Michael Markulec, president and chief technology of Lumeta, joins Industry Chatter hosted by Francis Rose for a deep-dive conversation into top federal technology issues.

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Women will have more opportunities to serve in different positions in the Army than ever. The Army is undertaking an effort called Soldier 2020. Army Sgt. Maj. Raymond Chandler is one of the Army’s leaders on Soldier 2020. He says the effort is a chance to revisit standards the Army hasn’t looked at for a long time.

The second round of furloughs is canceled at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Employees there won’t have to take three unpaid days that were on their schedules. Claudia Withers, COO at the EEOC, says a partnership helped them eliminate the second round of furloughs.

Thinking about cyber as just the Internet is thinking about it wrong. Cmdr. Matthew Labert, Deputy N6 for Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, is the Navy’s first Cyber Federal Executive Fellow. He’s writing about ways the Navy can expand its cyber capabilities and streamline its acquisition and command structure.

“Newer” doesn’t always mean “better” in weapons technology. The Defense Department could be wasting money trying to replace weapons that already meet all its requirements. Steve Russell is a retired Army lieutenant colonel and a author of “We Got Him! A memoir of the hunt and capture of Saddam Hussein.” He also the recipient of the of the Bronze Star for Valor for his service in Iraq.

Five months after taking over as the Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner at the General Services Administration, Tom Sharpe has a pretty good idea of how he’d like to transform FAS. The biggest change he wants is to make FAS the main source of contracting for everything from technology to automobiles to janitorial services.

As agencies plan for fiscal 2014 and even start on 2015, most planning involves a smaller budget. Cyber is one area that is bucking that trend. But planning strategically is crucial, especially at the earliest stages of that planning. Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Dale Meyerrose, president of the MeyerRose Group, is former chief information officer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and he was the first Chief Information Officer for U.S. Northern Command.

A detailed contingency plan that takes sequestration into account is under way at the Defense Department. Until now the Pentagon assumed Congress would undo the automatic budget cuts.