The newly created Integrated Capabilities Command within the U.S. Air Force will begin leading key modernization efforts following its activation.
The ICC, which operates in a provisional status, is expected to reach final operational capability as a new institutional command in 2025, the Air Force said Monday.
It will be responsible for testing competitive operational concepts and aligning capability development efforts to prioritize system-of-systems mission outcomes over functional solutions; developing alternative force structures with variable trade-offs and risks to support funding decisions; generating requirements to outpace threats and integrate across missions; and providing a unified demand signal for science, technology, experimentation and industry.
The ICC will establish detachments co-located with current Air Force operational centers of excellence and employ modernization and sustainment subject matter experts focused on mission integration and operational concept definition, integrated capability development, and force analysis and planning.
“Given the dynamic and challenging threat environment we face today, we know our current processes are not competitive enough,” said Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall, a 2024 Wash100 recipient. “This organization is a key part of the competitive ecosystem we are creating to reoptimize for Great Power Competition. With other DAF organizations, ICC will ensure the Air Force keeps pace with our pacing challenge, China, and acute threat, Russia.”
As of Monday morning, 55 large active wildfires were blazing throughout the West, burning more than 2 million acres and displacing tens of thousands of people. Wildfires have ravaged more than 7 million acres so far this summer—the largest acreage to have burned through early September since 2018, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Now, to get a handle on the growing problem, some governments are turning to AI.
In California, where half a million acres are currently burning, the state is hoping it can use artificial intelligence to prevent fires from burning out of control in the first place. Last year, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, began using ALERTCalifornia’s AI-equipped network of about 1,200 cameras to scan for smoke. ALERTCalifornia, which is managed by the University of California, San Diego, is a public safety program working to understand wildfires and other natural hazards and determine short- and long-term impacts on people and the environment.
When AI spots a potential fire on ALERTCalifornia’s network of cameras, it draws a red bounding box around the affected area and provides a percentage of how certain it is that it found smoke. Trained personnel monitoring the footage vet and confirm the alerts and initiate the appropriate action. Time magazine recognized the collaborative effort as one of the top innovations of 2023.
Early results indicate the technology is working. Used in all 21 Cal Fire dispatch centers statewide for the past year, AI has alerted emergency managers to fires before 911 calls did more than 30% of the time, said Caitlin Scully, ALERTCalifornia’s communications program manager.
Between Sept. 1 and Dec. 31 of last year, responders were dispatched to wildland fires 278 times, with ALERTCalifornia noting 190 of them before or at the same time a 911 call was received, wrote Isaac Sanchez, deputy chief of communications at Cal Fire, in an email to Route Fifty. For at least six fires, no 911 call was ever received and, because of the early detection, all of the fires were kept to less than 1 acre.
“The faster [emergency managers] can get out there to either start immediately fighting the fire or get trucks out there or get personnel or drop people out of a helicopter or get planes on it,” Scully said, “the more likely they are able to reach their goal of keeping those fires [to] within 10 acres before they explode into anything out of control.”
The artificial intelligence was trained on datasets that ALERTCalifornia has collected since it started implementing sensor-equipped cameras more than 20 years ago to monitor for wildfires in San Diego’s Laguna Mountains.
“It’s really twofold—the camera network and then also this great data collection that we have,” Scully said. “It has everything we need in order to learn how to spot smoke or other incidents. We also have a longstanding relationship with Cal Fire, and so by working collaboratively between the UC San Diego scientists and then the Cal Fire experts, we were able to come together and develop this AI tool that is really, really useful to them because they were part of it from the very inception.”
California also is using the program Wildfire Analyst, AI and machine learning algorithms to evaluate fire behavior and risk.
“By leveraging the Wildfire Analyst solution, we can enhance our ability to forecast fire spread, intensity and impact, ultimately improving response strategies and minimizing damage,” said Cal Fire’s Sanchez. “The AI and machine learning algorithms can process and integrate diverse datasets, including weather conditions, topography, fuel characteristics and satellite imagery. These algorithms can identify patterns and correlations that may not be apparent through conventional analysis. For instance, machine learning models can be trained to recognize the influence of specific variables on fire behavior, such as the effect of wind speed on fire spread or the impact of humidity levels on fuel moisture.”
In June at the Fire Weather Testbed in Boulder, Colorado, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service tested its next generation fire system, which can spot fires as small as 1 acre—much like ALERTCalifornia—using AI that analyzes imagery from geostationary satellites in orbit 22,000 miles above Earth.
The alerts are posted to a web dashboard, where a human can confirm the blaze and decide if any action is required.
“It’s really combining the automated satellite detection with data layers that allow decision-makers to sort those detections in ways that are meaningful to the job they have to do, what region they’re working in, what fire weather conditions they’re concerned about, those types of things,” said Mike Pavolonis, manager of the Wildland Fire Program at NOAA. “It will track that fire over time … [to] tell you its intensity, how it’s evolving, a little bit of information about how it’s spreading. The whole idea here is to enable more efficient and effective decision-making.”
