It’s been a little more than two years since the Army’s chief information officer memorably declared that the battlefield network it has is not the network it needs. Now the service is nearly ready to start buying significant quantities of equipment to start constructing a network it believes will keep pace with technology and survive on a modern battlefield. On this week's show, Maj. Gen. Peter Gallagher, the director of the Army’s Network Cross Functional Team and Maj. Gen. David Bassett, the ...
Nov 26, 2019•49 min
The Army’s newly-christened marketing office is set to launch its first ad campaign on Monday, and if there’s one consistent theme that ties the multi-platform messaging strategy together, it’s that the Army wants to pivot from reinforcing what people already know about military service to educating them about what they don’t. Brig. Gen. Alex Fink, the chief of the Army Enterprise Marketing office joins Jared Serbu to talk about the campaign and the standup of the new marketing operation. See Pr...
Nov 08, 2019•48 min
Dr. Bruce Jette, the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology sits down with Jared Serbu for a wide-ranging discussion on the Army's intellectual property strategy, advanced manufacturing, and how the service's modernization bureaucracy has changed with the standup of Army Futures Command See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info ....
Oct 23, 2019•45 min
On this edition of On DoD, Lt. Gen. Bruce Crawford, the Army's Chief Information Officer/G6 talks with Jared Serbu about the Army's forthcoming data strategy -- and the new standards the service will use to enforce it. Later, Scott Maucione talks with Molly Dunigan and Steve Dalzell, two senior political scientists at the RAND Corporation, about new research into methods the military's reserve components might use to alleviate shortfalls in some critical skill areas. See Privacy Policy at https:...
Sep 26, 2019•41 min
On this week's show, an extended discussion with Matthew Donovan, the undersecretary of the Air Force, and Gen. Stephen Wilson, the service's vice chief of staff. They discussed the rollout of the "Digital Air Force" initiative with Federal News Network's Scott Maucione. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info ....
Sep 11, 2019•44 min
For decades, the Navy’s relationship with its spare parts suppliers has been relatively straightforward: when the service needs a batch of items, it places an order, and industry fulfills it. But officials at Naval Supply Systems Command say they’ve come to realize that arms-length transactional approach doesn’t give the Navy nearly enough insight into the health of its supply chain, nor does it give vendors enough of a view into the military’s long-term needs. Karen Fenstermacher, NAVSUP's exec...
Aug 30, 2019•44 min
In the Defense world, formal investigations rarely substantiate whistleblower retaliation claims, especially those from contractor employees. But a new alternative dispute resolution program has already resolved more than 80. Nilgun Tolek, the DoD OIG's director of whistleblower reprisal joins Jared Serbu to discuss the ADR program. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info ....
Jul 25, 2019•25 min
First on this weeks show, officials from Army Cyber Command and the Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems join Jared Serbu to talk about the kickoff of the Army's Enterprise IT-as-a-Service pilot, which will begin the process of outsourcing network services on Army installations. Later, Lt. Gen. Dorothy Hogg, the Air Force Surgeon General joins us to discuss the new health care delivery model the Air Force is implementing, partly in response to possible staff reductions in ...
Jul 17, 2019•45 min
The Army is front and center in this episode. We begin with an exclusive interview with Mark Esper, the Army secretary. Later, Maj. Gen. Cedric Wins from the Army's Combat Capabilities Development Command discusses where artificial intelligence fits in with the Army's near-and-long-term modernization plans. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info ....
Jun 12, 2019•45 min
A special edition of On DoD, featuring an abridged version of a panel discussion Jared Serbu moderated at this year’s Navy League Sea-Air-Space expo in National Harbor, Maryland. This conversation is focused on personnel, and specifically, what the sea services say is a coming revolution in how military training is conducted. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info ....
May 22, 2019•46 min
Like the other military services, the Air Force has knowingly underfunded its facility maintenance accounts in recent years while its O&M budgets have been squeezed. But officials have come to the conclusion that they'll never reverse the trend of buildings steadily falling into disrepair without both more money and a new scheme to prioritize funds. Richard Hartley, the Air Force’s principal deputy assistant secretary for installations, environment and energy talks with Federal News Network'...
