Federal Drive with Tom Temin

The Coast Guard Academy has reached a record for its incoming class, with 43% of the new swabs being women. To talk about this and other goings-on at the academy, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with Superintendent, Rear Admiral Bill Kelly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When the pandemic hit in 2020, it didn't take long for terrorist groups to take advantage of it. ISIS set up a website to ostensibly sell face masks, but really to get money peddling inferior products. But a team from the FBI, IRS Criminal Investigations, and Homeland Security Investigations stopped this activity by seizing 300 cryptocurrency accounts worth $2 million. That's not all. For their work, they're finalists in this year's Service to America Medals program. One team member, Chris Janczewski, formerly with the IRS, talked with Federal Drive host Tom Temin about how they caught the criminals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Supercomputers keep getting faster. Just a few years ago it took teraflops -- or trillions of floating point operations per second -- to make the list of the world's fastest computers. Now it takes exaflops, quintillions of operations per second. And now the Oak Ridge National Laboratory has switched on a machine that makes 1.1 exaflops of performance. It's called Frontier. Federal Drive host Tom Temin talked about Frontier with Oak Ridge distinguished scientist and Frontier project officer, Scott Atchley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Navy's oceanography activities go wide and deep. They also include tracking and, if necessary, neutralizing things in the ocean that didn't get their naturally. Like explosive mines. That's where the Naval Oceanography Mine Warfare Center comes it. In Federal Drive host Tom Temin's final interview of this week's series on naval oceanography, he talks with the Mine Warfare Center's commanding officer, Commander Matthew Watts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Agencies made history in fiscal 2021 by awarding more total prime contract dollars to small businesses than ever before. Data from the Small Business Administration shows not only did agencies surpass the governmentwide goal of 23%, but increased total spending with small firms by $8 billion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former intelligence leaders are trying to boost the role of open source intelligence at U.S. spy agencies through a new foundation that plans to develop community-wide standards and help professionalize the OSINT workforce. The unveiling of the OSINT Foundation comes at a time when social media feeds and other public analysis are providing unprecedented public insights into world events like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, Congress and other advocates are calling on intelligence leaders to develop new open source strategies to better take advantage of publicly available information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Long-time defense contractor Raytheon won in court when it sued the government over intellectual property. What the company thought was IP, the government assumed as merely technical data it could share with anyone. To find out what happened and why it's important, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with Smith Pachter McWhorter partner Zach Prince. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Supply shortages, overpriced parts, questionable foreign sources; they all threaten the Defense supply chain. The Government Accountability Office found, though, that DOD's Industrial Base Policy Office doesn't have a fully developed strategy to mitigate those risks. Federal Drive host Tom Temin talked about this with GAO's director of contracting and national security acquisitions, Bill Russell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

DATELINE: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii -- Nobody likes typhoons or tropical storms in the western Pacific, least of all the U.S. Navy's fifth and seventh fleets. That's where the Joint Typhoon Warning Center comes in. Part of the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, it's one of the activities THE FEDERAL DRIVE is exploring in this week's series on how the Navy keeps on top of the weather. Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with Commander Angela Francis, the commanding officer of the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, base at Pearl Harbor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many participants in the Thrift Savings Plan started to see a drop in call wait times when trying to reach a representative at TSP’s customer service center, ThriftLine. There has been progress toward resolving issues with ThriftLine, said the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, the agency managing TSP, at a July 26 board meeting. But there is still room for improvement to return everything to normal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Justice Department has one of the most important and high profile cybersecurity missions in government, but like many other agencies, it struggles to attract and retain cyber specialists. The department’s “Comprehensive Cyber Review” released this week runs through DOJ’s recent work to investigate and prosecute cybercrime, including initiatives aimed at ransomware gangs, the illicit use of cryptocurrency, contractor fraud, and other digital forms of malfeasance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Among efforts to increase diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility in the federal workforce, women still fall significantly behind in representation for agencies’ science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) roles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Defense Department has issued a request for information on a study of finance. Three years in development, the study is supposed to take a comprehensive look at financing and the financial health of the defense industrial base. Many contractors think the study is too narrow in scope. Federal Drive host Tom Temin discussed what DoD needs to do to improve, with the executive vice president for policy at the Professional Services Council, Stephanie Kostro. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Few agencies in recent years have grown in scope, people and dollars as much as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Now CISA is about to get its own procurement authority and not have to rely on Homeland Security headquarters. Could it be a case of: Be careful what you wish for? For analysis Federal Drive host Tom Temin talked with Alan Thomas, the former commissioner of the GSA's Federal Acquisition Service, now the chief operating officer of Intellibridge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

DATELINE: Yokosuka, Japan. - This week THE FEDERAL DRIVE is exploring the activities under the Naval Oceanography Operations Command. Among the most crucial mission is ensuring superiority of the fifth and seventh fleets in the submarine domain of the Pacific. For details, Federal Drive host Tom Temin talked with Naval Oceanography Antisubmarine Warfare Center's Commander Christopher Tuggle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices