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DOD suspends CMMC Phase 2, launches 60-day ‘reform’ review

Nick Wakeman — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 16:51:53 -0400

The Defense Department has essentially ended the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program by suspending its second phase requirements.

DOD is keeping in place Phase 1, which requires self-assessments for how companies protect controlled unclassified information in their systems. But DOD said Monday it is suspending Phase 2, which was to begin on Nov. 10 and requires third-party certifications.

DOD is also launching a review of CMMC to make sure it aligns with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s acquisition initiatives, which prioritizes speed, and lowering barriers for new entrants. The Acquisition Transformation System directives also aim to replace bureaucratic compliance with what DOD calls “scalable, resilient cybersecurity measures.”

The CMMC program got its start during the first Trump administration and was revised and streamlined during the Biden administration. CMMC has been envisioned as a cyber and supply chain security standard for the defense industrial base.

According to DOD's Monday statement, the department is responding to complaints that CMMC was increasing compliance costs and adding bureaucratic burdens.

The Small Business Administration also reported that CMMC compliance had caused some companies to leave the defense industrial base, which DOD said is delaying the deliveries of critical capabilities to operators.

"In support of Secretary Pete Hegseth's directive to reduce compliance barriers for small and medium sized businesses, we are today suspending the CMMC Phase II requirements and initiating a 60-day study of the future of this program," said DOD Chief Information Officer Kirsten Davies.

Davies said that cybersecurity and operational resilience are critical priorities.

“We believe the DIB can achieve both, while we reduce unnecessary government red tape,” she said.

Phase 3 of CMMC, which was to begin in November 2027, and Phase 4 for full implementation are also all suspended.

In the meantime, the department said it would rely on “self-assessments and select government-led assessments.”

DOD's announcement said that Davies made the decision.

“The CIO's decision ensures we maintain a strict security baseline while removing paralyzing costs and keeping innovators and competition growing in the defense supply chain," said Michael Duffey, defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment.

DOD has also formed a CMMC Reform Task Force to conduct a review of the certification program. Part of their role will be to review comments in responses to a request for information, which DOD posted Monday.

The department wants feedback from companies on cost drivers, administrative burdens tied to CMMC compliance, and which NIST 800-171 security controls deliver meaningful risk reduction.

DOD also wants to know know how companies are already using commercial cybersecurity tools and managed services, and how the department might recognize those in a compliance framework instead of requiring separate assessments.

Responses to the RFI are due Aug. 14.

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Every capability needs a mission story

Katie Helwig — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 14:27:02 -0400

A worldwide communications upgrade was postponed during its final stages because of a communications cable.

Not the software.

Not the installation.

Not the people.

A communications cable.

The cable had been manufactured to an older specification and wasn’t compatible with the upgraded equipment. The dry run did exactly what it was designed to do—it identified a critical issue before implementation. The upgrade was postponed until the problem could be corrected.

To most people, it was just a cable.

To the leaders responsible for mission success, it represented operational risk.

I remember those conversations well.

As the spouse of an Air Force officer for more than two decades, I had a front-row seat to the conversations that followed him home after long days—and sometimes long nights. More than a decade after his retirement, those conversations still shape how I think about leadership, mission, and marketing.

Around our on-base neighborhoods, conversations rarely centered on organizational charts, budgets, or management structures. They were about airplanes. Missile launches. Satellites. Communications. Mission success.

Over time, I noticed something.

The higher the rank, the closer the conversation got to the mission.

Senior leaders weren’t preoccupied with individual components. They focused on outcomes. They understood that every component mattered—but only because of the role it played in accomplishing the mission.

That lesson stayed with me long after military life and into my work helping government contractors grow.

Too often, we market the communications cable. We lead with our certifications, contract vehicles, technical capabilities, years in business, differentiators, and corporate achievements. Those are important. They demonstrate capability and credibility.

But they answer only one question:

What do you do?

Government buyers are asking a different question.

How will what you do help us accomplish the mission?

That distinction changes everything.

Federal agencies don’t buy products and services in isolation. They buy confidence that those products and services will enable successful mission outcomes. Whether the requirement is cybersecurity, engineering, recruiting, logistics, program management, or a communications cable, the evaluation ultimately comes down to reducing risk and increasing confidence that the mission will succeed.

That’s why I’ve come to believe that marketing occupies a much more strategic role than we often give it credit for.

Over the past decade I’ve watched business development, capture, operations, HR, finance, security, proposal, and leadership each contribute something essential to winning work. Every one of those functions creates evidence that an organization can be trusted.

Marketing’s role isn’t simply to communicate that evidence. Marketing’s role is to connect it to the customer’s mission. That realization became the foundation for a framework I call Proof Point Marketing.

At its core, Proof Point Marketing is about building trust through mission-focused marketing. Every organization possesses proof.

Past performance.

Operational maturity.

Experienced people.

Successful delivery.

Customer relationships.

Technical capability.

Innovation.

Financial strength.

Security and compliance.

The challenge isn’t collecting those proof points. The challenge is helping customers understand why they matter. Every capability has a mission story. A recruiting firm doesn’t simply fill positions. It strengthens mission readiness.

A cybersecurity company doesn’t simply implement controls. It protects mission continuity.

A program management contractor doesn’t simply manage schedules. It enables mission execution.

The communications cable wasn’t important because it was a cable. It was important because, without it, the mission could not move forward.

That’s the lesson I believe many of us overlook in government contracting. We spend tremendous energy explaining what we do. We spend far less time explaining why what we do matters.

Organizations that consistently earn customer trust don’t just describe their capabilities. They demonstrate how those capabilities contribute to mission success. That’s the difference between product-focused marketing and mission-focused marketing. It’s also the difference between creating awareness and earning trust.

As government contractors compete in an increasingly crowded market, differentiation will come from more than capabilities, certifications, or contract vehicles. It will come from demonstrating a clear understanding of the customer’s mission—and communicating how your organization contributes to its success.

So, before your next website refresh…Before your next capability statement…Before your next customer meeting…Before your next proposal…Ask a different question.

Not:

What are we selling?

Ask:

What mission are we helping our customer accomplish?

Because government buyers don’t simply buy products or services.

They buy confidence.

They buy trust.

They buy mission success.

Every capability has a mission story. The organizations that tell it well begin earning trust long before they earn the contract.

That’s the essence of Proof Point Marketing.

Katie Helwig is president of Mild Red LLC. Her career spans 20+ years in sales, marketing, and business growth, including the last decade in GovCon. She helps government contractors turn acquisition strategy into practical growth through OASIS+, GSA MAS, GWACs, capture strategy, market intelligence, and go-to-market planning. As a military spouse, she gained an early appreciation for the people behind the mission—an experience that continues to shape her perspective today.