The system is still in testing, but the agency plans to make it fully operational in one to two years. The Integrated Warning Team paradigm, which was also part of the testbed, will be the best way to reach state and local partners, Pavolonis added.
The paradigm speeds the exchange of information among National Weather Service meteorologists, state and local land managers and emergency managers, enabling them to issue fire warnings using the same dissemination channels the agency uses to issue tornado warnings. Tests showed that it can take 60 minutes to get a fire warning out without the protocol and an average of nine minutes with it, he said.
Overall, AI is a force-multiplier for wildfire detection and management, Pavolonis said.
“The number of different sources and the volume and environmental data and information that decision-makers are confronted with constantly is enormous, and it’s growing, and humans can’t examine every bit of data as it comes in,” he said. “They need some automation to help them extract the most relevant pieces of data at the right time to make decisions they have to make. That’s really where AI comes in.”
Ryan McCarthy, a 2020 Wash100 awardee, has been appointed as operating partner at AE Industrial Partners.
In this new role, McCarthy will look to leverage his many years of military, government and private sector experience to advance AEI’s global defense unit, the Boca Raton, Florida-based company announced Tuesday.
David Rowe, co-CEO and managing partner at AEI, said, “We are thrilled to welcome Ryan to the firm as we continue to enhance our national security team and focus on building innovative companies that are providing the technologies critical to the nation’s defense.”
Prior to joining AEI, McCarthy served as the 33rd undersecretary of the U.S. Army and was confirmed unanimously as the 24th secretary of the Army in September 2019. He also worked for Lockheed Martin Corporation in sequential vice president roles, overseeing the sustainment, customer services and system integration of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.
McCarthy said he looks forward to working with AEI as the company seeks new national security opportunities.
“Global eventscontinue to illustrate that there is sustained need for innovative technologies to combat complex and evolving threats,” McCarthy stated. “I look forward to partnering with AEI’s portfolio companies operating within the national security space to capitalize on new opportunities and create value.”
McCarthy was also a special assistant to the former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates under Presidents Bush and Obama.
Former federal executives and good government groups on Tuesday warned lawmakers that the reimplementation of Schedule F and subsequent conversion of tens of thousands of federal employees into at-will political appointees could harm the nation’s security posture.
The ex-officials’ testimony came as part of a hearing on Schedule F, the abortive 2020 effort to remove the civil service protections of employees in “policy-related” jobs throughout the federal government that former President Trump has vowed to revive if elected this fall, hosted by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. No Republican spoke at the hearing; James Sherk, an architect of the initiative and an advisor to Trump during his first term, was initially scheduled to appear but ultimately was not listed in a press release announcing the hearing Monday.
“The prior administration sought to replace 50,000 nonpartisan career civil servants with appointees who followed the former president’s politics,” said Committee Chairman Gary Peters, D-Mich. “This change would not just hinder government efficiency, it would also be disastrous for the American people, draining the federal government of institutional knowledge, expertise and continuity. It would slow down services, make us less prepared for when disaster strikes, and erode public trust in government.”
Former leaders at the Defense and Homeland Security departments said that arguments by proponents in favor of Schedule F—that it is too hard to fire poor-performing federal workers and that presidents are stymied by entrenched bureaucrats resistant to their policies—fundamentally misunderstand the role of nonpartisan civil servants.
“There are two essential roles for civil servants, and one is to inform policy,” said Elaine Duke, who served as deputy Homeland secretary and undersecretary for management at the Homeland Security Department under presidents of both parties. “With years of experience, it’s important for civil servants to understand the policy objective and help inform it so that it can be tailored to be most effective. The second role that civil servants have is executing the policy, and that’s tied to the first role, because we learn a lot through execution of the policy like what works and doesn’t work.”
Both Duke and Peter Levine, former deputy chief management officer and acting undersecretary for personnel and readiness at the Defense Department from 2015 through 2017, said they had never seen a career federal employee resist the policy decision of a political appointee.
“The ability of career civil servants to provide open and candid advice without losing their jobs enables political appointees like me to benefit from their knowledge and expertise,” Levine said. “The risk that political appointees will fail to listen to the informed views of career civil servants is far greater than the risk that civil servants will fail to carry out a directive from a political appointee once it has been made.”
Levine said that even if a second Trump administration implements Schedule F but is constrained in how it uses its authority, ultimately it will begin a trend toward an even more unwieldy presidential transition every four or eight years.
“The president who first imposes Schedule F would probably figure, ‘I can just replace people over time so there won’t be this great discontinuity [between administrations],’” Levine said. “The problem is that if one president replaces 2,000 or 3,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 then the next president will feel they can’t rely on those 2, 3, 5 or 10,000 people . . . If instead of replacing a few hundred political appointees and being able to rely on the career employees [during a transition], you head to replace 2,000 or 3,000 or 5,000, you wouldn’t be able to keep the lights on.”
