Pentagon Names First Head of Software Acquisition
An airman prepares to image a laptop at Yokota Air Base, Japan. Matthew Gilmore/U.S. Air Force
The department will have an official guiding all software strategy, regardless of what platform it runs.
In another sign of the Defense Department's desire to change the way it buys and develops software for its weapons, Ellen Lord, the undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, has tapped Jeff Boleng—a former Air Force cybersecurity operations officer who is now the acting chief technology officer at Carnegie Mellon University—as her special assistant for software acquisition.
“Software is the thread that runs through all of our programs,” Lord told reporters Friday morning at the Pentagon. “It is the functional area that I have focused on.”
A Pentagon statement said Boleng will “provide strategic focus and overall policy guidance on all matters of defense software acquisition.” The Pentagon has had troubles with software across a breadth of weapons, everything from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to the ground control stations for new GPS satellites. Boleng starts his new job on Monday.