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United Technologies Corp. announced today it has named Akhil Johri as its chief financial officer, beginning Jan. 1.
Johri joins from Pall Corp., but previously spent 26 years at UTC in several positions, including serving as chief financial officer for UTC's proposulsion and aerospace systems business.
Robert Rangel has been named senior vice president for Washington operations at Lockheed Martin, starting Jan. 1, the company said Monday.
Rangel is set to succeed Greg Dahlberg, who has been named senior vice president for strategic enterprise initiatives and will retire in August 2015, according to the contractor.
Rangel serves as vice president of Lockheed Martin programs and global security policy. He previously served as special assistant to the defense secretary and as staff director of the House Armed Services Committee.
Northrop Grumman announced today that Kenneth Bedingfield will take over the chief financial officer position from James Palmer after the contractor files its 2014 annual report in February 2015.
Bedingfield, who serves as vice president for finance in Northrop's corporate office, came to the company in 2011. He has also served as vice president for business management and chief financial officer for Northrop's aerospace systems unit.
Before joining Northrop, he spent 17 years at KPMG.
In February, Palmer is set to continue as corporate vice president. He will retire in summer 2015, according to the company.
Alliant Techsystems and Orbital Sciences said today that their proposed merger has been cleared by the Justice Department, moving it closer to final approval.
The agreement, under which ATK's aerospace and defense groups would merge with Orbital, still requires the approval of both company's stockholders at special meetings set for Jan. 27. The companies said today they expect the deal to be complete in February.
The Pentagon's personnel chief is resigning, according to a Defense Department statement issued late this afternoon.
Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Jessica Wright, a retired Army National Guard major general and the former head of the Pennsylvania National Guard, has submitted her resignation letter to President Obama and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel "to spend time with her family and enjoy her retirement," according to DOD. She will remain at her post until March 31, 2015, the statement reads.
Wright began working as the personnel chief on Jan. 1, 2013, and the Senate confirmed her position on June 25 of this year, according to Wright's official Pentagon bio.
Northrop Grumman said today that its board has authorized an additional $3 billion in stock repurchases.
"Share repurchases will take place from time to time, subject to market conditions and management's discretion, in the open market or in privately negotiated transactions," the contractor said.
Outgoing House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) used his final chamber floor speech in the wake of the 300-119 vote to approve the fiscal year 2015 defense policy conference bill to make one last call to end sequestration. Here's an excerpt:
Next year, the Armed Services Committee will be in excellent hands. Chairman-elect Thornberry and Ranking Member Smith have their work cut out. But they are both up to the task. I hope sometime next year a compromise can come to this floor that will end sequestration. There isn't some magical solution that Republicans can support and the President can sign without sacrifice on both sides.
When that solution comes, it will be a tough vote on both sides. For some of my colleagues, it might be a fatal vote. I pray that you will hold this thought in your hearts when that vote comes: Remember the great sacrifice our troops are making around the world.
Right now, they are walking patrol in the mountains of Afghanistan. They are at sea within missile range of Iran. They are flying wingtip-to-wingtip against Russia bombers over the North Sea. They are nose to nose with the North Koreans. They are sweating in the equatorial heat of Africa, fighting a horrible disease. They are standing on the sand of Iraq, risking everything against a brutal enemy.
They take those risks, they make those sacrifices, because of you. They do it for you. They do it for us. For their families, for their flag. For our freedom.
And how we have repaid them? With equipment that is falling apart. By laying them off while they’re off in war zones. By docking their pay and their medical benefits. By throwing them out of the service and onto a broken economy.
Lord Byron said "they never fail, who die in a great cause." I've met our forces on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, dirty and sweaty from fighting. I've watched too many families spend long months waiting for the deployed to come home. I’ve seen too many heroes put into the ground.
They never failed us. Not once.
So shame on us, if we’re unwilling to pay back the debt we owe them. Shame on all of us, from the White House down, if we cannot make far less a sacrifice on their behalf.
David Heebner, who heads General Dynamics' information systems and technology business, will retire at the end of the year, and S. Daniel Johnson, president of General Dynamics Information Technology, will take over starting Jan. 1, the contractor announced today.
Heebner, 69, took over the IS&T group in 2013 after leading the combat systems business since 2010. He previously served as the head of the contractor's marine systems business from 2008 to 2010 and president of General Dynamics Land Systems from 2005 to 2008. Heebner joined General Dynamics in 2000 after a nearly 33-year career in the Army, retiring as a lieutenant general.
