The INSIDER daily digest -- Oct. 28, 2020

By John Liang / October 28, 2020 at 1:33 PM

This Wednesday INSIDER Daily Digest has news on several big defense contractors' quarterly earnings, plus the Army's information technology priorities, Navy unmanned systems and more.

General Dynamics, Boeing and Raytheon reported their quarterly earnings this week:

GD reports about 1,800 COVID-19 cases among employees

About 1,800 of General Dynamics' roughly 100,000 employees have come down with COVID-19 and about 1,500 are "fully recovered and back to work," according to the company's chief executive.

Raytheon to divest Forcepoint business

Investment firm Francisco Partners said this week it has agreed to acquire Raytheon Technologies' Forcepoint cybersecurity business.

Army Lt. Gen. John Morrison, who previously was the chief of staff of U.S. Cyber Command, is now serving as the principal military adviser to the Army secretary and service chief of staff and is responsible for implementing the Army's chief information officer's policies:

New Army IT chief lays out priorities after office split

The Army's new information technology chief has laid out a set of priorities a few months into his role following a split of the Chief Information Officer/(G-6) office earlier this year.

Dorothy Engelhardt, director for unmanned systems in the office of the deputy assistant Navy secretary for ships, spoke this week during a webinar hosted by Booz Allen Hamilton:

Navy 'war room' looking at unmanned system capability gaps

As a result of the chief of naval operations tasking the service to develop an unmanned campaign plan, the Navy has created a "war room" to map out the capability gaps in its unmanned systems, according to a senior official.

Both House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee Chairman Joe Courtney (D-CT) and Ranking Member Rob Wittman (R-VA) support a larger Navy. But in separate interviews with Inside Defense, Wittman expressed optimism with Esper's statements, while Courtney said he was frustrated:

House seapower subcommittee leaders split on Esper's Navy plan comments

The leaders of the House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee are split on Defense Secretary Mark Esper's statements about his new plan to build up the Navy.

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