Hamm new FedSIM director

FedSIM Operations Director Chris Hamm will take over Nov. 1 as director of the General Services Administration program that oversees acquisition of its $6 billion government wide continuous diagnostics and mitigation purchasing contract.

Steve Viar, who has been director of the GSA's Federal Systems Integration and Management (FedSIM) center since 2010, is retiring.

"Steve has been at GSA for 15 years. He is a legend," Hamm said in an interview with FCW, adding that following in Viar's shoes is probably the most daunting part of his new job.

Topside Consulting's Bob Woods, who is the former commissioner of GSA's Federal Technology Service, said Hamm was well prepared for the job. "FedSIM has always has a deep bench" of talent, he said, "and Chris has been a great deputy who got a lot done."

In the coming months, Hamm said FedSIM will be focused on CDM, as well as looking to expand its contract portfolio to include more vehicles that include a combination of professional services and technology.

FedSIM, which is part of GSA's Federal Acquisition Service, manages the blanket purchasing agreement for CDM services for the Department of Homeland Security. Its multi-vendor, five-year blanket purchase agreement aims to provide real-time CDM services to executive branch agencies, state and local entities, and the defense industrial base sector.

Hamm said the CDM contract's ability to bring the .gov domain together under a secure umbrella of capabilities is crucial, but not without some bumps. "It's challenging to get an overall requirement from everyone" on using the same CDM contract. Alternative CDM approaches need not be developed with GSA blanket contracts in place, he said, adding that agencies creating their own contracting vehicles at this point
could be counterproductive.