The Navy awarded blanket purchase agreements to 17 small businesses, which they hope will take care of most DoD's conference planning needs for the next three years.
The Navy puts its wounded sailors back to work before they're even discharged from the hospital. The Wounded Warrior Intern Program takes wounded sailors interested in science and engineering careers and puts them to work at Naval Sea Systems Command. Dr. Tom Murphy is the program manager. He explained how the program works on In Depth with Francis Rose.
Improving acquisition compliance and ethics may involve less rulemaking and more culture shaping according to panelists at the National Contract Management Association's World Congress conference. At the conference, agency leaders discussed the need to streamline and pursue innovative approaches to federal acquisition policies.
An uninvited guest crashes the world's largest international naval exercise. A Chinese spy ship is watching over the Rim of the Pacific exercise that runs until Friday. But the ship isn't breaking any navigation laws, so Chinese military experts say it's a non-issue. Sam LaGrone, news editor of the US Naval Institute, broke the news of the ship's presence outside RIMPAC. On In Depth with Francis Rose, he explains why it's not a huge surprise.
A new approach to defense acquisition reform may come from a television show. Nick Guertin, director of transformation in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, and his colleague Howard Reichel, presented a paper called "Open Systems Architecture License Rights: A New Era for the Public-Private Marketplace" at the 11th annual Acquisition Research Symposium. Their views are their own. Nick tells Francis Rose on In Depth about the unique challenge intellectual property poses for defense contracting.
As the Navy retakes control over its own IT networks, it is eager to introduce features that improve the experience for end users. At the same time, the Navy is warning vendors that it's not going to buy just bells and whistles. Federal News Radio's Jared Serbu reports. Read Jared's related article.
By September, the Navy anticipates it will have retaken full ownership of its main IT network after having outsourced it a decade earlier. The service says it wants to find ways to bring innovation into NMCI, but vendors will have to meet some checkpoints along the way.
The Navy has just awarded the first of what it says will be several contracts aimed toward resetting its data center consolidation efforts. As Federal News Radio's Jared Serbu reports, the service wasn't happy with the progress it was making up until now, and the new plan will lean heavily on commercial hosting providers. Read Jared's related story.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced Gen. Joe Dunford is the new Marine Corps commandant nominee, and Rear Adm. Walter Carter Jr. has been nominated to lead the U.S. Naval Academy.
Several agency chief human capital officers say wholesale changes to the federal hiring, recruiting, retaining and firing processes are needed now more than ever. It's no longer just a matter of using the authorities available, they say.
It's been 23 years since the Tailhook scandal rocked the Navy, and the Pentagon is still struggling to eliminate sexual assaults from the military. The number of reported cases is on the rise, but is counting cases alone solving the problem?
Terry Halvorsen, who has served as the Navy Department's chief information officer since 2010, will become the acting DoD CIO next week.
The Battlefrog Obstacle Race Series offers the public a glimpse into the training Navy Seals face by offering obstacle races for different ages and skill levels.
Picture this: the sound of helicopter blades above your head, the encouraging words from the military's toughest soldiers in your ears. This is what happens in the Navy Seal's Battlefrog Obstacle Race Series taking place this summer. You can walk a mile or so in a seal's shoes. Don Mann, chief operating officer of Battlefrog and former member of Seal Team Six, the group that took down Osama Bin Laden, tells Federal Drive with Tom Temin and Emily Kopp the race is designed and inspired by Navy Seals.
The Navy is scrapping a plan to overhaul one of its 11 aircraft carriers. The Defense Department says doing that frees up money to spend on the Littoral Combat Ship program. Everett Pyatt is leader of the Project for Defense Management and Acquisition Leadership Program at the McCain Institute and a former assistant secretary of the Navy. He's writing in Real Clear Defense about the Navy's budget plans.