Army turn at J6? It looks like the Joint Chiefs of Staff will tap an Army general to replace Vice Adm. Arthur Cebrowski, who moves back to the Navy as director of Space and Electronic Warfare a job he once held not even long enough for the ink on his business cards to dry before zipping off to t
Army turn at J6? It looks like the Joint Chiefs of Staff will tap an Army general to replace Vice Adm. Arthur Cebrowski, who moves back to the Navy as director of Space and Electronic Warfare—a job he once held not even long enough for the ink on his business cards to dry before zipping off to the J6.
I'm picking up strong signals that Maj. Gen. Douglas Buchholz, currently chief of signal at Fort Gordon, Ga., has the inside track for the J6 slot. The two other potential contenders—Maj. Gen. Charles Sutten at ISC and Maj. Gen. David Kelly at DISA—are too new in their current tours for serious consideration, an insider said.
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DISN DSSG delays. Look for a delay in the award of the DISN support contract, originally scheduled for late April. Col. Marlin Forbes, DISA's DISN PM, now puts the award date at late May or early June.
This delay has caused the usual telecom suspects to moan that it just means more days, weeks or months tacked on to the existing AT&T DCTN contract, whose longevity is only matched by that of the dial tone.
The delays also mean Boeing's Bob Steele has another month to sell.
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Hammond piped up. Army Lt. Col. Mary Hammond, former deputy DISN PM, has now moved up as honcho of the DISA Director's Group, responsible for work on "critical issues" for DISA boss Lt. Gen. Al Edmonds. I always knew Hammond was one of those "very promotable" light colonels.
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ESC acquisition super-shop. The Air Force Electronic Systems Center has moved five acquisitions directorates into one new unit, Systems Acquisition, which will have functional responsibility for more than 1,200 personnel.
The new outfit combines acquisition logistics, security, civil engineering, engineering and program management, and meteorology under one organizational roof.
John Wilson, an SESer, will head the new organization, with Col. Rex Thomas serving as his deputy. Sounds like they're a couple of guys you need to know.
Farther up the Air Force food chain, I'm picking up intell that Brig. Gen. David Nagy has taken over as Pentagon-based director of Air Force comm and computer acquisition in the new grandiloquently named Information Dominance mission area.
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Marine moves. Lt. Col. Jerry Baigis, an FCW Fed 100 winner, has left the FMF at Pendleton for a Far East tour on The Rock, where he'll have responsibility for base telecom and data at all Marine bases in Okinawa and Japan. I'm anxiously awaiting reports from Baigis on the status of mobile latte stands at Camp Hansen.
I'm also picking up strong signals that Mike Olivier, XO of the Reserve 4th Anglico in California, may return to Telos/C3, where he peddled DTC-II wares back when they were hot.
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Force XXI-1/2? The House continues to throw bundles of money at the Force XXI battlefield digitization program, but it also notes that the money will be a long time in coming. The House 1997 DOD authorization bill says Force XXI technology will not reach all active-duty units until 2023! No wonder this whole deal will cost billions of dollars.
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