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Leidos layoff notices hit 305 people in non-customer roles

Nick Wakeman — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 12:38:03 -0400

Leidos notified 305 employees last month that their roles were being eliminated “due to ongoing changes and opportunities in our business environment.”

The layoff notices are part of organizational changes the company is making and aim to “help us to operate more efficiently and best position us for the future,” a Leidos spokesman said.

All of the 305 affected employees work in “indirect” positions, so they were not directly involved with government agencies or charge their time to customers.

“We have already placed, or are in the process of placing, several dozen of these people into new direct roles within Leidos,” the spokesman said. “Therefore, we expect the actual number of layoffs to be significantly lower than the total notices issued.”

Leidos has approximately 50,000 employees around the world, so the layoffs represent 0.61% of its workforce.

While a relatively small number, the company has been ravaged on online discussion boards for how the layoffs were handled with complaints of little warning and impersonal communications.

The Leidos spokesman said that for the affected employees, the company is offering severance payments and outplacement assistance.

“We are grateful to each colleague affected by these reductions, and we are committed to supporting them through this transition,” he said.

Leidos is not alone in having to make layoffs in a market still feeling the effects of the Department of Government Efficiency.

Last year, Booz Allen Hamilton announced a 7% workforce cut that impacted 2,500 people.

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HHS seeks small business support for future vendor management office

Ross Wilkers — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 12:32:29 -0400

The Health and Human Services Department has launched a search for qualified small businesses that could help stand up a office responsible for managing HHS’ relationships with enterprise software vendors.

HHS’ future Vendor Management Office would be responsible for overseeing the department’s licensing agreements, many of which fall under blanket purchase agreements and enterprise license agreements. The department wants to increase its posture in areas such as cost management, transparency and optimization of software investments.

In a sources sought notice posted Friday, HHS is seeking capability statements from small businesses who can demonstrate experience in working with software vendors on behalf of their government customers.

All categories of small businesses are being encouraged to respond including 8(a), service-disabled/veteran-owned, HUBZone, small disadvantaged and veteran-owned.

The VMO would be a part of HHS’ office of the chief information officer, which says it needs a contractor that can handle flexible assignments and ad-hoc staffing needs to support IT acquisition efforts.

Examples of key staffing positions for this future contract would include project managers, program managers, acquisition specialists, program outreach and communications specialists, emerging technology specialists and licensing specialists.

Responses are due to DHS by 5 p.m. Eastern time on July 20.

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TOP 100: LMI's commercial tech approach hinges on the business model

Ross Wilkers — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 12:29:47 -0400

For all the conversations about federal agencies purchasing and adopting more commercial technology, they inevitably turn to how problems that exist in the government ecosystem simply do not exist in commercial markets.

But as LMI and Alex Adamczyk see the world, that dynamic does not need to interfere with the use of commercial-like techniques and business models to develop and integrate tech tools for agencies.

“No one else in the world outside the government has this problem, that doesn’t mean we still can’t build software the same way a VC (venture-backed company) would talk to users, understand it, don’t charge them anything, build the prototypes, see how they like it,” said Adamczyk, LMI’s vice president of sales engineering and rapid prototyping. “Once you have a working tool, then a customer buys that, funds it, buys a license to trust it, and you can still capture all of the goodness from the government perspective of de-risking the technology.”

LMI hits Position No. 73 in the 2026 Washington Technology Top 100 rankings, up four spots from the prior year, with $449.3 million in unclassified prime contract obligations.

One fundamental question arising out of the government’s push for more commercial tech zeroes in on the customer’s tolerance of failure. In essence, is it possible for agencies to get a 100% solution and buy it in a commercial-like manner?

Adamczyk pointed to LMI’s work with the Army on its Next-Generation Command and Control effort, also called NGC2, as a prime example of where the answer to that question is “Yes.”

NGC2 is the Army’s major modernization effort aimed at replacing fragmented battlefield systems with a single, common baseline configuration for communications and data sharing.

Anduril is the prime contractor for establishing that data baseline and worked with LMI to help carry out a rapid application development pilot. LMI provided its SHEPRD force protection app that is designed to fuse asset data, terrain effects and threat information into a three-dimensional visualization.

The need to defend people and infrastructure is unique to government, but Adamczyk said LMI followed the commercial business model and approach by talking to users on the ground and discovering what their needs are.

This took place during the Army’s Ivy Sting exercises for testing, evaluating and refining emerging digital battlefield tech in high-pressure scenarios.

“They brought (SHEPRD) out to Ivy Sting, they tried it, the users gave a bunch of feedback on the tool and the government spent zero dollars,” Adamczyk said. “All of that was our investment dollars up front.”

Five weeks later, the Army asked LMI to return for another Ivy Sting exercise and still spent nothing on the technology. Another five weeks later, the Army asked to put the software tool into classified networks.

Adamczyk said that two years ago, that timeline would have been “an impossible ask for the government.”

Fast forward to today and the landscape is very different with LMI’s investments in the software itself, its DevSecOps development environment and experience in building a tech company-like culture.

“(It means that we have all these people that already know how to build secure applications, the tooling to build secure applications, the process to get containerized software hooked onto a secret network, the people who already have all the credentials,” Adamczyk said. “So when the customer said ‘Can you be on (classified) in five weeks,’ we said ‘Of course, absolutely.’”

LMI’s tech-focused culture has spread out from its Forge technology studio that was an incubator for helping employees explore and test new ideas. Adamczyk described Forge as more of an “art of the possible exploration” hub versus one that focuses on production.

LMI has since reorganized itself to make Forge more of a company-wide effort that puts human-centered design, rapid prototyping and idea exploration at the forefront.

When Forge was its own thing, only a select few were chosen to be part of an innovation team and others were left out.

“The new model is, everyone is expected to do this, everyone should be doing it,” Adamczyk said. “We're giving you the tools, we're giving you the technology to go do it. Whether you are on the rapid prototyping team full-time to do this, or out on client site, we're all going to do this the same way.”

( The July 20 episode of our WT 360 podcast will feature the full conversation with Adamczyk that includes his explanations about Forge’s evolution, the bigger picture of how LMI seeks to align its tech and business roadmaps with those of its customers, as well as what makes for a true culture of innovation )

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WT 360: Odyssey Systems and the landscape’s shifts in speed, decision authorities

Ross Wilkers — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 06:00:00 -0400

If 2025 and 2026 have told us anything, it is that the government no longer sees the decades-long status quo of acquisition as acceptable anymore because the world is too different now.