Jenny Mattingley, vice president of governmental affairs at the Partnership for Public Service, said in addition to taking action to protect the federal workforce from attacks on the merit system, lawmakers should examine other ways to improve management to address “root causes” like difficulty in dealing with poor performers.
“One thing that we see often across federal agencies is an ad hoc—or often cut—training budgets, leadership development budgets,” she said. “These are not things that we do in terms of really developing our workforce and our leaders. So to do the things that we talk about, creating good environments, a good culture, a strong leadership culture, in the private sector, particularly at large companies, you see a lot of investment in that employee piece, and so we would encourage you to look at how to strengthen those things within the government as well.”
The FBI is conducting market research to identify qualified sources that can provide advanced facial recognition technology for its law enforcement operations.
FRT enables the development of investigative leads and detection of relevant case information, which could prove critical to catching perpetrators and mitigating threats, the agency said Monday.
Through the request for information, the FBI wants to hear from parties with existing open-source and publicly available face image repositories and functioning FR capabilities to search the same database.
The potential vendors should also ensure they can deliver the required capabilities in a software-as-a-service package.
The FBI envisions that open-source FRT would support its mission of safeguarding national security, protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution.
The data gathered through the RFI will inform the bureau’s acquisition approach for an upcoming solicitation.
Interested businesses are invited to submit their capability statements no later than Oct. 15.
The Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Intel Summit will bring together top intelligence community officials, government decision-makers and industry executives on Sept. 19 to discuss the challenges, opportunities, innovation initiatives and technologies shaping the future of U.S. intelligence.
Ryan Wesley Routh appeared in federal court Monday on two firearm charges after being apprehended by local law enforcement Sunday in what the FBI is investigating as a possible assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.
Authorities found a rifle in an area Routh was seen fleeing on Sunday, but acting Secret Service Director Ron Rowe said Monday that Routh did not fire his weapon. Trump was unharmed, his campaign confirmed shortly after Sunday’s incident.
The Secret Service agent who spotted someone holding a rifle near the treeline of Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., fired toward the suspect. Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, was golfing at the time.
The incident is being investigated as the second assassination attempt against Trump in two months. He sustained an injury to his ear during a shooting in Butler, Pa., in July.
The Trump campaign Monday blamed Democrats and the media for the shooting.
“Democrats and the Fake News must immediately cease their inflammatory, violent rhetoric against President Trump — which was mimicked by yesterday’s would-be assassin,” the campaign said in a statement.
Routh, 58, appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ryon McCabe in West Palm Beach federal court and was charged with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and for obliterating the serial number on a firearm, according to court records. If convicted, he would face up to 20 years in prison.
A detention hearing on the federal charges is set for Sept. 23, the Justice Department said.
Initial investigation
According to an affidavit accompanying the criminal complaint, at 1:31 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, a Secret Service agent walking the perimeter of the golf course spotted a rifle poking out of the tree line. The agent fired toward the rifle.
Rowe said at a Monday press conference that Routh did not have a line of vision at the former president and he did not fire his weapon.
“The agent who was visually sweeping the area … saw the subject armed with what he perceived to be a rifle and immediately discharged his firearm,” Rowe said. “The subject, who did not have line of sight to the former president, fled the scene. He did not fire or get off any shots at our agents.”
Routh fled in a Nissan SUV, according to the charging documents. A witness took photos of the license plate and local law enforcement officers stopped the vehicle in Martin County, which borders Palm Beach County.
West Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said the witness was able to identify the driver as “the person that he saw running out of the bushes that jumped into the car.”
Routh was the sole person in the vehicle, according to the complaint.
According to the charging documents, agents found at the site Routh fled a digital camera, two bags, an SKS-style 7.62 x 39 rifle, which is the predecessor to the AK-47 assault rifle that law enforcement initially said they found Sunday, and a scope.
They also found a bag of food and noticed the rifle had the serial number obliterated “to the naked eye,” according to the filing documents.
The weapon also must have crossed state lines, Thomas noted.
“SKS-style 7.62 x 39 caliber rifles are not manufactured in the state of Florida,” Thomas wrote. “Therefore, I submit that there is probable cause to believe that the SKS-style rifle, which was seized from the tree line at Trump International… traveled in interstate or foreign commerce.”
The officers who stopped Routh on Interstate-95 noted that the license plate associated with the Nissan is registered to a 2012 white Ford truck that was reported stolen, according to the complaint.
Law enforcement found a July 10 Facebook post in which Routh directed his followers to contact him on WhatsApp and listed a contact number, according to the complaint.
Phone records associated with that number indicated that the phone “was located in the vicinity of the area along the tree line described from 1:59 a.m. Eastern to 1:31 p.m. Sunday,” according to the complaint.