Apr 04, 2019•48 min
It’s not easy for DoD contracting officers to determine whether they’re getting fair and reasonable prices, particularly when they’re dealing with relatively small-dollar value transactions where there is only one supplier. That's according to a new DoD IG audit, which found one supplier, Transdigm, marked up its parts by as much as 4,400 percent. Theresa Hull, the assistant inspector general for acquisition joins us to discuss the findings and the IG's recommendations for broader reform. Later,...
Mar 14, 2019•43 min
We’re turning this week’s show over to Federal News Network’s Jason Miller, who recently talked to several experts about a recently-released DIA report that listed more than three dozen research reports the agency funded as part of something called the Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program. The technologies ranged from the somewhat-plausible to physics-defying. On the far end of the spectrum: manipulation of other dimensions, “warp” propulsion, and travel through wormholes. Jason ...
Mar 07, 2019•44 min
On this week's program, two senior Navy IT officials join Jared Serbu to talk about the service's latest plans for identity and cloud computing. Capt. Ben McNeal, the program manager for Naval Enterprise Networks (PMW-205), discusses the Navy's move to derived credentials on mobile devices and the role identity will play in network security going forward. Later, Travis Methvin, the project manager for Navy Commercial Cloud Services (PMW-270), talks with Jared about his new office and its role in...
Feb 20, 2019•41 min
The documentation accompanying DoD's first-ever financial audit is tough for non-auditors to decipher. But as part of its work this year, the DoD Inspector General also released an explanation of the results in layman's language; it also pointed out what the IG believes are the six most significant material weaknesses the audit uncovered. Carmen Malone, the Deputy Assistant Inspector General for Audit and Financial Management Readiness, talks with Jared Serbu to break down those six areas of con...
Jan 30, 2019•41 min
We have two guests on this week's show: Brett Mansfield, senior advisor to the Principal Deputy DoD Inspector General talks with Jared Serbu about DoD's top ten management challenges for 2019. Also, Adm. John Richardson, the Chief of Naval Operations, talks with Scott Maucione about the newest iteration of the Navy's Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority. The Navy released a "2.0" version of the document in December. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy No...
Jan 02, 2019•43 min
The Defense Department has survived the first protest of its JEDI Cloud contract. But there’s at least one more – and mostly likely several more – still to come. Lauren Brier, an associate attorney with The Federal Practice Group joins us to talk about the legal issues involved in the protest Oracle filed, and why losing bidders might have more luck challenging the procurement after an award is made. Later, Jim Langevin (D-R.I.), the presumptive incoming chairman of the House Armed Services subc...
Nov 28, 2018•40 min
It has been a little over a year since the Army began making some fairly monumental changes to its IT networks, including by cancelling the $6 billion dollar Warfighter Information Network Tactical (WIN-T). Two of the senior Army leaders who’ve been working on what's next join us to talk about what's happened in the months since the Army determined that the network it has is not the network it needs. Later, we discuss organizational and training changes in Army cyber and electronic warfare with ...
Oct 31, 2018•40 min
If you’ve never heard of a Defense Department organization called Joint Task Force Civil Support, that’s understandable. And arguably, it’s a good thing. JTF-CS may be the smallest task force in the military’s force structure: its headquarters at Fort Eustis, Virginia, has less than 200 people working there, and it's main mission is to organize the military’s response to a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack in the United States. Our guest this week is Maj. Gen. Bill Hall, who b...
Oct 11, 2018•47 min
The general topic of human capital management has been on the Government Accountability Office's list of federal "high risk" areas since 2001. But the Defense Department has come to the conclusion that deficiencies in its own HR workforce is one significant factor. The HR profession, itself, is at high risk, officials say. On this week's show, Veronica Hinton, DoD's deputy chief human capital officer talks with Jared Serbu about a new effort to reinvigorate the HR workforce with new training, mo...
