FCW Insider: Nov. 13

Will Roper, the Air Force's acquisition head, is planning a series of events dubbed "connect-a-thons" that look to virtually match technologies with the service's aircraft platforms. Lauren C. Williams has more.

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency CTO Mark Munselltalked to Lauren about about talent shortages and how NGA is working to get more unclassified data.

Alan Thomas, the former commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service, has a new job at an investment firm's cloud and cyber solutions company. Mark Rockwell has the story.

Agencies have to put data center and cloud optimization plans together to come to cohesive solution for computing, several government and industry experts contend. Mark explains.

Quick Hits

*** Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters on Nov. 12 that he was looking to the budget process to "free up billions of dollars" to put money back into warfighting efforts in the fiscal year 2021 budget. "Come January, we're going to start a different approach, where we've got to do much more of a blank-sheet approach."

Esper named the Fourth Estate -- the administrative defense agencies including the Defense Information Services Agency -- as a likely target for cuts, but not the only one.

"It's not just the Fourth Estate," he said. "All of the services need to go through this so we can focus on the National Defense Strategy and….get rid of legacy programs and activities and pivot toward the future."

*** Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee urged two senior officials at the State Department to support career diplomats who are being called to testify in the impeachment hearings being held in the House of Representatives. The letter was addressed to Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan and Undersecretary of State for Management Brian Bulato, but not Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The 10 senators who signed the letter said they excluded Pompeo because "he has failed to stand up for his department's own people, despite their steadfast service to our country."

The letter calls on Sullivan and Bulato "to take all necessary steps to protect [the two officials], and other officials who come before Congress, including addressing any threats to their safety and ensuring they do not suffer any retaliation or reprisals." Signatories to the letter include committee ranking member Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), former vice presidential nominee Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and presidential hopeful Cory Booker (D-N.J.).

*** Anjelica Dortch is leaving the Office of Management and Budget to take an executive post at IBM. Dortch, a senior policy advisor at OMB, won a 2018 Rising Star award in part for her work planning the first governmentwide IT and cybersecurity hiring fair. Dortch announced the news on LinkedIn.

*** The Department of Homeland Security's Kevin Cox, DOD's Katherine Arrington, the Interior Department's Benjamin Liberty and more than a dozen other speakers will be at FCW's CDM Summit tomorrow. Click here to register for this Washington, D.C., event, or here for the live simulcast.