Matt Kasberg, chief executive of Company No. 73 on our 2026 Top 100, joins for this episode to explain how Odyssey Systems works with the defense acquisition community and provides an industry point-of-view on all the changes to that function of government.

In Kasberg’s words, “acquisition is a warfighting function” and that requires a keen understanding of demand signals from operators. The Pentagon’s emphasis on speed and a different setup of decision authorities are part of the equation too, as Kasberg explains.

How did Odyssey expand from 300 to 1,500 employees over a decade? Kasberg tells the growth story as one that required a mix of moves he calls “Stress and Stretch” and “New Horizons.”

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Census Bureau sets industry day as 2030 planning gets underway

Nick Wakeman — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 14:59:57 -0400

The Census Bureau is planning an industry for letter this month to explain more of its strategy for the 2030 population tally.

The agency released draft solicitation documents in April and received a large amount of questions.

Because of that, the bureau is hosting an industry day for what could be a $1 billion small business vehicle for up to 10 years. The agency is pushing to release a solicitation in August.

The contract will be a series of multiple-award blanket purchase agreements. One will be an enterprise BPA to support all bureau operations. It will cover tasks such as application development, data science and data management.

A separate pair of single-award BPAs will support the decennial program and geospatial initiatives.

The fourth BPA will be multiple-award and have three task areas – program management, IT program and project management, and architecture and engineering.

The industry day is planned for July 21 and will be virtual. No live Q&A will be conducted. The agency will post event materials on Sam.gov after the event.

Click on this link to register.

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Navy teases next step in key drone boat program

Lauren C. Williams — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0400

The Navy plans to launch the next phase of its marketplace for high-capacity, medium-sized drone boats on August 1, according to a contract notice.

The medium unmanned surface vessel, or MUSV, program “uses modular design principles to create adaptable and resilient solutions that can effectively counter evolving threats,” the July 7 notice states. “Interested parties with expertise in vessel construction, autonomy, perception systems and complex maritime problem solving experience are invited to participate in this opportunity.”

Earlier this year, the Navy changed its approach to buying medium unmanned surface vessels, favoring a marketplace format and spurring a competition and sea trials.

The coming request for prototype proposals will have “detailed requirements for high-capacity MUSV solutions used for logistics support and capable of transporting containerized payloads,” the Navy wrote in the notice.

The announcement comes as the Pentagon stands up new oversight for autonomous systems across all the services, with MUSVs as an exception.

“The MUSV continues to be a strictly Navy-led program,” a Navy spokesperson told Defense One. “We will evaluate all requirements and release recurring marketplaces as the fleet demand signal evolves, ensuring our warfighters maintain an operational advantage.”

The Navy is working with the new Pentagon office for non-MUSV programs.

“The Navy is partnering with the [Pentagon’s direct reporting portfolio manager for unmanned and autonomous systems] to streamline acquisition, enhance joint interoperability, and accelerate delivery of autonomous capabilities to the warfighter. While transitioning decision authority for select unmanned vessels to the DRPM, the Navy maintains stewardship over major programs of record,” the spokesperson said. “To ensure operational readiness and theater compatibility, Navy leaders are aligning all remaining programs with joint data standards, providing the critical personnel, resource support, and technical expertise required for a swift and successful stand-up."

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Bluestone hires Moorman to lead space, missile defense company

Ross Wilkers — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 11:36:36 -0400

Bluestone Investment Partners has hired Dr. Jay Moorman, a two-decade veteran of the market and former Parsons Corp. executive, as CEO of a portfolio company focused on space and missile defense programs.

Qualis, InTrack Radar Technologies and Tektonux joined forces earlier this year to create a 400-employee contractor that specializes in modeling and simulation, radar and electro-optical products, and artificial intelligence. Bluestone first acquired Qualis in 2024, then purchased the two other businesses.

Now as CEO of the combined entity, Moorman will lead its push to further integrate and develop new software and sensor offerings. Bluestone’s Thursday release on the appointment describes the company’s customer base as including Space Force, the Air Force and Army.

Moorman previously led Chesapake Technology International for a three-year period that culminated with its acquisition in 2025 by Parsons Corp., which he then joined as a senior vice president responsible for rapid product integration and development.

Prior to CTI, he worked as senior vice president of the wireless solutions division at CACI International. His career also includes roles at Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent and LGS Innovations.

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Tech, growth and financial leadership moves across the market

Ross Wilkers — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 11:20:51 -0400

Booz Allen Hamilton

Christopher Porter has joined the company as global chief information security officer after 10 years at Fannie Mae as its CISO.

He first joined Fannie Mae in 2015 as deputy CISO and was promoted a year later. Prior to Fannie Mae, he spent 10 years at Verizon.

Porter announced his new Booz Allen role in a LinkedIn post.

CACI International

Tom Kirkland has returned to CACI as executive vice president of electronic warfare after five years in senior leadership roles at L3Harris Technologies.

This is Kirkland’s second stint at CACI, where his prior roles have included vice president of business development and chief growth officer for products. At L3Harris, he most recently worked as president of targeting and sensor systems.

Electronic warfare is a cornerstone of CACI’s technology and business strategies.

Chugach Government Solutions

Laura Nelson has joined the technical and professional services provider as senior vice president of corporate development, a role she brings two decades of experience to.

CGS has tasked Nelson with leading its merger-and-acquisition function, go-to-market strategies and other key initiatives in support of its push for growth.

Nelson most recently worked as vice president of strategy and corporate development at ASRC Federal. She also has held growth roles at Lockheed Martin.

Core4ce

Neill Tipton has joined the defense technology integrator as vice president of National Capital Region growth, a role he brings 45 years of experience to.

Core4ce has tasked Tipton with leading the push to expand its research-and-development, tech and mission support offerings to customers in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region.

Tipton most recently served as a special adviser to the defense undersecretary for intelligence and security. He is also a former director of defense intelligence for collection and special programs.

DMI

Mark Olson has joined the digital transformation and IT services company as chief financial officer, a role he brings two decades of experience to.

Olson most recently worked as CFO at REI Systems for two years. Prior to that, he worked as vice president and general manager for the Homeland Security Department and diplomacy business unit at Peraton.

EarthDaily Federal

Jon Mathers has joined the space data and analytics provider as vice president of growth, a role he brings two decades of military and industry experience to.

EarthDaily’s LinkedIn post on the hire cites his background in leading business development and capture functions at HII, Meta Special Aerospace, and more recently Planet.

At Planet, he worked as senior manager of global defense and intelligence sales. He is also an Air Force veteran.

eSimplicity

A pair of transitions in the C-level executive ranks are afoot at this integrator of commercial and open source technology.

