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Maria Roat Confirmed to Retire as Deputy Federal CIO
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Maria Roat Confirmed to Retire as Deputy Federal CIO

Maria Roat, the U.S. government’s deputy federal chief information officer, will retire from federal service on the last day of March, Federal News Network reported Wednesday.

Roat, who is also a 2020 Wash100 winner, became the federal CIO in May 2020 after serving as the Small Business Administration’s CIO from October 2016.

She became the Federal Risk Authorization Management Program’s first director in 2013 as part of her decade-long tenure with the Department of Homeland Security, where she held a number of executive roles.

Roat’s career also includes work at the Department of Transportation and the U.S. Navy, which she retired from in 2007 after a 25-year service.

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Sen. Gary Peters Presents Cybersecurity Bill for Commercial Satellites
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Sen. Gary Peters Presents Cybersecurity Bill for Commercial Satellites

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., has introduced a bill that would provide cybersecurity resources in support of commercial satellite companies.

The Satellite Cybersecurity Act would task the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to provide recommendations to both satellite owners and operators in the commercial sector, Peters’ office said Wednesday.

CISA may tailor some of these recommendations to small businesses and would additionally release publicly available guidance that companies can use as a reference for satellite-specific cybersecurity.

The bipartisan legislation aims to secure commercial satellites and industrial control systems from cyber threats.

Commercial satellites deliver information to support a variety of everyday activities including navigation, scientific research and agriculture. Industrial control systems allow operators to run critical infrastructure including electrical grids and pipelines.

“It’s clear the government must provide more cybersecurity support to small businesses and other companies that own and operate commercial satellites before it’s too late,” said Peters, who chairs the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

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CGI Lands $34.4M Task Order from US Marines to Grow Inventory Tracking Program
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CGI Lands $34.4M Task Order from US Marines to Grow Inventory Tracking Program

CGI has won a four-year, potential $34.4 million task order from the U.S. Marine Corps to introduce the company’s Marine Corps Platform Integration Center (MCPIC) program to five new Marine bases.

Under the contract, CGI will grow its MCPIC program from three currently active bases to eight, the information technology and business consulting firm announced Thursday.

MCPIC digitally tags equipment via automated identification technology and Internet of Things sensors to allow for a streamlined inventory management.

“We proudly support USMC’s most complex, vital tasks—effectively managing their supply chain in delivering mission-critical equipment and supplies to the right place, at the right time,” said CGI Vice President Chris Hetman.

With CGI’s help, USMC hopes to achieve total asset visibility. The MCPIC program uses passive radio frequency identification to keep tabs on items and equipment on a global level and has already accomplished successful recovery missions.

D.W. Elzie, USMC Deputy Commander, remarked that CGI’s contributions to maintaining inventory tracking and compliance scores have been “critical,” making a “considerable impact on [USMC’s] operational baseline.”

CGI has been working with the USMC on projects for over three decades.

Recently, in January 2022, CGI partnered with the Department of the Interior to develop a modernized data management environment (DME) for the collection and disbursement of federal and Indian royalties.

Like the MCPIC, their DME is an automated system to streamline data.

On the defense side of things, in November 2021, CGI landed a spot on the General Services Administration’s IDIQ ASTRO contract, where it will compete for funding for services related to development, integration, operation and maintenance, as well as robotics.

GSA’s ASTRO contract is sponsored by the Department of Defense.

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2022 Wash100 Voting Begins; Early Vote Results Revealed
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2022 Wash100 Voting Begins; Early Vote Results Revealed

Executive Mosaic, the leading provider in connecting, promoting and branding government and government contracting (GovCon) executives of consequence, announced the winners of the 2022 Wash100 Award on Wednesday to recognize the 100 key executives across the government, industry, military and GovCon sectors who have the most potential to make significant contributions to the federal landscape in the year to come.

With the announcement of the 2022 Wash100 Award recipients, the voting season has officially opened for the GovCon Community to choose who they believe to be the most influential member of our community. Executive Mosaic will accept your votes through April 30th. Cast your ten votes before April 30th to ensure your favorite leaders in our industry are recognized.

After a record-shattering turnout of votes and participation from the GovCon community in 2021, Dr. Stacey Dixon, current principal deputy director of National Intelligence with ODNI, received the most votes in the nine year history of the Wash100 Award and took first place in the Wash100 Vote Standings. It was the first time in the award’s history that a government official secured the top of the standings.

“Following the selection of the industry’s most consequential leaders, Executive Mosaic goes to the community itself to vote on the popularity of those winners,” said Garrettson. ”Over the years, we have seen shifting results but no previous year has seen this volume of participation and such a shift towards the number of winners from government versus GovCon services.”

Early 2022 Wash100 Vote Standings Results

Since Wednesday’s vote opening, BlueHalo CEO Jonathan Moneymaker has surged to the top of the Wash100 Standings and currently has more than double the number of votes as any other winner. Capgemini Government Solutions CEO Doug Lane and CGI Federal President Stephanie Mango sit in second and third place respectively as voting is now underway until April 30th.

Don’t hesitate to get involved in the conversation and jump start your favorite executives in our community to the front of the standings. With your help and your ten votes, we can make this the most competitive and successful year in the history of the Wash100 Award to bring a spotlight to ALL that our elite group of leaders accomplish in the federal landscape.

Visit Wash100.com now to cast your ten votes in the 2022 Wash100 Vote Standings.

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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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