Secret Service response
The incident follows the July 13 assassination attempt of Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in which the Secret Service was heavily criticized for its response.
The leaders of that task force, Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., and Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., have requested a briefing from the Secret Service on the security response to the shooting in West Palm Beach.
Members of Congress have been more complimentary of the Secret Service’s response to the Florida incident.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, commended the agency’s response during an interview with “Fox and Friends” on Monday.
“What I understand happened is that those agents that were with him yesterday saw that barrel of that gun between the bushes on a golf course. I mean, you know, that’s a difficult thing to spot. Thankfully, they did,” Johnson said. “But unlike in Butler, they did not pause. They immediately pulled their weapons and fired. I think that’s why this guy, the suspect, the shooter, threw the gun in the bushes and ran.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, said on the Senate floor Monday that senators are open to giving the Secret Service more funding in legislation this month needed to keep the government open past Sept. 30.
“If the Secret Service is in need of more resources, we are prepared to provide it for them,” he said. “Possibly in the upcoming funding agreement.”
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, said Sunday they’d been briefed on the matter and condemned political violence.
Prior arrests, Ukraine activism
In 2002, Routh was convicted in Greensboro, North Carolina, for possession of a weapon of mass destruction, which is a felony in the state. He was arrested after fleeing law enforcement and barricading himself for three hours in a business, according to the Greensboro News & Record.
He was also arrested in North Carolina in 2010 for possession of stolen goods.
Jeffrey Veltri, the special agent in charge of the bureau’s Miami field office, said during a Monday press conference that the FBI is conducting interviews with family and friends in Honolulu and Charlotte, North Carolina.
He added that in 2019 the FBI received a tip that Routh possessed a firearm, which was illegal because of his felony record. When FBI agents followed up, the tipster “did not verify providing the initial information,” Veltri said.
The agency referred the matter to Honolulu police, he said.
Routh was interviewed by The New York Times last year about his efforts to recruit Afghan soldiers who had fled the Taliban to fight in Ukraine’s war against Russia.
Routh, who had spent time in Ukraine and does not have any U.S. military experience, said he had planned to illegally obtain documents to move those Afghan fighters from Pakistan and Iran to Ukraine.
He wrote an ebook that he published on Amazon Kindle about his time in Ukraine, during which he became disillusioned about the country’s ability to win its war against Russia.
Kathleen Shaffer, who said Routh was her fiancé, set up a GoFundMe in 2022 to help Routh travel to Ukraine for 90 days to fight in the war.
“Any and all funds will support purchase of additional flags, tactical gear, any supplies needed for incoming volunteers, and hostel lodging,” according to the fundraiser, which raised $1,865 out of its goal of $2,500.
States Newsroom called a number associated with Shaffer, but could not reach her.
Public records show Routh currently lives in Kaaawa on the island of Oahu in Hawaii.
Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor McKenzie Romero for questions: info@utahnewsdispatch.com. Follow Utah News Dispatch on Facebook and X.
U.S. intelligence agencies are working toward closer collaboration with government and industry partners. As a result, intelligence community leaders are increasingly vying for industry talent to fill capability gaps.
Join us at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Intel Summit on Sept. 19 to connect with intelligence officials who spearhead efforts to transform the modern intelligence domain. Click here for additional information and register to attend the summit before it’s too late!
Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence and a 2024 Wash100 awardee, said, “We know that the private sector increasingly possesses certain unique and specialized talent, knowledge and capabilities in key fields of critical importance to national security that we don’t have access to in the government.”
Key Intelligence Community Collaboration Efforts
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has established an Office of Partnership Engagement designed to foster closer industry collaboration and provide ODNI with access to commercial insights about AI, cybersecurity and space, among other areas. The office will train professionals in declassifying information for companies, develop guidance for better acquisition processes and communicate with external industry partners.
“There is no question that certain industries now wield substantial geopolitical influence, and as the threat landscape has diversified and power has become more diffuse, so has the potential impact of the private sector’s work,” Haines said. “This makes it crucial that we better understand developments in the private sector, as well as the overall balance of competitive strength and security within key sectors.”
Other IC agencies like the National Security Agency have established information exchange programs that help the government and industry get on the same page about cyber threats. NSA’s Cybersecurity Collaboration Center authorizes the government and the private sector to share information about cyber criminals and nation-state hackers.
“The first phase of this is an expansion of the current and unclassified analytic exchange program in scale and scope, while simultaneously evaluating opportunities to conduct analytic exchanges that include classified information, which we know will take some time, but is absolutely worth it,” Haines emphasized.
ODNI has also recently issued new protocols for using the other transaction authority, which Haines said, “offers greater flexibility for IC elements to develop programs that leverage technological innovation.”
Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency stood up the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative in 2001. The group comprises industry and government officials who encourage cyber firms to team up with the government to detect and deter hacking threats.
