On Dod

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

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. 

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.

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 executive for strategic initiatives joins us to talk about how the command is trying to build deeper relationships involving more communication with vendors through its Strategic Supplier Relationship Management program.

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.

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 the service's uniformed medical corps.

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.

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.

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's Scott Maucione about the service's newly-released Infrastructure Investment Strategy.  Later, The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency thinks social media platforms might be able to teach the R&D community a thing or two about how to quickly connect information from around the globe. DARPA's John Main talks with Jared Serbu about a new platform called Polyplexus. 

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, Capt. Matthew Friedell, project officer at the Marine Corps Advanced Manufacturing Operations Cell talks with Federal News Network’s Scott Maucione about the Marines’ new 24/7 help center for 3D printing. 

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 talked to three S&T observers about the value of these sorts of projects: Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, whose FOIA request uncovered the list in the first place; August Cole, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council; and John Amble from West Point’s Modern War Institute.

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 helping Navy organizations migrate their legacy systems to the cloud.

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 concern. Later in the program, Alba Aleman, the CEO of Citizant joins us to talk about how her firm survived the latest government shutdown, and what companies can do to prepare for the next one. 

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. 

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 subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities joins us to discuss his oversight and legislative priorities for the new Congress. 

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 Maj. Gen. John. Morrison, the commanding general of the Army Cyber Center of Excellence at Fort Gordon, Ga.  Also, a brief discussion with Marten Mickos, the CEO of HackerOne, on DoD's latest round of contract awards to expand its "Hack the Pentagon" initiative. 

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 became the commander of JTF-CS earlier this year. He says he's wanted to command the task force ever since he learned of its existence a decade or so ago. He talked with Jared Serbu about why that's the case.

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, more strategic management, and perhaps, eventually, a simplified regulatory structure.

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.

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, the assistant DoD inspector general for audit joins us to discuss the compendium. Also, the Defense Department recently announced it’s changing the name of its Defense Innovation Unit Experimental, dropping the word “experimental.” The Pentagon says the change reflects the “permanence” of what’s now called DIU and the ongoing need to engage with nontraditional firms in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. But there’s more going on than just a name change. Sean Heritage, DIU’s acting managing partner, joins us to share de