Sep 30, 2018•48 min
The Army wants to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to help its electronic warfare officers sort out signal from noise on the battlefield. And to pick the best solutions, it’s using an innovative approach. Instead of a traditional procurement, it gave industry and academia a set of challenges, using real-world data from Army sensors. Rob Monto, the Emerging Technologies Director for the Army Rapid Capabilities Office, joins Jared Serbu to talk about the results. See Privacy Policy...
Sep 12, 2018•46 min
For the second year in a row, the Defense department’s inspector general has just released a “compendium” of open recommendations. The document is a list of all the recommendations the DOD IG has issued to the Pentagon that have gone unresolved for a year or more. There are 1,558 of them, including 56 that have been open for at least five years. The compendium also singles out 33 recommendations that the IG says could save the department $2.3 billion dollars if DoD implemented them. Troy Meyer, ...
Aug 22, 2018•31 min
The Army already owns what amounts to fully-functional city it uses that it uses for traditional military training events in southeastern Indiana. But until recently, it hasn't been used for cyber training. Officials have high hopes that a new set of exercises at Muscatatuck Urban Training Center will give cyber protection teams a much more realistic training experience than they'd get at the "cyber ranges" DoD currently operates. Ed Skoudis and John Nix from the SANS institute join us to discus...
Aug 15, 2018•43 min
Ever since they first announced the idea last Fall, Army leaders have intended the new Army Futures Command to serve as a single entity to oversee the service's sprawling acquisition and modernization bureaucracy. AFC is now up and running in Austin, but the hardest parts of achieving the initial vision are yet to be accomplished. Our guest this week is Lt. Gen. Eric Wesley, the commander of the Army Futures task force that's been leading the design of the new command. He talked with Jared Serbu...
Aug 01, 2018•41 min
On this week’s edition of On DoD, we go a bit deeper into Federal News Radio’s series, Danger at High Speed: OTAs in Action. This edition of the program features some of the extended interviews Scott Maucione conducted with acquisition experts as part of the reporting process for his two-part series on the Defense Department’s use of acquisition authorities: -- Angela Styles, a former administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, now a partner at Bracewell. -- David Berteau, the pre...
Jul 25, 2018•44 min
For the Navy, a new $100 million other transaction agreement focusing on information warfare isn’t just a way to turn government requirements into prototypes and fielded products at a faster clip than is possible under Federal Acquisition Regulation. It is that, but the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command sees the value in the Information Warfare Research Project as a way to pull new ideas from industry at the same time it’s asking companies to solve specific problems. Bill Deligne, the depu...
Jul 18, 2018•43 min
Last year, the White House called on all federal agencies to draw up plans to reduce the government's civilian workforce. The Defense Department responded with a plan that explicitly rejected the presumption that civilian employees are too numerous, calling them an essential part of the total force, and asserting it needs more of them, not fewer. In this week's edition of On DoD, Thomas Hessel, the department's deputy director for total force manpower and resources joins Jared Serbu to discuss w...
Jun 27, 2018•40 min
Naval Supply Systems Command is not suffering from a lack of data. But the information it holds about its responsibilities to move food, parts and supplies around the world tends to be unstructured, trapped in legacy IT systems, and not used on a day-to-day basis to help the command make better business decisions. NAVSUP is exploring ways to change that via a pair of prototype programs, both focused on the way the command does its contracting. Kurt Wendelken, NAVSUP's assistant commander for sup...
Jun 26, 2018•43 min
The Section 809 Panel -- the commission Congress chartered to study reforms to the federal acquisition system -- is already seeing some of its work reflected in federal legislation. The House's version of the 2019 Defense authorization bill includes several provisions that closely match the changes commissioners recommended in the first volume of their report, and there are still two more volumes to come. On this week's edition of On DoD, we hear from several Section 809 panel members about the ...
Jun 12, 2018•44 min
DISA's milCloud 2.0 is about to get a wave of new customers, thanks to a Pentagon mandate to move "fourth estate" applications to the new service. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .
May 16, 2018•50 min