In August 2023, the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative created the RMM Cyber Defense Plan. The strategy includes two key pillars — operational collaboration and cyber defense guidance — with the first pillar featuring two corresponding lines of effort that involve broadening data-sharing concerning threats and vulnerabilities.
Learn more about the recent and future intelligence community efforts at the 2024 Intel Summit!
It’s hard to tell how Congress will put together a funding bill for even a continuing resolution with less than two weeks left in the fiscal year. So contractors are doing what they feel that have to. Prepare for a lapse in appropriations. The Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke to the president and CEO of the Professional Services Council, David Berteau.
Tom Temin And every year we go through this song and dance. But somehow the politics are a little bit more rigid this year. And the idea of House bill failed week before last. So what what are your members doing and what’s going on?
David Berteau Well, Tom, as you know, you’re right. We do approach this every September, and then we usually approach it again in November and in December and sometimes in January, February, March. We come close to the deadline. And generally speaking, we actually get a continuing resolution or sometimes a final appropriation in time. It’s usually at the last minute, though. And so even though history says we’re likely to get a continuing resolution and not have a government shutdown, the probability is not zero. And the consequences are very, very significant if we do have such a shutdown. So it’s really important for contractors to begin preparing now, if they haven’t already, for that possibility.
Tom Temin The shutdowns that do occur, though, seem to be narrower and narrower each time around. For example, Veterans Affairs is under a two year appropriation, and this is the middle of the two years for Veterans Affairs. And usually DoD, they pass, I think, if I recall right. So it’s a smaller part of the government of the civilian side that, quote unquote, shuts down.
David Berteau Well, it’s actually been a while since we’ve had a shutdown, which is historically anomalous. During the Reagan administration, for instance, eight years of Reagan time, there were actually eight government shutdowns, none of them longer than five days. So we don’t remember them. The ones we remember are the long ones. And the last big, long one was the Christmas 2018 that extended through January. And you’re right, that there were six cabinet departments that already had their appropriations. DoD was one of them, VA was another, HHS was another. And then there were nine cabinet departments and a bunch of other agencies that were shut down for 35 days. And that had real serious consequences. So you don’t know what you’re going to get into or when you’re going to get out of it when you do have a government shutdown.
Tom Temin We do know that the last one caused a pandemic two years later. So we don’t want to have that happen again. But in your observations, there is no guidance for a shutdown coming from the White House or GAO, for that matter.
David Berteau So one of the things we do at PSC is we track all the guidance documents, both at the agency level and at the Office of Management and Budget level. And we haven’t seen any updates of those recently. In fact, most of the last updates are from a year ago. There are a couple that were updated in January, in February, a couple of agencies. So we post those on our website. We have a whole shutdown resource center for our members. So we look at the guidance. But the other thing we look at is what can contractors be doing even if the government is not necessarily getting ready for it. And it’s almost as if the government thinks that if you get ready for it, that you’ll make it happen. We know that’s not true. And it would be wise and prudent not only for the government to get ready, and they probably are doing internal things, but to have those conversations with their contractors for continuity of operations and understanding of what’s expected.
Tom Temin And you have the Shutdown Readiness Center Resource Center, operated by PSC, which is basically advice. What is it you’re telling contractors? How can they prepare for this?
David Berteau Well, there’s three things contractors need to do, and they should be doing them now. Number one is take a look at all of their contracts and look at, for example, what’s the period of performance, what’s the funding level that’s already been committed? The obligated funds that are there. And thirdly, what the expected events coming up that might happen after Oct. 1. Is there a deliverable that has to be signed off on by the government? How do you make sure there’s somebody there to sign off on it in the event of a shutdown? Is there an option that needs to be exercised? Will there be people there to exercise those options? These are important things. So do your own assessment first. The second thing is to be, and I’ll come back to that your own assessment. The second thing is to be talking to your government customers. Even if they’re not getting guidance from above, even if they’re being told, don’t even begin to think about planning for this. You need to be having those conversations about what their expectations are. They won’t know, for instance, who’s assigned to go to work and not get paid under a shutdown in which government civilians are assigned to go home and not get paid during the shutdown. They don’t usually find that out until the morning of. But you can at least be having the conversation of here’s what we need to know from you. And the third thing you need to be doing, is to do your internal preparation. Know where your employees are, know how you’re going to get a hold of them, know where your facilities are, what your options are if you can’t get in your facility. So all of that’s an analysis and assessment that really should be ongoing all the time, but particularly as we get close to a shutdown.
Tom Temin We are speaking with David Berteau, president and CEO of the Professional Services Council. That’s a good point, that last one. Because often the government people whose agencies are affected aren’t allowed to communicate with contractors or keep things going on the fly. They’ve got to really shut down. I remember during one of the administrations, there were baskets of cell phones to be dropped in so that people couldn’t surreptitiously get on and do work.