Edouard “Ed” Benjamin, formerly general manager of health, has moved up to chief operating officer as eSimplicity shapes the next iteration of its strategy. Nam Nguyen, co-founder and former COO, has transitioned into the role of president and acting chief growth officer.

Dan Frantzen, a two-decade veteran and more recently a managing director at Accenture Federal Services, has joined eSimplicity as general manager of health.

Everfox

Toby O’Brien has joined the cybersecurity company as chief financial officer, a role he brings nearly four decades of experience to.

O’Brien most recently worked as CFO at Intelsat for a three-year period that culminated with its sale to SES in 2025. Prior to Intelsat, he held the chief financial officer role at Raytheon for a five-year-period that ended with its merger with United Technologies Corp. to form RTX.

He then was RTX’s CEO for one year prior to his hire at Intelsat. O’Brien’s new role at Everfox reunites him with longtime colleague Dave Wajsgras, who is a fellow Raytheon veteran and former CEO of Intelsat.

Everforth ECS

Steven Irish has joined the technology integrator as chief growth officer, a newly-created role he brings 25 years of experience to.

Irish’s areas of responsibility include business development, capture, customer engagements and technology partnerships. He will report to Everforth ECS President Donnie Scott, who joined in February.

Everforth ECS announced a series of business unit leadership appointments in this LinkedIn post. The company formerly known as ASGN adopted Everforth as its new name earlier this year.

ManTech

Brandy Durham has moved to the chief technology position after a stint as the company’s chief data and artificial intelligence officer, a role that involved leadership over its AI practice.

ManTech wrote in a LinkedIn post that she now leads its technology and capabilities organization, which leads the development and deployment of new tech.

Durham first joined ManTech in 2023 as vice president of the data and AI practice. Her 25-year industry career also includes roles at Amazon Web Services, IBM and Microsoft.

NinjaOne

Mitchell Plonski has joined this IT operations and management platform developer as senior vice president of global public sector, a role he brings 23 years of industry experience to.

He most recently worked as president of Halcyon and is a co-founder of Shift5, where he was chief revenue officer.

Plonski is also a former executive officer to the deputy director of national intelligence.

Peraton

Michael Fitch has joined the company as chief technology officer for the health, state and local sector after three decades in other roles across the industry.

“I'm excited to partner with an incredibly talented team to shape the technology strategy that powers these missions, and to keep pushing what's possible in health IT, cybersecurity, and digital government,” Fitch wrote in a LinkedIn post on his new role.

Fitch is a 24-year veteran of Science Applications International Corp. from two separate tenures, including the most recent nine-year run that culminated with a stint as executive director for cybersecurity and critical operations. He also spent four years as a vice president at Carousel Industries.

Pond & Company

Mike Wehr has joined the full-service design and engineering firm as senior vice president of federal infrastructure, a role he brings three decades of experience to.

Wehr most recently worked as executive director of The Society of American Military Engineers, which touts a membership base of 25,000 professionals. Prior to that, he was vice president and sector manager for the defense federal business unit at Atkins North America.

Pond was acquired in January by Arlington Capital Partners.

Scout Space

Jessica Jones has joined the space situational awareness software developer as vice president of operations, a role she brings nearly a decade of experience to.

Jones most recently spent nine years in leadership roles at George Mason University’s National Security Institute, including deputy executive director and founding director of its cybersecurity and artificial intelligence clinic.

Scout Space announced its hire of Jones in a LinkedIn post.

StraCon Services Group

Robert Smith has joined the defense-focused technical and professional services provider as vice president of digital engineering, a role he brings three decades of experience to.

StraCon’s LinkedIn post on the hire cites Smith’s background as in alignment with the company’s priorities in digital transformation, advanced analytics and enterprise data integration.

Smith most recently worked as director of digital solutions at Sierra Management & Technologies. He also served in civilian leadership roles at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division and Naval Air Systems Command.

Strongbridge

Andrew Powell has moved up to president at the technology and professional services provider, which he first joined in 2023 as chief growth officer.

“He will lead all business development and operations initiatives and continue to drive our mission of improving the lives of every citizen, every day,” Strongbridge wrote in a LinkedIn post on the promotion.

Powell spent 10 years at SiloSmashers before joining Strongbridge.

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NGA wants ideas for automatically spotting changes in its geospatial data

Nick Wakeman — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 14:22:04 -0400

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is looking for commercial solutions to improve how it detects changes in its baseline layer of global geospatial data.

While the commercial solutions opening offers an enticing opportunity, the agency emphasizes that no money is obligated and there may be no awards. Instead, it appears that NGA wants to build a stable of providers the agency can tap into as funding becomes available.

NGA's approach is similar to a broad agency announcement and allows the agency to solicit and evaluate potential solutions.

This example involves how NGA is looking for new technologies, processes or methods that can help it detect changes across its databases. The project is called Foundation GEOINT Change Detection.

The GEOINT data provides a framework that describes the physical and cultural characteristics of the world. GEOINT data is a critical part of how NGA serves intelligence, defense, civil and commercial missions.

The Foundation GEOINT Operations Office fields hundreds of validated requirements a year for mapping and safety-of-navigation data and separately maintains an authoritative "listing of products" for more than 600 non-combatant evacuation operation sites across 189 countries.

Currently, finding where changes that justify updating products is largely a manual, case-by-case process.

Localized change detection tools already exist, but they require a user to already know where to look. The agency wants a system that surface relevant changes globally, without a human pointing them at a location first.

NGA’s data includes earth sciences, gravity, magnetics, geodetic surveys, elevation, precise imagery and coordinate systems. The data supports global navigation satellite systems, topography, cartography, geographic names, human geography, political geography, and safety of navigation for maritime and aeronautical domains.

Solutions must be unclassified, commercial and shareable with international partners. NGA is encouraging teaming among companies to cover the full pipeline — from data collection through exploitation — rather than expecting a single vendor to do it all.

NGA will evaluate proposals for funding feasibility and then rate them for technical feasibility, responsiveness, viability and desirability.

Submissions are due July 21.

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Air Force Research Lab picks joint venture for $499M integration support contract

Ross Wilkers — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 14:08:32 -0400

A joint venture of Analytical Mechanics Associates and Vantage Systems has won a potential 10-year, $499 million contract for technical and other professional services to aid the Air Force Research Laboratory in systems integration efforts.

AFRL set up the Space Systems and Hardware Integration for Novel Experiments contract to cover a broad range of research and engineering work across all phases of the space technology lifecycle, which the lab refers to as "cradle-to-grave."

