AUSA Changes Chiefs. After 18 years in the position, retired Gen. Gordon Sullivan this week issued his last message as chief executive of the Association of the U.S. Army. “I want to say thanks to all the volunteers who over the last 18 years have worked on behalf of AUSA, and on behalf of our Army, its soldiers and families, the dedicated civilian workforce and industry supporters and our Army communities. We are a better association as a result of the love and respect you’ve shown for America’s Army,” Sullivan says.
… AUSA Award. The association says it will bestow its highest professional award, the George Catlett Marshall Medal, on Sullivan to mark his decades of service to the Army and the nation. Recently installed AUSA President and CEO, retired Gen. Carter F. Ham says, “It is my distinct privilege to announce in my very first statement as AUSA president that Gen. Sullivan is receiving our highest award. I can think of no one more deserving of this honor, which recognizes distinguished lifetime service to our nation. Through his 36 years of service in the Army and his more than 18 years heading the Association of the U.S. Army, General Sullivan has been deeply devoted to his beloved Army and to the betterment of our nation.” The award will be presented by AUSA’s council of trustees on Oct. 5 at the Marshall Dinner on the final day of the Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C.
Army Survey. The Center for Strategic and International Studies is launching a study on the future of Army modernization to provide recommendations for how the service can “maximize the utility of its modernization efforts in an era of limited budgets.” As part of that project, CSIS has created a public survey to gauge opinions on the threats, challenges, and opportunities for Army modernization in the near term (2016-2021) and the mid to far-term (2022-2030+). The survey can be accessed at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CSISArmyMod and is anonymous. The survey will remain open through midnight July 13.
Iceland Agreement. Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work and Icelandic Minister for Foreign Affairs Lilja Alfreðsdóttir signed a joint declaration between the U.S. Department of Defense and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Iceland to facilitate future cooperation. Both parties agree that the United States and Iceland will retain a resilient defense plan for Iceland, maintain reliable arrangements for timely and effective communications in times of emergency, continue senior-level and expert-level bilateral discussions, and explore additional options for increased cooperation. The United States also reaffirmed its 65-year commitment to the defense of Iceland, while Iceland agrees to continue allowing the United States and NATO to use Icelandic facilities in order to reinforce mutual security.
Power Packed. General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) successfully demonstrated pulsed power capacitors with an energy content of more than 415 kilojoules (kJ), breaking by more than 20 percent a previous record for capacitor energy content established by the company. The development will help progress development of operationally feasible electromagnetic railguns. “This represents what we consider a significant, world-record-breaking milestone in the development of higher energy density capacitors,” says Nick Bucci, vice president of Missile Defense and Space Systems at GA-EMS.
DoD Reform. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has reiterated his support for more cross-functional teams at the Department of Defense, saying such joint task forces would help DoD act more quickly. “We must face the uncomfortable fact that, too often, in too many cases, our enemies are getting the better of us,” the chairman of the SASC said at a recent hearing. “The problem, too often, is that we are simply too slow—too slow to adapt to changing circumstances, too slow to gain the initiative and maintain it, too slow to innovate, and too slow to do the vital work of strategic integration: marshaling the different functional elements of our defense organization to advance unified strategies, and implementing them effectively.” A proposal in the Senate version of the fiscal year 2017 defense authorization bill would create six cross-functional teams to address high-priority missions.
AETP Contracts. The Air Force on June 30 awarded General Electric and Pratt & Whitney contracts for the Adaptive Engine Transition Program (AETP), according to a Defense Department statement. General Electric received a $919 million cost-plus-incentive-fee contract for designing, fabricating, integrating and testing multiple complete, flight-weight, centerline 45,000 pound thrust turbofan adaptive engines. The total value of the contract, including a priced option, is $1 billion. Pratt & Whitney received a $873 million cost-plus-incentive-fee contract for the same work. The total value of Pratt & Whitney’s contract, with option, is also $1 billion. Work is expected to wrap up by Sept. 30, 2021. The awards are the result of a non-competitive acquisition. Pratt & Whitney is a division of United Technologies Corp.
DLA Award. The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) on June 30 awarded Lockheed Martin a fixed-price with redetermination contract worth as much as $1.8 billion for consumable and depot level repairables for various weapon systems, according to a DoD statement. This is a five-year base contract with one-five year option period. June 29, 2022, is the performance completion date. The contract was sole-sourced.
Alaska Aerospace. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) on June 30 awarded Alaska Aerospace a $80 million indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) contract to provide launch facility and range support services, according to a DoD statement. Work will be performed at Pacific Spaceport Complex-Alaska in Kodiak, Alaska, and is expected to complete in July 2022. MDA spokeswoman Lea Garton says the contract is for testing of elements of the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS).
Blue Origin. Blue Origin has broken ground on its orbital vehicle manufacturing site near Kennedy Space Center, Fla., according to a company statement. The 750,000 square foot rocket factor is “custom-built” from the ground up to accommodate manufacturing, processing, integration and testing. The facility will host large scale friction stir welding and automated composite processing equipment. All of the launch vehicles will be manufactured in this facility except for the engines. Initial BE-4 engine production will occur in the company’s Kent, Wash., facility while it conducts a site selection process later this year for a larger engine production facility. The orbital vehicle manufacturing site should be completed by December 2017.