David Berteau They’d be working. And that was back during the sequestration days. And Tom, one of the important reactions that government often has is, well, if we’re not working, you shouldn’t be working either with contractors. And this is a stark difference in a shutdown. The shutdown for federal civilians is top down. It’s driven from the top down. And you’re in one of two categories. You either work without getting paid or you go home without getting paid. But for contractors, it’s one contractor at a time. Every contract is different. And you have a responsibility to keep working unless, and until something happens to make you stop. What could happen? You could run out of money, but typically there’s plenty of money that’s been obligated, it just hasn’t been extended yet. Or you could run out of an ability to access the facility or access the networks that could stop you from working. Or the government could issue a stop work order. And what we urge contractors to do is communicate with your customers that there is no need for a stop work order unless one of those exaggerated factors comes into play. Just because the federal government isn’t necessarily working or isn’t in the office doesn’t mean the contractors can’t be working. We’ve particularly proved this under COVID with remote working, so contractors can continue going and are responsible to continue going unless something makes them stop.
Tom Temin Right. And to continue going means there are costs that keep going. The question is revenue. At some point you’ve got to cover your costs with revenue. And the revenue is what stops during the shutdown.
David Berteau That’s a great point. And one thing that contractors should all do between now and Sept. 30th is make sure their invoices are up to date and submitted, because an invoice can’t be paid if it hasn’t been submitted and approved. And you should only be submitting it after Oct. 1st if there is a shutdown, and there’s nobody there to receive an improvement.
Tom Temin Yeah. I wonder if the Bureau of the Fiscal Service is a critical function that is exempted. I don’t know, but it ought to be.
David Berteau What we’ve seen in the past is it depends on the source of their revenue. Oftentimes at the start of a shutdown, the paying agencies, whether it be the Bureau or Defense Finance and Accounting Service or whoever is paying those invoices, will often have a few days of leftover funding and they can continue working based on prior year funding. But it isn’t infinite, and it’s not indefinite. And you can’t really, as a contractor, you can’t really tell because you don’t know what invoices are going to be paid on what day. So it’s prudent to prepare for both options.
Tom Temin It’s like trying to rinse your hair when the shower has been turned off and just get the dribbles.
David Berteau Yeah, we’ve had that happen a couple of times when the power goes out.
Tom Temin Federal financial plumbing, happens and everything comes to a halt. All right. So what else? Anything else? Any final thoughts for contractors?
David Berteau Well, I think being prepared and going back to your customer is key. If the customer doesn’t want to talk to you, you have to be prepared for what you’re going to say when and if a shutdown comes along. And I think, certainly for PSC and our members, we like to be as ready as possible. The other thing is that the media tends to pay attention under a government shutdown to the impact on the federal employees. There’s also a potential impact on contractors, even if they’ve done all the things we’ve suggested. They have to be prepared for the possibility that their workers may not be able to charge that contract. You don’t want to have to fire them. And you certainly can’t do like the federal government and lay them off and say you’ll get paid later, because contractors are never made whole at the end of a shutdown, unlike federal civilian employees who now by law will be made whole as soon as an appropriation is passed. So that’s the real thing, is how do you make sure you get to keep your people on the payroll? What can you do? A couple things you can do. Send them to mandatory training. That’s something you’re going to have to do and pay for out of overhead anyway. Look at being ready to do that at a moment’s notice, or look at using leave and having employees usually leave up. October is a beautiful month anyway. Not that we want to have shutdown, but we want to be ready for it for sure.
Tom Temin And there’s also the issue of subcontractors and proteges, and they’re really out in the cold.
David Berteau They are very much out in the cold. And of course, each prime contractor has its own relationships and will have to make its own determinations as to which of its important subcontractors they need to keep in the loop with them. And those that are proteges under a mentor protege program would most likely fall into that category.
The company KBR may not be the most well-known commercial space company for those outside the business, but it’s one of the larger firms that does a ton of work with NASA — which is how it ended up being selected as NASA’s Agency-Level Large Business Prime Contractor of the Year. To find out more about the firm and what this award means for it, Federal News Network’s Eric White spoke to Todd May, Senior Vice President of KBR’s Science and Space Business on the Space Hour.
Interview transcript:
Todd May KBR is a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange that provides science, technology and engineering solutions to governments and companies around the world. The company itself has been in existence over 100 years, and KBR has 36,000 employees operating in more than 30 countries around the globe and provides solutions and strategies to help solve some of the great challenges and opportunities of our time. Through our primary solution pillars is what we call home government solutions and sustainable technology solutions. We have a standard of high impact success across the board. KBR is proud to work with its customers across the globe, providing technology, value added services and long term operations and maintenance services to ensure consistent delivery with predictable results.
Eric White And what areas do you mostly concern yourself with? What do you find yourself zeroed in on as a company and in your day to day?