Vantage Analytical’s proposal for the SSHINE contract beat out eight others, according to the Pentagon’s Wednesday awards digest.

Solicitation documents released in January 2025 break out the scope of work into four major functional areas:

Mission and space system development
Flight experiment prototyping, assembly, integration and testing
Flight experiment operations
Ground system development

SSHINE is the successor to the “Research and development Integrated Space Experiments“ contract, also known as RISE, which Millennium Engineering and Integration Co. captured in 2019.

Axient inherited the contract in 2021 after its formation via a series of acquisitions involving MEI, then Axient itself was acquired by Astrion in 2024.

AFRL has obligated $173 million in task order volume against RISE, according to Deltek data.

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CMS makes awards on $3.5B data, research support recompete

Ross Wilkers — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 14:07:48 -0400

The Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services has awarded 17 companies positions on a five-year, $3.5 billion blanket purchase agreement that covers a broad range of data-related and research services.

CMS awarded iteration number three of the Research, Measurement, Assessment, Design and Analysis contract on Wednesday and received 34 offers in total, according to Sam.gov records.

RMADA 3 tasks winners to provide analytical support and technical assistance to aid CMS in models and demonstrations. CMS uses those models for programs such as the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program and those covered under private payer sources.

Awardees are as follows:

Abt Global (incumbent)
Acumen (incumbent)
American Institutes for Research in the Behavioral Sciences (incumbent)
Arbor Research Collaborative for Health (incumbent)
Booz Allen Hamilton (incumbent)
Deloitte Consulting (incumbent)
General Dynamics’ IT services unit (incumbent)
Guidehouse (newcomer)
L&M Policy Research (newcomer)
The Lewin Group, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth’s Optum arm (incumbent)
Livanta, now part of Commence (newcomer)
Mathematica (incumbent)
National Opinion Research Center (incumbent)
Tria Federal (newcomer)
Westat (incumbent)

Given the nature of BPAs, CMS could name additional awardees and we will update the list accordingly if need be.

The current RMADA 2 pact was awarded in 2019 and is slated to expire on July 31. CMS has obligated $1.2 billion in task order volume to-date against RMADA 2, according to GovTribe data.

Solicitation documents released in June describe the scope of work for RMADA 3 as including support for all aspects of model design and operations, except for IT needs as those are covered by other contracts.

CMS is also tasking awardees to help design and carry out data collection activities such as surveys, obtain and analyze secondary data sources, provide rapid cycle evaluation feedback to CMS and other model participants, create summaries and reports of program findings, and provide grant proposal reviews.

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Greg Barbaccia to leave federal CIO role at end of August

David DiMolfetta — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0400

Federal CIO Greg Barbaccia is leaving government service, capping off an 18-month tenure as the government’s top IT lead where he sought to overhaul how the U.S. agencies acquire and interact with tech services.

Barbaccia will depart Aug. 31, according to a White House official with knowledge of the matter, who requested anonymity to communicate the departure. It’s not clear where Barbaccia is headed next.

The Office of Management and Budget confirmed his departure date.

“Greg has done an excellent job as Federal CIO and Chief AI Officer,” a spokesperson told Nextgov/FCW. “He will certainly be missed when his time here comes to an end.”

The move was first reported by FedScoop.

“Greg Barbaccia has been an incredible partner at GSA. He has fundamentally reshaped our work on the federal government’s technology and the products GSA delivers across the federal workforce on behalf of the American taxpayer,” GSA Administrator Edward Forst said in a statement to Nextgov/FCW. “I’m deeply grateful for his extraordinary service to President Trump and the American people.”

Barbaccia joined OMB in January 2025 after a decade at Palantir and later stints at blockchain intelligence firm Elementus and Theorem, a machine-learning-enabled asset manager. A former Army intelligence sergeant and intelligence community analyst, Barbaccia had not worked in government since 2009 and had not previously served as an agency CIO.

Barbaccia was charged as federal CIO with overseeing governmentwide IT policy, helping shape the federal technology budget and setting the direction for agency modernization efforts. He also served as the federal chief AI officer and became the government’s service delivery lead under the Government Service Delivery Improvement Act.

During his tenure, he pushed agencies to rethink how they buy and manage technology, arguing that the government should default more often to buying commercial tools rather than building systems in-house. He also sought tougher enforcement of FITARA, the 2014 law giving agency CIOs authority over technology investments, and explored ways for OMB to more closely track major IT decisions across agencies.

Barbaccia also made culture a central theme of his tenure, saying his role had become less about “deep diving” into technical architecture and more about changing how the government thinks about technology, compliance and modernization. He pushed the federal CIO office to gather more feedback from agency technology leaders and sent staff into the field for in-person meetings with agencies.

“I came into the job thinking this would be much more of a technical undertaking about deep diving into technical systems and technical architecture,” he told Nextgov/FCW in February. “I’m understanding changing the culture and the way we think about tech and the government is a way more effective means of making change, so that's what I’m focused on — primarily changes across culture, tech and then the compliance regime.”

His departure comes after a turbulent period for the federal technology workforce, including Department of Government Efficiency’s push to downsize government as a whole, broad personnel losses across government — including portions of the federal tech workforce — and a reshuffling of many agency CIO roles. Barbaccia has acknowledged those disruptions but argued that artificial intelligence and a new early-career U.S. Tech Force program could help the government rebuild technical capacity.

Barbaccia also championed a “digital front door” for government services, questioning why taxpayers must repeatedly provide the same information to different agencies. That vision, he said, would require more responsible data sharing and a willingness to make difficult decisions around identity proofing, including the future of Login.gov and the government’s use of commercial identity tools.

During his tenure, the federal government began to confront a new class of advanced AI models that officials and researchers say will forever overhaul how organizations manage defensive and offensive cyber strategies. The models’ advent has raised ongoing questions for agency technology leaders about model-sharing and coordination amid a recent export control debacle that impacted parts of the government.

Nextgov/FCW Managing Editor Edward Graham contributed to this report.

Editor's note: This article has been updated to include a statement from GSA Administrator Edward Forst.

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How Ukraine won the first great robot war

Patrick Tucker — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 17:02:31 -0400

In the spring and summer of 2026, the story about Russia's war in Ukraine changed. The defenders are combining air and ground drones, autonomy, and swarming to re-capture territory with robots while risking fewer humans—increasing casualties for Russia while decreasing them for their own forces. Some four and a half years after confidently launching his invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin has dwindling military options.

In this short documentary, analysts, entrepreneurs, European experts, and NATO military officials describe how Ukraine defied expectations and changed the future direction of military technology—and of war itself.

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Federal AI policy just changed again. Is your security stack ready?

