• Increased DOD contract spending a boon to small businesses: Defense contract spending increased 6.7% in 2022, hitting its second highest total of $436B.
• Major govt tech contractors use monopolistic vendor-lock to drive revenue: Microsoft, Oracle primarily benefit.
• Closing the digital divide in government: Five strategies for digital transformation: Practical ideas to give citizens are more connected government.
• Bid low + be acceptable on the technical proposal. Does that “tried and true” method = a win?
• Word on the street is that CIO-SP4 Phase 1 announcement letters went out for small businesses. Did you move on to Phase 2? Let us know on social media!

DEFENSE & AEROSPACE

ICYMI Snippets

• RFI: AFRL RF System Development Multi-Aperture Networked Intelligence for Agile Combat.
• Draft RFP: NASA’s $98.1M contract is for space flight systems development and operations.
• RFI: DIU is looking for prototyping novel hypersonic technologies as part of the HyCAT project.
• DARPA to host CARCOSA Proposers’ Day on Feb. 21.
• NASA hits limits of space station utilization.
• Asteroid mining startup AstroForge to launch first missions this year.
• NASA and DARPA to partner on nuclear thermal propulsion demonstration.

Defense Contract Awards

• Intelligent Waves LLC was awarded a $99.9M IDIQ by the USAF for crowd sourced flight data support services.
• Boeing gets $2.25B contract mod to build Air Force tankers.
• BAE Systems Technology Solutions & Services won a $651M AF contract for engineering services with the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Weapons System.
• Telecote Research won a contract mod with AF for cloud infrastructure and platform support, bringing the total value to $51M.
• SAIC won a $22M contract mod for Army cybersecurity, network operations, and maintenance of IT support.

Follow the Defense Leaders

• Former DOD chief of staff has become EVP for strategy and development at HII.
• Former SAIC exec appointed Ball Aerospace Finance VP.

Defense Job Openings

• NAVWARSYSCOM seeks Executive Director at its Program Executive Office, PEO Digital.
• The Army Corp of Engineers is looking for a Program Manager.

PARTICIPATE IN THIS WEEK’S SURVEY —> (( START SURVEY NOW ))

(If you have a question you’d like to see pitched to the GovBrew Crew, just let us know!)

INTEL COMMUNITY

NSA creates assistant deputy director position, other new entities focused on China.

In November, NSA created a new assistant deputy director position solely dedicated to China, naming the former executive director of the U.S. Cyber Command, David Frederick to the new position. Read more

The National Intelligence Director: Over-classification undermines democracy.

The ongoing investigations into handling of sensitive documents by former presidents and vice presidents have brought potential problems with the classification system back into the spotlight.  Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, says that over-classification undermines efforts to make government more transparent and accountable and to encourage citizen participation in it. Read more

ICYMI Snippets

• To best China in the AI game, U.S. must boost efforts to collect, label, and sort data.
• RFI: NGA is seeking a royalty-free subscription service.

CIVILIAN

CISA establishes new office to ‘operationalize’ supply chain security.

CISA is building out a new supply chain risk management office to help agencies, industry and other partners put a torrent of recent guidance and policies into practice, spearheaded by Shon Lyublanovits, a former GSA official who now leads the project management office for cyber supply chain risk management (C-SCRM) within CISA’s cybersecurity division.  Read more

House bill would scrap VA’s $20B electronic health records program.

Two U.S. Reps. are backing legislation to end the troubled program to replace the VA’s homegrown electronic health record system with commercial software from Oracle-Cerner. Read more

NSF joins growing list of agencies reconfiguring its CIO’s office.

National Science Foundation has joined a small but growing list of federal agencies that are reconfiguring their CIO position, in an evolutionary move. (yeah, see what we did there?) NSF is planning on establishing a new Office of Business Information Technology (BIT) Services that will be led by an executive who will be both the CIO and CTO. Read more

ICYMI Snippets

• RFI: NOAA seeks input for future space situational awareness safety services.
• RFP: VA is seeking an automated discharge planning solution.
• Test out what your office space of the future could look like at GSA’s new innovation lab,
• Video game technology tapped to medically train astronauts for future moon and mars missions.
• Rep. wields AI chatbot to push for technology regulations.
• VA is pimping its “IO-as-a-Service” model.
• FTC votes to finalize data security order for ed tech website.

Civilian Contracts Awards

• USPS awards $70M data compliance modernization contract to Veritas Technologies.
• Trilogy Federal, LLC awarded $1M VA program support services contract.

Follow Civilian Leaders

Civilian Job Openings

• Education Department seeks Director, Enterprise Technology Services.
• TSA needs an Assistant Administrator for Field Operations.

M&A CORNER

Booz Allen’s pace of acquisitions is slower than expected.

While Booz Allen completed its acquisition of security company EverWatch in October, after DOJ withdrew its opposition, Booz Allen CEO Horacio Rozanski told investors that companies like Liberty IT Solutions, another recent acquisition target, are hard to find when considering acquiring them. Read more

Capella Space creates US government-focused subsidiary..

Behold! Capella Federal has been birthed “to help meet the ‘heightened security and facility clearance needs’ of US government customers.” Read more