Todd May Sure. You know, in the space world, KBR operates in civil space, commercial space, intelligence space and DOD space today. We recently closed on a deal to acquire Lindquist, which is a Chicago-based company in the national security space area. And so we’ve now expanded our capabilities across aerospace and digital digital domains. In terms of my business, some of my largest contracts are supporting Johnson Space Center and human spaceflight. We’re responsible for training the astronauts for planning space missions, operating the space station in support of our NASA’s contract are NASA’s customers there at Goddard. We operate about a dozen satellites, including several around the lunar area. For Goddard, we have engineering capabilities across multiple spacecraft platforms at Goddard, at AFRL. We support Johns Hopkins. We also manage the largest Earth observing data archive for the USGS, the Landsat data archive, which is over 40 years old and is really the, you know, the record of land change over that period of time. You know, things like deforestation and urban sprawl and major cataclysmic events, the ebb and flow of the Antarctic and Arctic ice floes and things like that.
Eric White It’s a really diverse amount of things that you all have your hand in. And, you know, that’s not typical for aerospace companies. Even some of the larger ones tend to narrow their focus on, you know, one area, whether it’s ground control or just creating rockets themselves. How did KBR find itself in so many realms? And, you know, was it through acquisitions like the one you just mentioned, or was it just kind of, you know, opportunity struck and that was the way things went?
Todd May Well, you know, even before I joined the company in 2018, I think KBR was looking to grow into these domains. And so through a number of acquisitions, a company called SGT, owned by a gentleman named Cam Defarion. We had acquired Wiley, we had acquired Honeywell Technical, HTSI, we call it, and really, you know, had a plan to buy into those areas and acquire into those areas and really grow out a world class platform. We later had an acquisition called Centauri, which got us into the intelligence space. And of course, the Olympus acquisition has a footprint over in Space Force. And so it has been a strategic growth vector for a long time. And I’m really proud of the way the company has taken these, you know, these smaller companies and formed a really strategic and coordinated series of business units and divisions, you know, that really has domain excellence across this entire spectrum.
Eric White Yeah. It seems as if the agencies you work with share your good feeling as NASA’s recently named KBR the agency level large business prime contractor of the year. What does that mean to a company like yourself when there is that recognition? And do you think it was because of all the work that you do with NASA in so many different areas that put you on the top echelon there?
Todd May Well, I think nothing happens alone. And so I think one of the things, you know, we are successful because, you know, our partner so successful and we try to create great partnerships. And, you know, having been on the government side myself for nearly 30 years, I was always proud to, you know, to see companies achieve this level of award. But, you know, KBR has been able to sustain this kind of recognition now for a while. You know, over the last five years, we’ve won 13 of these awards, and three of those have been at the agency level. You know, I think we do a great job of supporting NASA’s intricate missions, both as a prime contractor and as a mentor to small businesses, which is a big part of how this award is considered. You know, I think it really it builds over the years. And I think our customers have seen that and they reflected in the, you know, in giving us this award. We also secured the 2023 large business prime contractor of the year at both Johnson Space Center and Goddard, which are two of the largest centers at NASA. So, you know, I think it’s a lot of hard work by our people. You know, our people are there to provide solutions to their customers, but we also recognize that we partner with a bunch of other companies. And our job is not just to be successful ourselves, but also to, you know, I kind of view it as a rising tide raises all ships.
Eric White And not to belabor the point, but just because you all are factored into so many areas, I’d love to get your take on the sort of divide that a lot of commercial space companies are having to decide. What do they want to go towards the defense side or stay in the exploration slash commercial area? What is it about both sides of that that you could see going one way or the other? And how are you all handling that decision?
Todd May Yeah, I think there are certain aspects of those segments of the business that are different. You know, you say you get into intelligent space and a very large portion of that workforce is cleared at very high levels and do things that they can’t go home and talk about it with their families and yet on. And yet they’re very smart people. These are these are very well-trained, top of their class type people, solving very difficult issues. And then on the other side, you have very similar people who are very well trained, top of their class kind of people. And they get to do things they get to tell all their neighbors about as part of. Part of NASA’s charter is to is to inspire people with what they do. And everything’s very public. So there are some very different type aspects to it and there’s some similarities. I think KBR, we you know, we’ve segmented it out and we have an entire business unit now that is in that defense and Intel space, and they’re very well focused on their customers. And I’m in the commercial and civil side and I’m very focused on those customers. But we have a workforce that actually can flow back and forth between those because a lot of the problems are similar across those backgrounds. Some are very unique as well, but we’ve been able to to manage it well. I think I think another differentiator you have to do is decide whether you want to try to be in the OEM world to be someone who’s actually making rockets and spacecraft and selling them to the government. We’ve kind of chosen to be on the side where we’re supporting those those those people and those companies, except for a few specific areas. For example, we’re teamed with Axiom helping them build the next generation spacesuits. They’re an OEM company that, because of our expertise supporting the government on their current spacesuits, we bring a particular expertise to a new space company who is kind of just getting started. So we look for those win-win partnerships.
