US Defense Firms Hiring Thousands Amid Record Unemployment

On the same subject

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  April 22, 2024 | International, C4ISR

  How is quantum technology used in the military? - Army Technology

  Quantum technology is at the forefront of most advanced nations’ long-term defence planning, from the US and EU to China.

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  August 4, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Defense contractor with billions in sales got millions in pandemic loans intended for small businesses

  By Aaron Gregg August 3, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. EDT A military equipment supplier that has been accused of fraudulently misrepresenting its size in order to benefit from privileges associated with being a small business has received a Paycheck Protection Program small business loan worth at least $2 million, public records show. Atlantic Diving Supply, a Virginia Beach, Va.-based reseller of specialized military gear, is the latest organization whose receipt of taxpayer-backed loans through the Paycheck Protection Program has raised questions about a program launched in early April to help sustain employment at small companies through the economic crisis. In late April, the Treasury Department retroactively clarified its rules after well-known restaurant chains, car dealerships and hotel companies reported receiving PPP loans. Several of them returned the loan funds following public uproar; others kept the money. The SBA has said it will audit all PPP loans above $2 million to determine whether the recipients were eligible. Representatives from the Small Business Administration and Atlantic Diving Supply did not comment on the company's receipt of SBA loans. The company's legal issues are detailed extensively in a report released Monday by the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight, known as POGO. A review of business data by POGO and the nonprofit Anti-Corruption Data Collective concluded that ADS was one of at least 27 PPP recipients estimated annual sales of more than $1 billion in 2019. Another 2,068 loan recipients cleared $100 million in sales last year, according to the analysis. Nick Schwellenbach, a senior investigator at POGO, questioned whether it's appropriate for ADS to receive small business coronavirus loans. Schwellenbach's investigation also found that two other firms allegedly tied to ADS ― including one that was named in a settlement with the Department of Justice ― separately received smaller PPP loans. “It's important that taxpayer funding reserved for genuine small businesses isn't siphoned off by companies that are not eligible,” Schwellenbach said. “As a top government contractor with revenues well over a billion dollars a year, it strains credibility that Atlantic Diving Supply is a real small business, especially given several recent settlements and law enforcement outcomes related to their alleged small business contracting fraud." Although it received a favorable ruling from the SBA as recently as November 2019, ADS's small business credentials have long been called into question. ADS started as a small, family-owned shop focused on the military diving community in Virginia Beach, which includes the Navy SEALs. It was transformed under the leadership of long-time chief executive Luke Hillier, winning its first major government contract in 2000. It grew quickly to meet an insatiable demand for military gear of all sorts in the years following 9/11. That fast growth became permanent business as the U.S. military presence in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere dragged on for nearly two decades. At one point, ADS filed papers to go public, something that is usually the purview of large corporations. In 2015 it purchased Theodore Wille International, a military food and equipment supplier with offices in seven countries. Its business has remained healthy despite recent troop reductions. ADS received more than $3 billion in unclassified government contract dollars in 2019, procurement records show. That's more than some well-known, objectively large government contractors, including Bechtel, KBR and CACI. ADS has already cleared $1 billion in federal contract receipts in 2020 despite the economic crisis. As it has grown ADS's continued status as a small business status has been critical to its participation in the Defense Department's Tailored Logistics Support, or TLS program, a lucrative military supply line that is largely restricted to SBA-approved small and disadvantaged businesses. In recent years, ADS's official headcount has teetered close to the SBA's 500-employee limit for small-company designation, and the company has fought off repeated challenges to its size status. If ADS were declared “no longer small,” it would not only be ineligible for SBA coronavirus assistance, but would also be forbidden from competing on small business set-aside contracts that drive its business. In 2017, ADS settled federal allegations that it used a network of allegedly-affiliated companies to rig bids and fraudulently misrepresent its size. The Justice Department called the $16 million settlement “one of the largest recoveries involving alleged fraud in connection with small business contracting eligibility.” Hillier, who has moved on from the CEO role but remained the company's chairman as of July 20, according to a company filing, separately paid $20 million to settle federal allegations that he “violated the False Claims Act by fraudulently obtaining federal set-aside contracts reserved for small businesses that his company was ineligible to receive.” The settlements resulted from a Qui Tam lawsuit brought by whistleblowers. Two of the alleged affiliate businesses — Karda Systems and SEK Solutions — were named in a related case in which Ron Villanueva, a former state lawmaker from Virginia Beach, pleaded guilty to federal charges that he conspired to defraud the United States. Villanueva admitted that he and a friend pretended both companies were run by people who qualified for particular grants and drafted a misleading letter to the SBA that mischaracterized the degree to which one firm relied on other suppliers. ADS briefly lost its small business designation as a result of those allegations when a Defense Department contracting officer, concerned by ADS's settlement, requested a formal SBA review of the company's size status and its degree of affiliation with other companies named in the whistleblower lawsuit, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. That SBA review determined that ADS was “other than small,” which temporarily blocked the company from bidding on set-aside contracts. But ADS successfully appealed that ruling, which was reversed because it relied on old financial records. Today the company continues to receive federal contracts designated for small firms. Because the settlements arrived at by ADS and Hillier did not include a determination of liability, the company has been allowed to keep benefiting from the SBA's various small business programs. Its most recent size determination, which found it to be a small business, was finalized in November 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/03/defense-contractor-with-billions-sales-got-millions-pandemic-loans-intended-small-businesses