Mark Mitchell — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 16:52:21 -0400

The White House order for all government contracts to eliminate use of Anthropic products in federal government solutions illustrates a precarious and volatile new reality for federal systems integrators (FSIs) and federal contractors.

It is a stark reminder that, in the federal space, the ability to pivot—based on ever-evolving AI technology, shifting geopolitical concerns, and fluctuating policy—is not just an advantage. It is a requirement for survival.

Although the government continues to accelerate adoption following last year’s White House executive order directing the elimination of policy obstacles to AI innovation, a consistent national standard for AI governance remains elusive. Requirements vary across agencies and continue to shift with evolving executive guidance, procurement rules and risk interpretations.

Recent Government Accountability Office findings on federal AI use highlight that agencies are scaling AI faster than they are establishing consistent governance, oversight and risk tracking, resulting in a fragmented operating environment. These demands will continuously change as new models and technologies are introduced and matured.

What will not change is the need for security solutions to support these technologies. For FSIs and federal contractors operating in the federal ecosystem, this creates a moving target. As agencies adopt generative and emerging AI capabilities, expectations around security, data protection and model risk continue to evolve without uniform standards.

As such, FSIs and other technology contractors must have flexible foundational security processes in place that enable them to align with differing agency requirements, support rapid AI adoption and pivot to new AI technologies as government demands evolve without rebuilding their entire security architecture.

Legacy security tools often treat "AI traffic" as a monolith, failing to distinguish between consumer AI tools or government-sanctioned controlled instances. Without this granularity, FSIs and federal contractors risk blind spots that enable "shadow AI" behavior, where sensitive data, including controlled unclassified information (CUI) may be inadvertently exposed to external models or used in unintended training contexts.

In practice, organizations can’t rely on restrictive AI policies alone. In fast moving mission environments, users will adopt AI tools to increase efficiency and get the job done. The goal as a partner to the government is therefore not to block adoption but to ensure innovation doesn't come at the expense of a data spill.

As an extension of federal agencies, FSIs and federal contractors must adhere to strict mandates such as the Department of War’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program. While CMMC doesn’t explicitly address AI, its focus on protecting CUI through robust DLP controls is central to AI-intensive operations – an area that will only grow more complex as AI increases the volume and velocity of data-intensive operations.

In AI enabled workflows, data loss prevention (DLP) plays a key role in ensuring sensitive data is not inadvertently introduced into external or multi-tenant AI environments. For example, an FSI or federal contractor might have a corporate account for Google Gemini that prevents anyone outside of the company from accessing the data used on the platform. On top of that, they must ensure their security solutions account for all potential pathways in which sensitive data can leak in the cloud – whether that’s from unmanaged devices, off-premises locations, unsanctioned/shadow IT cloud services and more.

To address these risks, FSIs and federal contractors should opt for cloud security platforms with comprehensive monitoring and enforcement at the user activity and content level, whether users are on-premises or remote, on a mobile device or even using mobile apps or sync clients. They must ensure their solutions cover all possible cloud traffic regardless of location, device or network.

At the core of the AI revolution is a single constant: the visibility and security of data – understanding what data exists, who has access to it, what risk levels surround it and knowing how to protect it.

For FSIs and federal contractors, adopting a flexible security foundation is essential to ensuring that every new technology investment can be adopted without introducing unmanaged risk.

If they ignore this, they risk falling out of compliance with government regulations, which translates into the possibility of losing government contracts and damaging their brand. A modern Data Protection Architecture - built on a high-performance cloud platform, with expanded visibility across the AI landscape - keeps FSIs and federal contractors ahead of the evolving risk landscape and competitive in the market.

Mark Mitchell is the federal security architect for Netskope.

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Army's $50B MAPS contract hit with wave of protests over evaluation criteria

Nick Wakeman — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 16:41:56 -0400

A group of companies are challenging aspects of the criteria being used to evaluate proposals for the Army’s $50 billion MAPS professional services contract.

After several delays, the Army pushed the deadline for proposals for the Marketplace for the Acquisition of Professional Services vehicle until late June.

The delays did not stop several more companies from filing protests.

The current group of protesters includes Kearney & Co., Manutek Inc., NextGen Federal Systems, Integral Federal, Cinteot, Alpha Tech Alliance and the JAAW Group.

Some of the challenges to the evaluation criteria include unduly restrictive requirements, ambiguities in self-scoring scorecard, and how credits are applied for small business contracts.

Among the challenges also are complaints about the process the Army is using. One company says there are “systemic procurement instability” because of changes to the solicitation numbering and Sam.gov posting protocols.

When the Army posted new scorecards, bidders had just four calendar days (and one business day) to respond before the request for proposals closed in June.

A second protester said that the Army is using provisions of the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul, but still includes pre-RFP provisions throughout. That protester is arguing the Army is bundling and consolidating requirements without complying with statutory requirements.

A third challenge focuses on how the solicitation limits the size of submissions to 5 megabytes, but some files such as the scorecard already exceed 5 MB before companies enter data into them.

The protests were filed between mid June and early July, so the due dates for Government Accountability Office decisions range from mid-September to mid-October.

GAO can decide to bundle them into a single decision, but the variety of challenges being raised indicates we will likely see multiple decisions. We could also see multiple corrective actions if the Army decisions to make changes to address the challenges.

The Army has indicated it hopes to make awards in September, but it cannot make awards if protest decisions are still pending.

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TOP 100: DLT's new leader bets on distributors as 'orchestrators,' not middlemen

Nick Wakeman — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 13:29:59 -0400

Wendy Welch did not join TDSynnex's public sector arm to keep the DLT Solutions business running the way it always has.

Three months into the job, she is betting that distribution is about to become more important to the federal IT supply chain — a far cry from being squeezed out by the General Services Administration’s OneGov push toward more direct relationships with original equipment manufacturers.

The success of value-added distributors such as DLT — No. 87 on the 2026 Washington Technology Top 100 — will rely on leaning in on their role as “orchestrators,” said Welch.

“Our leadership is pushing us on innovation, making sure that we stay not just at the center of the ecosystem, but continue to evolve our solutions approach to make sure we’re orchestrating and complementing the complex solutions that are needed in the market,” added Welch, senior vice president of public sector sales at TD Synnex.

Distributors can be disruptors in the market and play an even more important role because of the complexity of the solutions government customers need, she said.

Pricing volatility ties into part of that complexity, Welch said.

“Some of our vendors can only hold prices for seven days, so we’ve seen scenarios where thousands of quotes have to be repriced every seven days or 14 days across multiple partners,” she said.

