Rapid Fire June 27, 2012: Head Honchos Hunting

Jun 27, 2012 09:40 UTC by Defense Industry Daily staff
  • The CEOs of prime contractors including Lockheed Martin and EADS North America met with US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to discuss how to avoid next year’s pending budget sequester. A previous meeting of industry bigwigs with the White House’s budget office did not seem to bear fruit.
  • Republican members of the Senate Armed Services Committee John McCain [AZ], Lindsey Graham [SC] and Kelly Ayotte [NH] have recently expressed their support for the industry following yet another study showing a great number of jobs are at stake, but there’s still no clear path to avoid sequestration before the presidential election. Graham is even advising defense contractors to send layoff notices as soon as possible to force Congress to act. In an apparently endless stalemate, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid counters that increased revenue will have to be part of any deal.

  • Austal USA’s President and COO Joe Rella resigned last week. CFO Brian Leathers is interim president. This sudden resignation is fueling rumors of a coming change in their shipyard’s ownership structure.

  • The US Navy gave acquisition awards to the people handling Harpoon Block II+ and Cargo UAS (i.e. the team that tested and fielded K-Max VTUAVs in record time).

  • The Navy is still working on its NGEN intranet RFP and is running into issues on the fbo.gov website. SPAWAR posted a separate special notice with the latest details.

  • DISA’s presentation [PDF] made to attendants during a recent industry day on the Pentagon’s planned mobility capabilities is now available. They intend to converge several services, including enterprise email, in about a year and there’s apparently an Android/iOS mix in their future.

  • The US Coast Guard is interested in [PDF] small UAVs and will test ScanEagles aboard their Stratton cutter. But they have been looking at UAVs for years.

  • The GAO tells DOD to improve its monitoring of commercial payments in order to minimize penalties.

    • Categories: Budgets, Daily Rapid Fire, IT - Networks & Bandwidth, IT - Software & Integration, Lobbying, People, Procurement Innovations, Rumours, UAVs

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