Johnson, 67, has led GDIT since 2008. In his new role, he will continue to oversee GDIT as well as General Dynamics Mission Systems, the unit that will be created Jan. 1 by merging the contractor's advanced information systems and C4 systems businesses.
Northrop Grumman has delivered the first operational MQ-8C Fire Scout unmanned helicopter to the Navy, according to a Dec. 3 company statement.
“The test program will run through the summer as we expect these aircraft to be ready for operations by year's end,” George Vardoulakis, vice president for medium range tactical systems at Northrop Grumman, said in a statement.The first shipboard flight test will be aboard the Jason Dunham (DDG-109) this winter. Following the testing the Navy will assess the system for operational use, the statement reads.
Alliant Techsystems has named Ed Fortunato senior vice president for government relations, the company said today.
Fortunato, an Army veteran, joins ATK from Honeywell.
ATK has proposed combining its aerospace and defense groups with Orbital to create a company called Orbital ATK. ATK spokeswoman Amanda Covington said Fortunato "will also lead government relations for the proposed merger, Orbital ATK."
The Naval Undersea Warfare Center recently issued a draft "top level requirements" document for the Large Displacement Unmanned Undersea Vehicle program.
According to a Federal Business Opportunities notice published last month, the Navy wants to "inform Industry of further definition of program mission priorities and requirements since the LDUUV Industry Information Day was conducted in October 2013."
Industry representatives interested in seeing a copy of the unclassified portions of the TLR need to register on the LDUUV Technical Information Center website.
Don't expect the Navy to respond to any comments on the TLR, though, according to the notice:
The Government is not soliciting, and will not respond to comments or questions on the TLR at this time. The Government plans to solicit industry feedback on the DRAFT Request for Proposal (RFP) and DRAFT System Requirements Document (SRD) when released in mid Fiscal Year 2015. The formal RFP and SRD release are currently planned for the end of Fiscal Year 2015.
The LDUUV program will design, fabricate, and field a new class of large displacement Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (UUVs) to provide increased endurance, long range, and payload hosting. The LDUUV will be a modular, open architecture, reconfigurable UUV delivered in increments. The Increment 1 LDUUV will have mission capabilities to include Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment (IPOE) and below water Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR) to improve battlespace awareness. Future increments are expected to include mission payloads to provide above water ISR, Mine Countermeasures (MCM), and payload deployment. LDUUV Increment 1 will be capable of launch and recovery (L&R) by Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) (Independence and Freedom classes) and submarine (via VIRGINIA-class submarines (SSNs) Virginia Payload Modules (VPM) or Modernized - Dry Deck Shelter (MOD-DDS)). System integration with both platforms is a critical interdependency.
Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon's chief spokesman, declined to comment today on reports that Ashton Carter, who stepped down one year ago as the Defense Department's No. 2 civilian, is reportedly slated to be nominated to replace Chuck Hagel as the next defense secretary.
"This is a decision that only the president can make and only the president can announce," Kirby said during a Pentagon press conference. "I have no information to share with you today."
News of Carter's potential nomination was first reported by CNN and later by the Associated Press. A fake Twitter account posing as Carter also added to the media fervor.
"I'm not going to get into a parlor game," Kirby stressed. "I don't think it serves anybody's interests."
Carter, who previously served as the Pentagon's acquisition chief, stepped down as the deputy defense secretary on Dec. 4, 2013.
Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Richard "Scott" Stapp has been named vice president of technology development in Northrop Grumman's aerospace systems unit, the contractor said today.
Stapp, who starts today, previously served as director of special programs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, according to Northrop.
Lockheed Martin has named Bridget Lauderdale senior vice president for corporate strategy and business development starting Jan. 1.
Lauderdale is vice president and general manager of the contractor's aeronautics operations and has spent 25 years with the company. In her new job, she will lead Lockheed's business development organization, which has offices in 25 countries.
The U.S. government has filed a lawsuit against Air Ideal and its owner for allegedly making false statements to the Small Business Administration so that it could be certified as a Historically Underutilized Business Zone company, the Justice Department said today.
The Justice Department alleges that when Air Ideal applied to be a HUBZone company, it misrepresented the location of its principal office and submitted a fabricated lease agreement. It allegedly used the certification to win millions of dollars' worth of contracts with the Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, Army and other government agencies, according to the Justice Department.
The U.S. government filed the suit under whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act.