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  September 21, 2020 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR, Other Defence

  German, French defense ministers push for Eurodrone progress

  Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany — The defense ministers of Germany and France have pushed for speedy progress in the Eurodrone program, urging member nations to initiate the aircraft's development phase before the end of the year. The high-level endorsement means a shot in the arm for a weapons program that has slipped under the radar since Airbus, Dassault and Leonardo unveiled a mock-up drone at the April 2018 Berlin Air Show. While French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly said she hopes to see the next phase begin by year's end, her German counterpart, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, expressed hope any outstanding issues, which mostly involve cost, could be resolved “in the next few weeks.” The two leaders spoke at Manching, Germany, Airbus' hub for the Eurodrone project and a company site for another key European program, the Future Combat Air System. The unmanned aircraft's official name is “European MALE RPAS,” using acronyms for medium-altitude, long-endurance, remotely piloted aircraft system. The pan-European Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation manages it on behalf of Germany, France, Italy and Spain. The drone program sets out to field the first new unmanned aircraft certified to fully integrate into civilian airspace, though European authorities have not yet finalized the requisite regulatory framework. Company officials hope that key design features of the drone, such as a propulsion system of two engines — one as a fallback, if necessary — will be conducive to passing future safety checks. That means the technology could cut into the business strategy of American competitor General Atomics. The company aims to be the first to sell its drones, complete with automatic collision-avoidance kit, to Europeans. Officials at the German Defence Ministry did not immediately return a request for comment on how soon the government plans to present a financing and contract strategy to lawmakers — a prerequisite for letting the effort proceed. It remains to be seen if the weapons-capable Eurodrone, whose primary mission is intelligence gathering, will get wrapped up in Germany's debate on the ethical aspects of arming aerial and ground robots. Another program, the Israeli-made Heron TP drone, is still awaiting decision by Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, on whether the government can proceed with installing weapons on the aircraft. The German military is using the drones to watch over deployed forces under a leasing agreement with Israel Aerospace Industries. They are operationally managed by Airbus. It's possible that the Heron TP armament decision will be presented to the Bundestag first, thus capping what a Defence Ministry official told Defense News will likely be a lengthy public meditation on drones and war. But that sequence of approvals is not automatic, Airbus hopes. Either way, time is of the essence for the Defence Ministry, with election years looming in Germany and France starting in 2021. “It would be surprising if we had the Eurodrone first,” said Ulrike Franke, a London-based analyst with the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Because it would amount to a signal that the Heron TP decision had been needlessly stalled.” Questions surrounding the program include whether it can provide enough utility beyond offerings already on the market, including American-made hardware, Franke said. Its success also depends on countries purchasing the future drone in sufficient quantities to get the envisioned benefits of greater European interoperability, she added. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2020/09/18/german-french-defense-ministers-push-for-eurodrone-progress/