Radio Interviews

  • The fifth annual Warrior Games kick off this weekend in Colorado Springs, Colorado. More than 200 wounded, ill and injured service members and veterans will compete for their branch of the armed forces. The sports include wheelchair basketball and sitting volleyball. James Rodriguez, Deputy Secretary of Defense for Warrior Care Policy, provided a preview of the games on the Federal Drive.

    September 26, 2014
  • Congress left town ignoring the Obama administration's request for more funding to deal with illegal immigration. Dana Leigh Marks is president of the National Association of Immigration Judges and an immigration judge in San Francisco. When we spoke with her at the peak of the surge across the Southern border in July, she described her work as handling death-penalty cases with traffic court resources. She gave an update on the situation on the Federal Drive with guest host Emily Kopp.

    September 26, 2014
  • The Pentagon is dropping a plan to make the Defense Information Systems Agency the cloud computing broker for the Defense Department. Instead, defense components will buy their own services. That said, DISA will still be making a lot of deals with communications and technology firms in fiscal year 2015. Afzal Bari is a senior technology analyst for Bloomberg Government. He shared a list of the big deals to watch for on the Federal Drive with guest host Emily Kopp.

    September 26, 2014
  • Congress is out of here, and members won't be back until after the November elections. So what did Congress accomplish? Julia Ziegler, Federal News Radio's web manager, shared your thoughts on the issue on the Federal Drive with guest host Emily Kopp.

    September 26, 2014
  • The Federal Headlines is a daily compilation of the stories you hear discussed on Federal News Radio each day. It is designed to give FederalNewsRadio.com readers more information about the stories heard on the radio. In today's news, the State Department quickly retracts a tweet depicting dead Islamic State militants, and the Homeland Security Department loses track of thousands of illegal immigrants.

    September 26, 2014
  • The Treasury Department has heard the complaints about the USASpending.gov portal: it's hard to use, the data quality is poor, etc. Treasury inherited the portal in February from the General Services Administration. It already has short- and long-term plans to improve the federal spending website. In part one of their interview, Christina Ho, executive director for data transparency in the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, told Federal News Radio Executive Editor Jason Miller about the portal's improvement strategy.

    September 25, 2014
  • Cyber operations is about the only area of the DoD budget that hasn't been subject to cuts. But the new leader of the Army's Cyber Center of Excellence says that doesn't mean the Army can grow its newest military discipline in isolation. Federal News Radio DoD reporter Jared Serbu has the details.

    September 25, 2014
  • This week, the award for Federal Employee of the Year went to Dr. Rana Hajjeh for her contributions at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Her work with vaccines will save the lives of about 7 million children by 2020. The Service to America Medals gala on Monday also featured several young federal employees who might earn that honor for themselves one day. Tim McManus is Vice President for Education and Outreach at the Partnership for Public Service. He was at the Sammies Awards. On In Depth with Francis Rose, he said he sees some special potential from this year's finalists in the Call to Serve category.

    September 25, 2014
  • The Office of Personnel Management has a list of 25 different conferences that comply with federal training regulations. Dan Waddell is director of government affairs for the cybersecurity non-profit (ISC)2. OPM just added their fourth annual Security Congress event to its list of approved conferences. On In Depth with Francis Rose, Waddell explained how the event got on the list.

    September 25, 2014
  • Budget certainty is in place now, with the continuing resolution that funds the government through Dec. 11. But what happens after that? Only Congress can make that more clear, and it isn't doing anything until November. Lexy Kessler is partner-in-charge of the government contracting practice at Aronson LLC. On In Depth with Francis Rose, she said history can be a contractor's planning guide for the CR.

    September 25, 2014
  • Nov. 15 is the deadline for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to patch up the cybersecurity holes in the Healthcare.gov website. The Government Accountability Office offered 22 technical recommendations to the agency last week. Those problems appear just as the website nears its first birthday. Raj Sharma is co-founder and CEO of the Censeo Consulting Group. On the In Depth with Francis Rose Industry Chatter segment, he shared some ways to predict, and fix, longstanding problems with large federal IT projects like Healthcare.gov.

    September 25, 2014
  • A big contractor goes to court to challenge the Veterans Affairs Department's plan to limit a solicitation for services to small businesses - and the big guy wins. The details of the case make it one to watch, according to our procurement expert. Attorney Joe Petrillo explained the case of Rotech v. United States on the Federal Drive.

    September 25, 2014
  • The STOCK Act, the revolving door, the reverse revolving door: these are the reasons why the Office of Government Ethics is being more aggressive in its training of federal employees. Over the last year, OGE has offered 238 percent more training courses and hours then the year before. In part two of their interview, Walter Shaub, director of the Office of Government Ethics, told Federal News Radio Executive Editor Jason Miller how OGE is managing through this volatile environment.

    September 25, 2014
  • The National Cancer Institute is trying to connect with its audience in new ways. Scientists in a user-experience lab are designing technologies and collecting data on customers' experiences to understand the needs of cancer patients and researchers. Silvia Salazar is the Informatics Research Lab Manager at NCI. She shared details about the lab on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

    September 25, 2014