FCW Insider: Dec. 2

Dozens of agencies are prepping solicitations to leverage the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions governmentwide telecom contract ahead of a coming deadline. Mark Rockwell talked with several leading vendors about designing task orders to meet those agency needs.

DOD wants to leverage robotics, automation, networked sensors and other emerging technologies on both bases and the battlefield. Lawmakers and defense leaders, however, worry that today's base and depot infrastructure may have trouble supporting such modernization. Lauren C. Williams reports.

After exiting the top tech job at the Department of Homeland Security, Dr. John Zangardi is taking a business development role in Leidos' Civil Group. Leidos has a broad portfolio of federal business, including the lead role on the Department of Defense's $5.3 billion commercial health record project. Adam Mazmanian has more on Zangardi's move.

On the heels of new rules at the Federal Communications Commission that limit the use of Chinese-made telecommunications gear in U.S. infrastructure, the Department of Commerce proposed new regulations to identify, evaluate and address transactions involving such hardware. Mark  has the story.

Don't forget that Federal 100 nominations are now being accepted.  Troy K. Schneider details what makes for a compelling submission -- get started on yours today. 

Quick Hits

*** Health IT includes some of government's biggest modernization projects, and the technologies and tactics being used in those efforts can be applied to any number of agency missions.  FCW's Dec. 4 Health IT Workshop features Department of Health and Human Services CIO Jose Arrieta, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Electronic Health Record Modernization Chief Medical Officer Dr. Laura Kroupa, U.S. Digital Services expert Amy Gleason and Department of Defense Healthcare Management System Modernization Program Manager Craig Schaefer.  Click here to learn more and register to attend. 

*** Civilian agencies will soon be required to have formal vulnerability disclosure policies, according to a draft binding operational directive the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released on Friday. The Office of Management and Budget, meanwhile, is working with agencies on implementation strategies. Comments on the draft policy are due Dec. 27.

*** Two critical Census Bureau systems have failed key tests and could put the 2020 census efforts at risk. The Commerce Department's inspector general has issued a management alert detailing the concerns, which center on the Decennial Applicant Personnel and Payroll system and the Census Hiring and Employment Check system.

The bureau's decennial count requires the hiring of hundreds of thousands of temporary workers, and there is "little time to resolve any additional issues discovered during retesting," the alert states. "In addition, the Bureau does not have an adequate, documented contingency plan in place in case the proposed solutions do not work." 

*** Beth Angerman, the principal deputy associate administrator in GSA’s Office of Governmentwide Policy, is leaving the agency on Dec. 6, an agency spokesperson confirmed to FCW.

Angerman was named to the OGP job in 2018. She had also led GSA's Office of Shared Solutions and Performance Improvement. In those positions, Angerman had been instrumental in moving GSA’s shared services efforts forward -- work that earned her a Federal 100 award -- as well as modernizing federal payroll systems using the cloud.

Angerman's departure plans were first reported by Federal News Network.

*** ASRC Federal has won the recompete of a NASA contract to help the agency plan and manage programs, mission and projects. The award, which is for the fifth version of NASA's Program Analysis and Control contract, has a potential five-year, $354 million ceiling. Washington Technology has additional details.