When Welch talks about vendors, she is referring to original equipment manufacturers. Partners are the resellers that sell OEM products to government customers.

Increased pricing volatility has driven DLT and TDSynnex to adopt more artificial intelligence tools and automation.

“The investments have been a differentiator for us and how we serve our partners,” Welch said.

Sales of certain commodity products, such as peripherals and monitors, are more transactional and can be automated to large degree.

“It frees up our team to work on the more complex or higher touch engagements,” she said.

DLT thinks of itself as customer zero when leveraging AI solutions.

“It is hard to promote a solution that you’re not using yourself,” she said. “It’s really important to us to bring those experiences and build the skills of our co-workers.”

The goal is to build what she called “AI fluency” across the workforce.

A second key investment area for the company is a cyber range in Herndon, Virginia. This is second such facility the company has built after establishing one in Gilbert, Arizona.

DLT wants to bring vendors and partners together with customers to work through challenges, undergo training and run live-attack simulations to demonstrate different solutions.

A second driving force in the market is GSA’s OneGov initiative, where the agency is signing more agreements with OEMs to bring together more of the government’s buying tnstead of agency-to-agency.

For Welch, OneGov is an example of the constant change that churns the market. Companies need to put a premium on agility and flexibility.

“If we think everything is going to stay the same, then we’re kidding ourselves,” she said. "We look at the outcomes that our customers need to implement.”

By keeping the customer at the center and then tracking back through the supply chain and the technology ecosystem, Welch believes DLT "will continue to find routes to the market and customers that benefit from our services.”

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TOP 100: How Odyssey Systems views acquisition and its links to field operations

Ross Wilkers — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 13:28:30 -0400

Matt Kasberg’s career arc at Odyssey Systems, which he first joined in 2008 as a program manager and became chief executive of in 2025, serves as a microcosm of how defense acquisition has evolved.

Whereas acquisition in 2008 was seen as more of back-office function for agencies, the conversation in 2026 is more about how this line of work directly connects with operators in the field.

The Defense Department’s push to overhaul its acquisition approaches, methods and processes centers around emphasizing metrics and speed to make production and deliveries happen quicker.

In Kasberg’s own words, “acquisition is a warfighting function” that requires getting to the heart of what operators are asking for. Odyssey’s setup as an acquisition support and systems engineering provider puts it in a position to know.

“You need to understand the demand signals from the operators,” Kasberg said. “Part of the acquisition process is understanding what that is, and then it's really translating that need into the most efficient and effective way to get the capability out to them as quickly as possible.”

Odyssey Systems hits Position No. 73 in the 2026 Washington Technology Top 100 rankings, up three spots from the 2025 edition, on $414.8 million in unclassified prime contract obligations. This is Odyssey’s third consecutive year in the rankings after entering them in 2024 at Position No. 99.

A bulk of Odyssey’s business is with the Air Force and breaks out to four primary areas, including airborne technology integration and command-and-control. Warfighter readiness and ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) are Odyssey’s two other key business lines.

Odyssey was born as a company predominantly focused on acquisition-related requirements out of Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts, a major hub for weapon systems acquisition and electronic systems development.

The company has gradually expanded from its original cyber and networks core to other areas such as nuclear command-and-control, life sciences, space and missile defense.

Odyssey’s website touts the Space Force, Army, Navy, Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization, Missile Defense Agency, Coast Guard and the national laboratories as examples of customers outside of the Air Force.

Kasberg described Odyssey’s strategy for building out its technical depth as starting out with efforts to protect its base of incumbent contracts, then identifying “little leaps into a stress and stretch-type environment” where the company takes its capability into a new area or customer.

Category three of the technical strategy is what Odyssey calls “New Horizons,” where the company places bets on where it wants to go in five-to-10 years.

If cracking the Top 100 three years in a row is one sign of Odyssey’s growth over the past decade, its headcount is surely another that shows where the company came from.

“Ten years ago, we were 300 employees with a much smaller geographic set, much smaller mission set,” Kasberg said. “Here we are today, over 1,500 employees, very diverse customer base from armament systems to, ISR and special (operations) systems to ground-based radars, looking up at space for space-domain awareness type missions.”

Kasberg said Odyssey is a primary engineering support provider to three of the Air Force’s portfolio acquisition executives, or PAEs, which have taken on much of the decision authorities formerly held by Program Executive Offices.

That ongoing shift means Odyssey has also had to evolve its approach with it. In essence, PAEs are being established with the intent to not repeat historical challenges associated with stove-piped acquisitions historically done by PEOs.

“As we think about navigating the evolution of acquisition, we really want to think bigger than one PAE, and about how can we share best practices from the early PAEs onto the other PAEs as they've stood up over the last 12-to-18 months,” Kasberg said.

( This coming Monday’s episode of our WT 360 podcast will feature the full conversation with Kasberg, including more of his perspective on how “acquisition is a warfighting function” and the company’s work with national laboratories that gives it an early look at emerging tech )

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Westway receives Capitol Meridian's backing

Ross Wilkers — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 13:20:12 -0400

Westway Enterprises, a provider and renter of secured workspaces to companies in the national security market, has agreed to be acquired by investment firm Capitol Meridian Partners as part of a facility expansion push.

Founded in 2008, Westway currently operates four classified facilities and is working on a fifth. Westway describes its customer base as including prime contractors, small businesses, non-traditional companies, and academic and research institutions.

As Westway sees the world, demand for secured spaces far exceeds supply of them as it requires years of time and money for companies to build these facilities on their own. Westway said Tuesday that it will accelerate its build-out of accredited capacity with the support of CMP.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

“Secure infrastructure has become one of the most constrained and most strategic assets in national security,” Westway CEO Robert Miller said in a release. “Our mission is to accelerate American innovation by opening classified work to every kind of organization — from small businesses and commercial innovators to non-traditional defense contractors and the government itself — with fast, scalable access to the secure environments where the most sensitive work gets done.

Miller joined Westway in February after a three-year term as CEO of SilverEdge Government Solutions, which Science Applications International Corp. acquired in the fall.

Westway’s current facilities are located in Herndon and Chantilly in Virginia, as well as St. Louis and Aurora, Colorado. The fifth hub in Huntsville, Alabama, is eyed for opening in 2027.

Tiffanny Gates, a CMP operating partner, has joined Westway’s board of directors as chair. Westway will also pursue acquisitions with the backing of CMP.

CMP was founded in 2021 by Adam Palmer and Brooke Coburn, both formerly of Carlyle Group, and closed its first investment fund in 2024 at $900 million.

Westway was advised by Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. CMP was advised by Latham & Watkins LLP.

