nuclear & Environment Business Unit. “We are honored to be a part of this team and begin operations under this new contract”.

This announcement comes only a day after the company announced that United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR), a joint venture among Amentum, Jacobs and Honeywell, was awarded a ten-year, $8.3 billion IDIQ Oak Ridge Reservation Cleanup contract.

About Amentum

Amentum is a premier global technical and engineering services partner supporting critical programs of national significance across defense, security, intelligence, energy, and environment. We draw from a century-old heritage of operational excellence, mission focus, and successful execution underpinned by a strong culture of safety and ethics.

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Army Team to Gather, Analyze Tech Experiment Data From Project Convergence
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Army Team to Gather, Analyze Tech Experiment Data From Project Convergence

The U.S. Army has assembled a team that will gather and analyze data from the next iteration of the branch’s annual experiment campaign to assess modern defense technologies. 

The Data Collection and Analysis Team for Project Convergence 21 aims to generate information for military leaders to plan future technology development and modernization efforts, the Army said Tuesday. 

DC&A members, which come from Army Futures Command and other service components, consider their work as key to determining whether systems that are part of PC21 demonstrations worked as intended or not. 

In preparation for the event, the group’s experiment evaluators completed virtual, on-site and on-the-job observer-analyst training to familiarize themselves with the procedures and objectives of their data-related responsibilities. 

The nearly 300 DC&A staff members are based at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona and White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

Gen. John “Mike” Murray, head of Army Futures Command and two-time Wash100 Award winner, said at the Potomac Officers Club’s Aug. 16 virtual forum that PC21 data could help military personnel explore ways to manage the future Joint All-Domain Command and Control process.

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INSA Report Offers Recommendations for Controlled Unclassified Information Program
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INSA Report Offers Recommendations for Controlled Unclassified Information Program

The Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) has issued a new report that outlines the areas of concern when it comes to implementing the Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) and lists eight recommendations to improve and achieve the CUI program’s goals. 

INSA said Monday the report found that CUI requirements, adoption and implementation rules differ across agencies and that CUI rules do not clearly address ownership of proprietary information and do not effectively safeguard legacy CUI data.

The paper also uncovered issues with the program’s central management process to address inconsistent requirements and implementation across government.

“At the same time, onerous and inconsistent requirements burden government contractors with the need to establish multiple information management and security practices – all while imposing consequences for failing to adhere to unclear guidance or to protect information whose status can change without warning,” the report’s conclusion reads.

Some of the report’s recommendations are simplifying the CUI program; clarifying the impact of CUI designation on proprietary information; assessing the effectiveness of CUI controls amid current cyber threats; codifying how CUI implementation costs will be calculated for industry bidding and compensation; and revising CUI rules to clarify handling of legacy-marked materials.

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DARPA-NGA-Air Force Partnership Moves Forward With Optical Tech Transition; Rohith Chandrasekar Quoted
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DARPA-NGA-Air Force Partnership Moves Forward With Optical Tech Transition; Rohith Chandrasekar Quoted

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) have begun transitioning metamaterials-based optical technology to multiple projects under the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Seedlings for Disruptive Capabilities Program.

AFRL will implement components developed through DARPA’s Extreme Optics and Imaging program in efforts to develop an unmanned combat aerial vehicle, an electro-optic/infrared sensor and a tube-launched unmanned air system, the agency said Tuesday.

The program commenced in 2016 and sought new engineered optical materials that could manipulate light beyond the laws of reflection and refraction.

DARPA then enlisted NGA’s research directorate in 2018 to incorporate metaoptics concepts into optical UAS hardware as part of NGA-backed projects at AFRL, the Naval Research Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories.

“Through the NGA effort, AFRL developed unique capabilities using EXTREME technologies to characterize the optical performance of novel meta-optics and developed new insights into how they could be integrated into a full imaging system,” said Rohith Chandrasekar, program manager in DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office.

The laboratory will use the novel optical system to update EO/IR systems on the experimental XQ-58 Valkyrie UCAS and the Air Launched Off-Board Operations platform.

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GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks Discusses the AI Technology Revolution With Deborah Westphal
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GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks Discusses the AI Technology Revolution With Deborah Westphal

GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks Discusses the AI Technology Revolution With Deborah WestphalChuck Brooks, a highly esteemed cybersecurity leader as well as an influential member of Executive Mosaic’s GovCon Expert program, recently published an interview with Deborah Westphal, future-focused leader, management consultant and speaker with 30 years of experience, to discuss the impact that artificial intelligence technology will have on our future.

During the interview on Deborah Westphal’s website, Convergence Conversation: Assessing the Technology Revolution, Chuck Brooks discussed the influence that AI is having on the future of other emerging technologies, managing the bias behind AI capabilities, the challenges AI ethics and many of the other issues surrounding the groundbreaking technology.

Here’s an excerpt from the discussion between Deborah Westphal and GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks detailing his greatest hope for the future of technology:

Chuck Brooks: “My greatest hope is that we’re able to take these amazing technologies that we’re developing and steer them in the right direction for good. All of them have applications that could really benefit us as a civilization if we use them correctly.

We need to do it as a global community. We need to have incentives that keep things in check. We need to educate younger people about the implications of these technologies, and the possible asymmetrical impact on the future.

Everything we’re doing from autonomous cars to the Internet of Things to 3D printing is a science that can have dual purposes. We need to understand the consequences.”

Visit GovConWire.com to read a full compilation of the articles and topics that GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks has written as a part of Executive Mosaic’s program.

GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks Discusses the AI Technology Revolution With Deborah Westphal

You can apply for consideration to become a part of Executive Mosaic’s most exciting program. Contact us today to learn more about becoming a GovCon Expert and visit GovConWire.com to read the latest features on our industry.

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CentralSquare to Support Law Enforcement Mental Health Initiatives; CEO David Zolet Quoted
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CentralSquare to Support Law Enforcement Mental Health Initiatives; CEO David Zolet Quoted

CentralSquare Technologies, in partnership with Caron Treatment Centers, is hosting a webinar series with the National Law Enforcement Memorial and Museum to raise awareness of post-traumatic stress and destigmatize trauma in the law enforcement community.

The presentation, titled Trauma and 9/11: Facing Challenges, Together, will feature one-on-one interviews, stories from figures in the law enforcement community, examples of communal support for first responders affected by loss, and a live panel leading a 9/11-focused discussion on trauma.

“We are proud to partner with Caron and the National Law Enforcement Memorial and Museum to destigmatize the conversation around mental health in the law enforcement and first responder community,” said four-time Wash100 Award winner David Zolet, CEO of CentralSquare. 

Zolet added that law enforcement officers risk their lives daily in their mission to protect the public. He said, “It is critical that they have the mental health resources and support so that they can continue to protect our communities.”

In addition to raising awareness of mental health challenges across the law enforcement and first responder community, the series aims to provide support to those affected by sharing resources and tips from officials who were involved in rescue efforts and directly impacted by 9/11.

The series will be presented in two parts, airing on November 15-17 and November 18th at 8 pm EST.

To learn more, register and watch the Trauma and 9/11: Facing Challenges, Together series, visit the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund website.

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