Eric White Yeah. And what’s the point of having a cool job if you can’t tell people about it? Right. I mean, that’s the reason you get into the space sector.
Todd May Well, I think we should all be very glad that there are some people who are doing jobs they can’t tell you about when they get home, but they are keeping us safe every day. Yes, very much guardians for a reason.
Eric White Absolutely. Absolutely. And yeah, I’d like to finish up here just by getting a little bit more info on yourself. You had mentioned some of your government experience in the past. If you could just kind of fill us in on how you got here and and what you’re all looking forward to in the future.
Todd May Yeah. So I started out at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and in materials and processes, after about three years, moved the Houston work Space Station program, moved back to Huntsville and kind of got in the building where we were building Node Lab and airlock, got some manufacturing experience there, jumped over to the science side work, the Discovery New Frontiers program, which is a series of of space. Craft that explore the solar system. I went up to headquarters for a while and worked in the Science Mission Directorate. Came back down to Huntsville and started the Space Launch System program, ran that for about five years, and then ran Marshall Space Flight Center and retired in 2018. So I’ve kind of been all over the agency. We’ve been providing mission critical space support services to civil military and commercial spacecraft customers for more than 60 years. We’ve had a couple of big wins in the last year or so. And, you know, we’re looking forward to continuing to support NASA, particularly as NASA evolves, particularly helping to bring on the commercial Leo Destinations activities and the lunar mission and on to Mars. We feel like we’ve got the historical expertise in these areas and are pretty keen to help our customers evolve into the future. And you know, not just NASA, but a lot of our customers are changing the way they they acquire data, for example, or commercial companies who are coming on. As I said, there are some who are really ambitious and they could use our expertise just like NASA does, to help them be successful. So, you know, we see all of this as a continued growth business market sector and look forward to doing it for decades to come.
Eric White That’s Todd May, senior vice president of KBR Science and Space Business.
The Pentagon is developing training and tools to ensure its program managers know when and how to mark sensitive information that will trigger Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) requirements.
Under current defense acquisition rules, contractors that handle controlled unclassified information, or CUI, are required to protect it by following National Institute of Standards and Technology cybersecurity standards. The CMMC program is intended to provide third-party audits to verify whether contractors have implemented the NIST standards.
But DoD officials acknowledge CUI can be a vexing issue for program offices and contractors alike.
The Pentagon plans to do a “phased rollout” of CMMC over three years. During that period, programs will have the discretion to use CMMC requirements. Stacy Bostjanick, chief of industrial base cybersecurity at DoD, said program offices will need to identify their CUI before putting CMMC requirements into solicitations.
“They’ve got to understand how it lays in, how to disaggregate it and pass it down the supply chain, and we’ve got to be prepped and ready to do that,” Bostjanick said during a Sept. 12 event hosted by the Coalition for Government Procurement.
DoD is primarily concerned about U.S. adversaries stealing sensitive data about weapon system design and operations from defense contractors. But the department’s “CUI registry” identifies more than 100 categories of CUI, ranging from technical weapon system data to historic properties and death records.
In a report released last year, the DoD inspector general found the department largely wasn’t tracking whether programs were using CUI markings for emails and other potentially sensitive documents. DoD and contracting officials were also found not to be checking whether personnel completed required CUI training.
Those gaps “can increase the risk of the unauthorized disclosure of CUI or unnecessarily restrict the dissemination of information and create obstacles to authorized information sharing,” the IG wrote in the report.
‘More work to do’
During last week’s event, Bostjanick emphasized the importance of CUI training as the Pentagon rolls out the CMMC requirements.
“There’s training that we’re going to do to make sure that program managers know exactly what is CUI and what needs to be marked,” Bostjanick said. “I would say for companies, if you feel like you are developing information that should be protected, that you state that and let us know. So when we get it, we handle it correctly. And vice versa: if you don’t think that what you’ve got is supposed to be CUI, then you push back and you have the discussion.”
During the same event, Jeff Spinnanger, director of information and acquisition protection within the office of the under secretary of defense for intelligence and security, said his office is working with the DoD chief information officer to build tools for identifying when CUI markings are necessary.
“We have more work to do to fully implement the regulation,” Spinnanger said. “Those are the things that will help to create more consistency of application.”
But the Pentagon has yet to codify any CUI requirements into either of its CMMC rules. Dan Ramish, a procurement attorney with Haynes Boone, said CUI is “the crux of the whole system.”
“There’s no specific either regulatory or contractual requirement for DoD to identify what information that will be provided or generated under the contract is CUI,” Ramish said on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin last week. “And that’s a really fundamental point that should be addressed. It’s addressed in DoD policy and then frequently asked questions, but it should be in the regulations in the contract as well.”
