• E-Newsletter

Hundreds of Veterans and Military Spouses Attend FCEDA May 2022 Career Fair

More than 400 veterans and military spouses attended the second bi-annual Veteran and Military Spouse Career Fair, presented by the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority (FCEDA), in partnership with the Virginia Chamber Foundation and the Virginia Department of Veterans Services. Held over two days, the free event for veterans, transitioning military members and military spouses was held on May 11, 2022, at the National Museum of the United States Army at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, followed by a virtual career fair on May 12.

Click here to read more.

---

Weekly News Digest

Building the DMV tech ecosystem’s future: Victor Hoskins, President and CEO of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority, was recognized by technical.ly on its “RealLIST Connectors 2022” list of the 21 people building the DMV tech ecosystem’s future. According to technical.ly, Hoskins was integral to bringing a number of projects to the DC area, including the Wharf and Union Market. He was also a key part of landing Amazon HQ2 in Arlington and is working on building other tech giants’ regional presence. The FCEDA has been hard at work on the state’s Virginia Jobs Investment Program, adding tons of tech jobs to the area, the website noted.

New digs: Real estate giant CBRE Group will move to another office in Tysons in early 2023, according to the Washington Business Journal. CBRE will occupy 24,000 square feet, or the whole 11th floor, of Boro Tower, a 20-story office building located at 8350 Broad St. The Boro, developed and owned by The Meridian Group and Rockefeller Group, comprises part of a much larger mixed-use development, originally planned to weigh in at 4.2 million square feet, toward which Meridian launched a second phase last summer.

AstroAccess: Eric Ingram, CEO of SCOUT, based in the Fairfax County area of Alexandria, is one of 12 disability ambassadors for AstroAccess, an organization dedicated to disability inclusion in space exploration, reported Via Satellite in a feature article about space entrepreneurs. Along with collaborator Zero Gravity Corporation, AstroAccess kicked off a campaign that hopes to inspire a space era that includes disabled astronauts. Ingram and the other ambassadors took a zero-gravity flight this past October to understand how spacesuits and space vessels can be more user-friendly and accessible to people with mobility, hearing, and vision disabilities.

Technology Innovation Center: Tysons-based Appian opened its newest office in Europe and its first Technology Innovation Center in Seville, Spain. Situated right in the heart of the Cartuja Science and Technology Park, Appian announced plans to recruit and hire locally to serve its growing list of customers and partners in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Appian incorporated its EMEA Headquarters in London in 2007 and  opened its first office in Madrid, Spain in 2017. The global low-code software company established its footprint in Seville in January 2020 when it acquired Novayre Solutions, a local company known for its Robotic Process Automation  technology, citybiz reported.

Cloud connection: Amazon Web Services, which bases its east coast operations in Herndon, teamed up with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif. in an effort to identify the best approach for high-performance computing centers to utilize cloud technology. LLNL and AWS aim to produce a standardized software stack that will work in both cloud and on-premise supercomputer environments. Both parties will conduct research into cloud-bursting and data staging and migration models for a hybrid deployment under their memorandum of understanding, ExecutiveBiz reported.

Perfect partnership: Bubba Wallace, the only full-time African American driver in NASCAR, teamed up with Reston-based Leidos to help change the culture in NASCAR, WUSA9 reported. “With all they do in the military field and embrace diversity and inclusion it aligns with our core values,” said Wallace. “Kids that are looking up to me they might not want to drive necessarily, but they want to be part of the sport and want to see a familiar face on the pit crew.” Desira Stearns, the Strategic Diversity Outreach Director at Leidos said she believes this is a perfect partnership. “Inclusion is the foundation, where you have people coming into an environment where they feel welcomed, they feel engaged and they feel connected,” she said. “It’s a common vision Wallace, 23XI Racing, and Leidos share.”

Round 2: In its second major acquisition in the last month, Modus Create, a Reston-based digital product development company, acquired Paris-based Tweag, a software development company. Tweag, which calls itself a “remote first” company with over 100 employees, develops software for the fintech, biopharma and autonomous vehicle sectors. “Tweag’s rich history of open source thought leadership in advanced computing communities and their orientation towards meaningful client outcomes are perfectly aligned with Modus Create,” said Pat Sheridan, CEO of Modus Create. Last month Modus Create acquired New York-based Atlas Authority. Potomac Tech Wire picked up the release.

Build-a-BAER: Tysons-based private equity firm the Acacia Group added another company to its portfolio, Washington Technology reported. Atlanta-based The Baer Group will become a new acquisition vehicle for Acacia, much like Ashburn-based ID Technologies was. Acacia sold ID Technologies to Reston-based CACI International in late December for $225 million. The company specializes in enterprise resource planning system implementations, cloud integration and data transformation. Baer supports federal systems integrators and has customers in the life sciences, consumer product and retail sectors.

Cyber connection: Electrosoft Services, a Reston-based federal IT contractor focused on cybersecurity, acquired Vienna, Va.-based Achilles Shield, a government cybersecurity services company. Under the terms of the deal, Achilles Shield has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Electrosoft. “Ensuring resilience from evolving cybersecurity threats remains one of the most critical elements of every government agency agenda,” said Sarbari Gupta, CEO of Electrosoft. “With the addition of Achilles Shield, we are even better positioned to address the accelerating cybersecurity challenges of our federal defense and civilian customers.” Potomac Tech Wire carried the release.

Reimaging Lorton: Nearly 22 years after Lorton Prison closed in 2000, Fairfax County planners and developers are in the thick of reimagining what the sleepy spot along I-95 will look like in 2040, reported FFXnow.  Staff are currently evaluating feedback from a second round of community engagement in March on what the community envisions for Lorton. The meetings followed an initial round of feedback in 2019. Barbara Byron, Director of the Fairfax County Department of Planning and Development, says conceptual frameworks are being developed. “The maps will help visualize potential improvements to the public realm, such transportation and parks improvements to better serve the area, and potential alternatives to the planned mix of land uses and development within the area,” Byron said.

---

Contract Wins

• QTC, a Leidos subsidiary, won two contracts worth a combined value of $1.7 billion over six and a half years from the Veterans Benefits Administration for medical disability assessment services. ExecutiveBiz
• General Dynamics Mission Systems and Iridium Communications secured a $324.5 million joint contract from the Space Development Agency to establishing a ground operations and integration segment to build ground entry points and operations centers for a future SDA satellite constellation. Air Force Technology
• Peraton received a $51.8 million bridge contract from the Defense Health Agency to continue managing its Global Service Center while optimizing the performance of its infrastructure over a one-year period. ExecutiveBiz
• Leidos received a $24 million contract from the U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command to install, integrate and maintain the Navy’s surface ship undersea warfare combat systems. Virginia Business
• General Dynamics Information Technology will provide cloud and on-premises support services for a suite of Microsoft Office 365 products to support the U.S. Marine Corps in contested battlefield networks. ExecutiveBiz