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Tyto Athene hires Boyd as CEO

Ross Wilkers — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0400

Tyto Athene has hired a new chief executive in Andrew Boyd, a two-decade veteran of the market and formerly an executive at IBM’s federal consulting business unit.

Boyd succeeds Dennis Kelly, who previously led the technology integrator for the past two years. Tyto said Wednesday that Kelly is remaining on its board of directors to support the next phase of the strategy.

During Kelly’s tenure, the Arlington Capital Partners-owned company made three acquisitions to further build out its cybersecurity offerings and presence across defense and intelligence agencies.

Arlington Capital established Tyto in 2018 through a carveout of that business from Black Box, then supported Tyto’s acquisition of the former AT&T defense IT professional services business in 2021.

Kelly then joined Tyto in 2024 and subsequently joined our WT 360 podcast to lay out the company’s path for growth, plus his blueprint of scaling businesses.

Boyd now picks up the mantle of leading Tyto’s strategy and vision to lead in areas such as networks, cloud computing, cybersecurity, data and technology delivery.

More recently at IBM, Boyd worked as the federal consulting arm’s defense and intelligence industry lead. He is also a former CEO of S2 Analytical Solutions and IDEMIA National Security Solutions.

Boyd’s career also includes senior leadership roles at Science Applications International Corp., Unisys, Engility Corp., TASC, OGSystems, Northrop Grumman and Sparta.

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Salesforce’s Missionforce takes the wheel on Air Force fleet management

Nick Wakeman — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 06:00:00 -0400

The Air Force is now using Salesforce’s Missionforce software to help manage its $13.5 billion fleet of vehicles.

The 441st Vehicle Support Chain Operations Squadron has adopted Missionforce National Security to manage 84,000 vehicles at 389 locations.

The cloud-native software will replace the legacy fleet management system the Air Force has been using, the company said in an a release Wednesday.

“The 441st VSCOS is a masterclass in how a lean, mission-focused team paired with Salesforce can drive real global impact,” said Kendall Collins, CEO of Missionforce and government cloud at Salesforce. “By consolidating onto a single, interoperable platform with Missionforce National Security, the Air Force has turned fragmented logistics operations into a strategic advantage.”

The Air Force has deployed a suite of IL5-approved applications on Salesforce Government Cloud Plus Defense to manage its vehicle fleet.

The implementation includes Agentforce Public Sector to capture data and give Air Force personnel data on vehicles and what the company calls a 360-degree view of operations including vehicle needs, end-of-life timelines and predictive analytics. The software will also help with coordinating work orders and repairs in real time.

The Salesforce platform will also allow the Air Force to build customer, mission-specific applications and tools.

Some of the goals of the rollout include global visibility, streamlined asset logistics, better mission planning, greater reliability and a simplified budget process.

The Air Force project is one of several recent awards for Salesforce, including a $72 million enterprise license agreement with the Air Force to modernize personnel management and a $5.5 billion Army contract for access to Missionforce.

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Library of Congress awards $100M professional services contract

Ross Wilkers — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 15:30:14 -0400

The Library of Congress has awarded six positions on a five-year, $100 million contract for broad technical and support services to help its components and sub-agencies focus on core missions.

Known as FedLINK, the Federal Library and Information Network contract was set up to hire a group of companies that can perform both on-site and off-site services. Federal libraries and information centers can acquire collection and cataloging support through the contract.

Awardees announced Thursday are as follows:

22nd Century Technologies
Eigennet
FedWriters
Library Associates of Maryland
RieLes Group
Zimmerman Associates

With six winners, FedLINK represents an expansion from the incumbent single-award contract captured by Backstage Library Works in 2021 at a $100 million ceiling. Task order spending data on that contract was not available at the time of publication.

Solicitation documents released in January break out the new contract’s requirements into two main categories, including on-site library support services and off-site technical services.

The on-site portion covers management, library systems, collection services, data services, public services and technical services. Off-site work includes cataloging services, metadata services and physical processing services.

In February 2025, the Library of Congress chose 10 companies for a potential $450 million contract vehicle covering technology modernization and agile development services over five years.

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Empower AI acquires data, digital transformation outfit

Ross Wilkers — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 15:27:52 -0400

Empower AI has acquired a fellow federal IT services provider in a move focused on further scaling out the buyer’s technology delivery function and strengthening artificial intelligence offerings.

Highlight Technologies is an employee-owned company that opened for business in 2008 to provide data and digital transformation support to agencies. Highlight’s flagship AI offering called AIDE, short for AI Data Integration & Orchestration Engine, is available to Defense Department agencies via the Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace for acquiring technology tools.

By purchasing Highlight, Empower AI is also looking to speed up its AI accelerator portfolio that is geared toward interoperability and quicker deployments. Financial terms of the transaction announced Tuesday were not disclosed.

Highlight has recorded $13.2 million in unclassified prime contract revenue over the trailing 12 months with 79% of that spend from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency, according to USASpending.gov data.

For Empower AI, this acquisition represents a first for the tech integrator on several fronts.

This is its first transaction since KKR acquired majority ownership of the company in the fall of 2022, as well as the first during Jeff Bohling’s tenure as CEO since he joined in early 2023.

The McLean Group advised Highlight on the transaction, while Rock Hall advised Empower AI.

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Air Force seeks shared services backbone for ERP systems

Nick Wakeman — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 14:25:41 -0400

The Air Force is looking to help build out a shared services backbone for its enterprise resource planning systems.

In sources sought notice posted Tuesday, the Air Force also asks contractors to weigh in on how artificial intelligence requirements can be incorporated into the eventual solicitation.

The contract will come out of the Maxwell Air Force Base’s Gunter Annex in Alabama, where elements of the Air Force Materiel Command are housed.

The winning contractor will develop a suite of common ERP services on the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, which is part of the Cloud One program, to enhance an existing shared services model run by Accenture.

The goal is to build on that model to improve collaboration, streamline business functions and integrate emerging technologies.

The Air Force envisions a contract with one initial base year and four individual option years, plus an additional six-month term for an extension of services.

Accenture won the current $141.3 million contract in 2020. The Air Force awarded an extension in January 2026 that puts the end date at January 2027, according to GovTribe data.

The RFI emphasizes the Air Force’s desire for a shared services platform which will allow the ERP systems to access common services such as storage, database management, identity and integration tools, analytics, and operational support.

One objective of the contract will be to incorporate AI and machine learning technologies to automate processes, generate insights, and improve performance. The Air Force wants AI to work alongside DevSecOps software development objectives and be part of sustainment and modernization work.

The Air Force wants commenters to submit draft performance work statement language that incorporates AI.

Responses to the RFI are due July 21.

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