SNC-UNOOSA. Sierra Nevada and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) signed a memo of understanding (MoU) toward defining one or more Dream Chaser missions that will host payloads from member countries, according to a company statement. Under the agreement, the two parties will work with member countries to develop an interface control document and payload hosting guide to allow payloads developed by participating countries to be hosted and operated on dedicated mission.
Aerospace Corp. The Aerospace Corp. elected Virgin Galactic President Steve Isakowitz as president effective Aug. 1, according to a company statement. Isakowitz will replace Wanda Austin as president and CEO on Oct. 1. Isakowitz’s selection was a unanimous decision by the board and its selection committee, which was chaired by former Air Force secretary Michael Donley. Isakowitz served as Virgin Galactic president from 2016 to 2016 and as its CTO from 2011 to 2013.
Palantir Lawsuit. Palantir is suing the Army in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims on June 30 over its Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS-A). Palantir is asking the court to set aside as unlawful a procurement solicitation that is supposed to seek a solution that satisfies the requirements of DCGS. Palantir is arguing the Army’s solicitation for DCGS solutions makes it “impossible” for Palantir to compete for the new DCGS contract.
Non-Combat Casualties. The Pentagon provides daily public tallies of strikes in Iraq and Syria, what they destroyed and how many Islamic State militants were likely killed. Information on airstrikes outside the active war zones in which the U.S. military operates is much harder to come by. On Friday, directed by the Obama administration, the director of national intelligence released a summary of U.S. counterterrorism strikes outside “areas of active hostilities,” and the number of resulting combatant and non-combatant deaths. There were a total 473 strikes against terrorist targets outside active war zones between Jan. 20, 2009 and Dec. 31, 2015, according to the DNI information. Those strikes reportedly killed between 2,372 and 2,581 combatants. “Areas of active hostilities” currently include Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Non-combatants are individuals who may not be made the object of attack under applicable international law. The term “non-combatant” does not include an individual who is part of a belligerent party to an armed conflict, an individual who is taking a direct part in hostilities, or an individual who is targetable in the exercise of U.S. national self-defense. Males of military age may be non-combatants; it is not the case that all military-aged males in the vicinity of a target are deemed to be combatants.
Cyber Jihad. The Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology last week issued a 47-bage report saying Cyber Jihad is underway and will “grow and hyper-evolve.” The report says, “This new malicious actor is consumed with the religious extremism of the crusades and armed with a full arsenal of technological weaponry that can bring an attack directly to the doorstep of every organization, man, woman and child in the United States and Europe.” Cyber Jihadists are exploiting social media to attract “social outcasts” and “religious zealots” from the “American Midwest to the streets of Paris and London,” it says.
…Cyber Pearl Harbor. The big “Cyber Pearl Harbor” that legislators and authorities have warned about for years already occurred with last year’s hack of personnel records maintained by Office of Personnel Management networks, says the June 29 report, The Anatomy of Cyber-Jihad. “The devastation to our counter intelligence, general population and federal landscape as a whole is so profound that the damage of this breach has yet to be fully calculated,” the report says. “Compounded by the Anthem breach, over 100 million Americans have their most intimate personal details in the hands of a foreign APT (advanced persistent threat), most likely controlled by China, for multi-generational exploitation, blackmail and surveillance.”
Interim CFO. Science Applications International Corp. has appointed Corporate Controller Maria Bishop as its interim chief financial officer (CFO), effective July 1, while the company searches for a new finance chief in the wake of John Hartley’s departure. Bishop has worked for SAIC since 1998 and been a member of the corporate finance team for 10 years. As controller Bishop manages financial reporting, internal controls, government compliance, corporate tax, and financial planning and analysis. Hartley, who announced his resignation in March, will remain with SAIC until October to help with the transition.
Separation. Lightweight metals company Alcoa says it is splitting into two separate publicly-traded companies, with its precision engineering and advanced manufacturing to trade under the name Arconic. Arconic will provide multi-material solutions to growth markets including aerospace structures, jet engines, automatic and commercial transportation. Alcoa Corporation will be an upstream company in Bauxite, Alumina, Aluminum, Cast Products and Energy and serve the North American packaging market. The separation is on track to be completed this year.
Exemplary STEM Commitment. The Department of Homeland Security has launched a pilot program for its employees to get on the job training in the private sector in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and cyber security-related fields. The hands-on-training program, dubbed Exemplar, is for GS-11 through GS-15 employees with training details not to exceed six months. Current training opportunities on the DHS Exemplar website include cyber security, engineering, multi-hazard mitigation and infrastructure investment, physical and cyber security integration, research and development, and scientific research. Participating private sector entities must by a United States-based corporation.
Army IT Contract. The U.S. Army awarded IBM a $13.5 million contract modification to continue information technology services and support for Program Executive Office Enterprise Information System Product Lead-Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Enterprise Systems and Services. The full modification amount is obligated at award time in Fiscal 2016 Army operations and maintenance funds. Contract work will be performed in Reston, Va., with an estimated completion date of Oct. 28, 2016. The contracting activity is Army Contracting Command at Picatinny Arsenal, N.J.
UTX VP and CIO. United Technologies Corp. (UTC) has appointed Vince Campisi as senior vice president of digital and Chief Information Officer (CIO) effective June 27. Campisi succeeds Nancy Davis who will retire at the end of 2016 to conclude a 37-year career at UTC. Campisi will be responsible for the strategic direction of UTC’s global information technology (IT) operations, including the continued implementation of UTC’s digital strategies. Campisi previously served as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) for GE Digital, where he leads cybersecurity, business, and cloud operations.
NJ CTO. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) established the position of Chief Technology Officer and named David Weinstein to the position. Weinstein will oversee the New Jersey Office of Information Technology (OIT) and be responsible for developing and implementing strategic policies, information security standards, and requirements for all state departments and agencies. Weinstein will serve as a cabinet member and report directly to the governor. Weinstein previously served as New Jersey’s first Cyber Adviser with the Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness and currently serves as the state’s Chief Information Security Officer (CISO).
Army Cyber Contract. The U.S. Army awarded STG Inc. a $34.5 million contract modification for information technology services and support requirements for the 2nd Regional Cyber Center Western Hemisphere, based out of Ft. Huachuca, Ariz. Fiscal 2016 operations funds of over $4 million is obligated at award time. The work has an estimated completion date of June 30, 2017. The contracting activity is Army Contracting Command, Ft. Huachuca, Ariz.
Software Army Contract. The U.S. Army awarded Mythics Inc. a $10.2 million modification to an incrementally funded contract for Oracle software maintenance for the Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems and Army Material Command. Army fiscal 2016 operations and maintenance plus other procurement funds of $8.6 million are obligated at award time. The contract work will be performed at Ft. Belvoir, Va., with an estimated completion date of Dec. 31, 2016.
Michigan Cyber Range Hubs. Merit Network, a non-profit organization governed by Michigan’s public universities, selected Pinckney Community High School and Wayne State University to establish new Cyber Range Hubs. The hubs are facilities that will contain a computing and networking infrastructure to provide certification courses, cybersecurity training exercises, and product hardening/testing through a direct connection to the Michigan Cyber Range. Merit is a sub-recipient of an Advance Michigan Defense Collaborative (AMDC) grant to establish the Cyber Range Hubs and conducted a request for proposals process to select two new locations within a 13-county region in Southeast Michigan. The new ranges are expected to operational by fall 2016.
BAH Contract. The U.S. Army awarded Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. an $11.5 million modification to a contract for systems engineering and technical assistance to the Program Executive Office Enterprise information Systems Project Management Office Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army. Fiscal 2016 research, development, testing, and evaluation (RDT&E) funds of the full amount are obligated at award time. Work is to be performed in McLean, Va., and has an estimated completion date of Dec. 31, 2016. The contracting activity is Army Contracting Command at Picatinny Arsenal, N.J.
FireEye Cyber Coalition. Exabeam, a user and identity behavior analytics company, is joining the FireEye Cyber Security Coalition (CSC). Joint customers will benefit from enhanced threat detection and faster investigation and response, the company says. Exabeam uses machine learning to create a baseline of normal behavior for each employee/contractor on a corporate network then compares the activity to a baseline to determine if certain actions are risky. The product displays a timeline showing all activities and their associated risk across switched devices, accounts, and IP addresses.
AF Cyber Contract. The U.S. Air Force awarded Arctic Slope Mission Services LLC an over $8 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for engineering services. The contract provides for cyber security and interoperability engineering support for assistance with requirements to meet, develop, test, and certify information systems delivered under Foreign Military Sales (FMS) cases. The maximum contract value for the base period and six one-month option periods raises the value to nearly $10 million. This award is a result of a sole-source acquisition. FMS funding of $1.7 million is obligated at award time. Work will be performed at Hanscom AFB, Mass., with an expected completion date of June 30, 2019.
DoD CIO Contract. The Washington Headquarters Service awarded Koniag Information Security Services a modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract for almost $8 million to provide the Defense Department’s Office of the Chief information Officer (DoD CIO) with an enduring data analytics environment. The contracted work allows repeatable, verifiable analytics based on the Department’s Business Mission Area (BMA) on the available IT enterprise services. Contract performance will take place in Arlington, Va., with an expected completion date of Jan. 5, 2018.
Fleet Cyber Confirmation. The U.S. Senate confirmed Rear Adm, Michael Gilday as the new commander of the Navy’s 20th Fleet/Fleet Cyber Command and promotion to vice admiral. Originally nominated June 6 to succeed Vice Adm. Jan Tighe, he previously served as director of operation/J-3 at U.S. Cyber Command. Tighe was confirmed on May 26 as Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare.