That’s right, it’s time for the annual CyberCon.

Join us on Tuesday, Nov. 28, for the annual gettogether of top federal and military officials and academic thinkers in cyber, from information security to offensive and defensive operations.

This year’s theme ― Beyond Cybersecurity ― reflects the latest thinking in cyber, moving past concentrating on securing data to a wider view of the landscape. To be sure, cybersecurity is an integral part of the puzzle. But to attain true security in cyberspace, the conversation must include all aspects of the cyberthreat and options for deterrence and response.

From its inception, CyberCon has been a venue to discuss the latest in cyber from a holistic standpoint, bringing together civilian and military, government and academia, U.S. and international partners. This year is no different, with an impressive lineup of speakers, including, among others:

• Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.
  
• Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y.
  
• Dr. Brian Pierce, Director of DARPA’s Information Innovation Office
  
• Brig. Gen. Timothy Haugh, Director of Intelligence for U.S. Cyber Command
  
• Col. Todd Stratton, Director of AFCYBER Forward
  
• Deborah Pierre-Louis, Director of Policy, Liaison and Training Office at the State Department
  
• Trent Teyema, Cyber Readiness Section Chief in the FBI Cyber Division
  
• Jim Piche, Homeland Sector Director at GSA FEDSIM
  
• Kate Charlet, former acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy
  
• Sean Kanuck, former National Intelligence Officer for Cyber Issues
  

Panel topics include taking the cyberwar to terrorists online, battling information warfare in cyberspace, the new critical infrastructure in need of defending and the latest training techniques for our cyber defenders and warriors.

The conference is a unique opportunity for attendees to have face-to-face interaction and dialogue with senior leadership across the branches of government and the military, including high-level policy setters and decision-makers.

Fifth Domain, Federal Times, C4ISRNET and Defense News are proud to present the third annual CyberCon at the Ritz-Carlton in Pentagon City on Nov. 28. We look forward to seeing you there, as well.

Register now to secure your seat.

While the program has a shiny new name — CDM DEFEND, which stands for Dynamic and Evolving Federal Enterprise Network Defense — program managers assert that this is more than just a rebranding.

“It’s an effort to replace the CDM BPAs that expire in August of 2018,” explained Kevin Cox, CDM program manager at DHS, during a discussion Oct. 30 at the annual American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC) Executive Leadership Conference in Williamsburg, Va. “It will follow the same model of how the agencies are grouped, then we will be competing different task orders for system integrators to partner with those agencies.”

The focus on partnerships is key, said Cox, as the new CDM model will be less about buying specific services and technologies and more about creating a strong cybersecurity posture that can evolve over time.

“We’re not looking for a specific technology; we’re not looking for a specific cyber solution,” said Jim Piche, homeland security director for FEDSIM. “We’re going to take the acquisition cycles out of it so that we can identify, acquire and deploy those cybersecurity tools at the speed they need to be deployed rather than getting into another procurement cycle.”

Using GSA’s Alliant contract vehicle — and, subsequently, Alliant 2 as that contract goes into effect — CIO offices will issue a task order with a system integrator that will help the agency develop cybersecurity goals and discover the right technical solutions to achieve those goals. Then, over the life of the task order — five to six years, according to Cox — that framework can be adjusted as new tools and solutions are developed, and those products can be acquired without having to issue a new task order or contract.

“This is not a BPA, it’s not an IDIQ,” Piche said. “It is a single-award task order to an integrator that is incrementally funded as a cost-type task order.”

That doesn’t mean the whole CDM system will be thrown out.

“What’s still the same is the inextricable relationship that Kevin and I have, the CDM program office and GSA … to bring the best innovation solutions to support the CDM program,” Piche said. “The other thing that hasn’t changed is the scope: every federal agency is a customer.”

Finally, Piche noted the program’s reliance on industry. The program currently works with more than 100 companies and that isn’t expected to change going forward.

“What we’re trying to get out of the CDM program is better cybersecurity,” Piche said. “You can also read that as ‘compliant cybersecurity’ or ‘more efficient cybersecurity.’ But we’re also trying to do it more affordably.”

To be both effective and affordable, the contract vehicle needs to be able to adapt to the ever-changing landscape of cybersecurity.

“We don’t know today what better cybersecurity is going to look like in 2019 or 2020 or as we get to the tail end of this project,” Piche said. Using this more flexible model will allow agencies to “redefine what is better cybersecurity in 2019 and 2020.”

Were you aware of CFC before your time in government?

I knew about it, yeah. I didn’t think I would be chairing it.

How did you become the 2017 honorary chairman?

Basically, they asked me, “Would you be willing to do this?” I suspect they were very cognizant of my history of being involved with charitable organizations and pushing charitable causes. It probably doesn’t hurt that I’m secretary of HUD, which is the agency of the government’s charity.

What about your past experience prepares you for something like chairing CFC?

For one thing, I started along with my wife a national non-profit, the Carson’s Scholar Fund. Which, everybody said, not another college fund. But it’s actually become very successful: it’s active in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In the process of doing that, you become very accustom to how non-profits work – to raising funds, to getting people involved, to understanding what the goals are.

How do you see your role as chair?

I think really to promote the opportunities that exist through all levels of government, from the president’s Cabinet right down to the daily workers, everybody. Help them to understand that this is a tremendous privilege that we have, to give of ourselves and to give of our resources to help our fellow individuals. The Bible says it’s more blessed to give than to receive. This is an opportunity to share in those blessings.

What are you doing to boost participation and raise awareness?

Doing my daily activities as the HUD secretary, which automatically tends to promote involvement. When you’re looking at things like developing affordable housing, you discover that the very best ways to do that involve public-private partnerships.

The private part of that, frequently, is non-profits who have a particular interest in helping people to live in safe, affordable housing. So, automatically, those two things mesh: CFC and what we do here at HUD.

CFC continues to evolve every year. What’s new for 2017?

We have a new web portal, which kind of amalgamates all the programs. Before there were, like, 36 different programs. So, now we truly have a unified federal effort.

We’ve made it extremely easy for people to donate – credit cards, debit cards, checks, whatever. As well as giving on a regular basis with a deduction from pay. That’s actually the easiest way because the amount from each paycheck is not very much but at the end of the year it’s accumulated into a substantial donation, which can be very helpful to a lot of people.

The other thing, we’ve made it possible this year for people to actually donate themselves. They can donate their time to a registered non-profit organization.

And, with military and [federal] retirees we now have a mechanism whereby their annuities can be partly donated to a charity. So, they can participate, as well.

People who want to give have any number of avenues to do so. Why should feds donate through CFC and not some other means?

One of the chief reasons is because it’s easy and because you have such an incredible smorgasbord. It really depends on what’s your interest, what kind of charity would you like to donate to? There are thousands there, so there’s really something for everybody.

Also, with it being all under one umbrella, the cost of operations is much smaller than it would be with multiple different operations. So, you’re getting more bang for your buck; you’re getting more people helped with each dollar you donate.

What would be a homerun for this year’s campaign? Is it hitting the monetary donation goals or something more?

I think a real win would be for everybody who’s working under the federal umbrella to have been asked to give.

Another big win would be for people to actually start thinking about what they can do for others and to start recognizing that we are not each other’s enemies. If we divert our attention to how we can help instead of how we can divide, I think we’ll all be winners.

This year’s campaign got a late start. How will that delay affect this year’s giving?

We did shift the timetable by a month. I don’t think it will matter.

There have been a number of disasters recently, from hurricanes to wildfires. What mechanisms are in place to enable feds to donate toward these efforts or disasters to come?

First of all, you can actually volunteer yourself. If you want to go down to help, a lot of the volunteer efforts for Harvey and Irma and Maria are funded through the CFC, so there’s immediate gratification there.

But, on the website, both locally and nationally, there is a mechanism by which you can donate specifically by hurricane or event or as general disaster relief.

Donations through CFC have declined dramatically over the years. From the people you’ve spoken with, the sense you get, what’s happened to the donation base?

I think a primary problem is, over the last decade or so, people have not felt economically empowered. People are struggling, prices are going up, salaries are stagnant or going down relative to prices. I think once we get the whole economy moving in the right direction and more people feel empowered, that charitable spirit returns.

Now, having said that, even though donations have gone down, we’re still by far the most charitable nation on the face of the Earth. That’s a part of who we are as Americans. Whenever there’s a disaster somewhere, who’s first in line? We are.

I’ll tell you something that’s rather surprising: The United States was the impetus for Socialism. Because Europeans looked over here and they saw the Carnegies and the Mellons and the Fords and the Kelloggs and the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts and said, “You can’t run a country like that, with these very rich people and everybody else. You need an overarching government that receives the funding and redistributes it equitably.” But those people who were saying that didn’t realize that America was different.

All those names that I gave you and more, instead of hording money and passing it down from generation to generation, they built the infrastructure of this country. They built the seaports and the transcontinental railroad and the textile mills and the factories and all the things that allowed us to develop the most powerful middle class the world had ever seen, which rapidly drove our economy to the top of the world.

Thinking about development, thinking about others, thinking about how to use your resources to improve the environment was really responsible for America rising to the top. This is just a smaller portion of that.

So, as the economy picks up, people will be more apt to give. Will that happen this year or in subsequent years?

I think things are already starting to pick up. You look at the joblessness rate, it’s going down. The stock market is going up, which is indicative of something people don’t frequently think about, and that is people’s 401ks, which for the last 10 years have been virtually stagnant, which is why so many people who are retiring are in trouble. The things that were supposed to happen didn’t happen.

Looking at the trends with CFC, based on your experience running a non-profit, what can be done within the organization to stem the tide of losses? Is there a way forward for CFC?

There’s always a way forward. You can look at the trends – what are people interested in – and those are the kinds of things you present up front. And you also find out why people donate and build a database on why people donate. Then you can easily transform what you’re doing to in a way that appeals to more people.

What advice will you give to the next chair?

For one thing, I would say enjoy the fact that you have an opportunity to help people recognize that we’re all in the same boat. And that the more people that we can help, the faster we move in the positive direction.

But I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to tell them in a few months.

Any final thoughts on CFC?

I think we’re going to see a lot of people get involved. People who are federal employees have already put their foot in the water in terms of sacrifice. And I think a lot of them feel very fulfilled in what they’re doing and this is an opportunity to take that fulfillment to the next step.

The 2020 census will be here shortly, and the Census Bureau’s new CIO, Kevin Smith, is charged with making sure the technology is there to support this effort. Smith sat down with Federal Times to talk about the new technologies Census will be fielding and what this means for the rest of the bureau.

What was your first priority when you got to Census?

Well, the first priority was a good understanding of what was going on within the organization as well as what was going on with the technology for the 2020 census.

I found a lot of things happening, a lot of things going on to meet some schedules for operational tests of the census and I saw a lot of great things moving toward people taking the right decisions to move stuff toward cloud and toward appropriate technologies to support the Census.

My priority for the 2020 census was first off to make sure that the technology was sound and secure and going to be successful.

The other priorities I had were to look at the organization and help us streamline the way we collect and analyze and disseminate data into secure platforms that offer the flexibility for the end user because there are some unique needs within different mission areas of the Census. But offer that flexibility but at the same time secure the data and the platforms into a common maintainable format.

And the third thing is just there’s an evolution to move toward a service delivery organization. Continuing to use the federal government’s mandates and rules and blend those into an executable path to basically transform your organization into allocating the right resources toward technology, budget in the right way and planning toward technology.

Most people know the bureau for the decennial count but Census has a pretty wide mission. What new technologies are being driven by the Census that you think can then translate to other parts of the bureau?

From the standpoint of the Census, there are many other things we do: collect economic data, demographic data, many, many, many different surveys. But things what we’re doing is standardizing some of the ways we collect, analyze and distribute or disseminate the information through platforms.

So, a lot of stuff we’re learning and setting up for the 2020 census, based on the scale of the census, can be and will be reused within the rest of the other surveys to collect data in a secure fashion and to maintainable and flexible platforms.

How important are cloud, BYOD and other new technologies to Census’ mission?

For Census’ mission they’re extremely important. We need to be as flexible and adaptable as possible to future trends in technology and I think cloud offers us a lot of things we couldn’t do initially.

It’s not just for scalability, there are some advantages to the cloud for the flexibility it offers for us to set up things in a more secure fashion. It enables us to get back to the basics of how you secure an application and you secure a technology to allow data to come in and data to be secure, which you wouldn’t be able to do in a typical data center. But based on the nature of the cloud, we’re able to set things up quickly and turn them off quickly, as well as scale quickly and then reduce the need of the infrastructure quickly and so it’s more cost advantageous now to actually look at those things.

What are the unique security concerns that you face at Census that you didn’t face at the Patent and Trademark Office or other places you’ve worked?

I think the uniqueness is part of the fact that the entire model of the census relies on the public and businesses to supply data. So, public trust and public confidence is of utmost importance. If people don’t trust Census to collect data, we won’t be getting the data we need to be successful to provide the statistics the United States needs. So, that’s a unique factor that we have to look at.

The other unique factor at the Census is that there’s always a balance of: you can make something extremely secure but, at the same time, it’s hard to make a system perform once it’s extremely secure. So, there’s a balance that we have to have a very secure system, as well as a very highly performing system at the same time to meet the workloads we’re going to see in the in the 2020 census.

Within the cloud there’s some flexibility that allows us to get back to the basics. We’re able to do in the cloud – which we could do in a data center, as well as, just it’s more cost effective in the cloud – is to look at the application and look at the way someone would be responding to the census and take intentional moves to layer the application in appropriate places and isolate certain portions of it. They give us the visibility we need to see what’s happening, make decisions on what’s happening, control the performance to the right level and also secure the systems to the right level.

That’s what you’re doing for the home base here in D.C. But you also have all the enumerators out there – how are you dealing with security for all of these part-timers?

From the standpoint of response, from a technology aspect in the census, we’re collecting a lot of things electronically – an internet self-response from the public, we’re also collecting stuff through call centers to enable a call response – but from the enumeration aspect, we’re also collecting electronically. So, what are we doing for that workforce?

We’re working on giving them devices. We’re going to have a device-as-a-service given to them as a mobile device and we’re going to download an application to that device and put the proper security for encryption on the device and also put security for the log ins to the device. So, the enumerator can clearly log on to the device, upload the data they need to based on their interview and the data is removed from the device as quickly as possible. So, if it’s on the internet, the data is already off the device.

We’re doing those things to enable the workforce to be more flexible in collecting the data. But also, as a thought process at Census and from the operations standpoint, we’re also looking at using that technology to manage the workforce.

There’s an ability to look at what is the workload of each enumerator, where should they be going to do their work. Those factors help a lot within the operations of the census to be successful.

Are you using this to plot enumerators’ paths or is it more to monitor who is doing what?

It’s more of a monitoring of who’s doing what. What we’ve done with electronics from collecting the data, we know when someone’s filled out the survey. So, that time to know when they filled it out and then let people know where else we have to go, that time’s a lot quicker now. And so, that time frame shortened helps us move forward and do things.

We are looking at big data analytics from the standpoint of when we bring the data in, how we look at it from the statistical aspects.

As annual donations continue to decline, CFC organizers developed new ways for federal employees – current and former – to Show Some Love to the causes they care about.

“Together, we will help wounded warriors, provide medical care, feed the hungry, house the homeless, protect animals and the environment and make a difference in countless other ways,” said Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson, this year’s honorary CFC chair. “CFC harnesses our collective power to positively impact the lives of millions of people while honoring our individual gifts to the causes we personally care about the most.”

Carson noted a number of changes to this year’s campaign, “designed to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of the CFC.”

The 2017 campaign features a new central donation portal – opm.gov/showsomelovecfc; feds can pledge volunteer hours in lieu of monetary donations; and, for the first time, federal retirees can contribute through their annuities.

“No matter the operational changes … our mission remains the same,” Kathleen McGettigan, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, said during the campaign kickoff in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 25. “To promote and support philanthropy through a program that is employee-focused, cost-efficient and effective and providing all federal employees the opportunity to improve the quality of life for all.”

There are also some minor changes to this year’s campaign, including prohibitions on undesignated contributions, cash contributions and campaign fundraising events; a new application process for charities; and the consolidation of campaign zones from 140 to 36.

The last piece of major federal legislation to get passed, FITARA, was also wrapped into NDAA. What do you think about using the defense authorization bill to take care of civilian IT issues?

I think it’s a vehicle to move legislation. And it’s going to be something that ultimately impacts the Department of Defense, as well, as well as security and being able to improve the defense of the .gov infrastructure. I think it’s within the same realm of making sure that we’re defending our digital infrastructure.

Are you expecting the IT modernization amendment to change at all in conference?

I take every step in the process separately. But the likelihood that there are any changes are low. Whenever you have agreement in the House and Senate on something, that is unlikely to be something that’s changed in the conference.

I feel good because the majority leader and the policies office and [Rep.] Steny Hoyer [D-Md.] have been instrumental in getting this legislation moving. The recent legislation in the Senate, with Sen. [Ron] Johnson [R-Wisc.], Sen. [Jerry] Moran [R-Kan.] and Sen. [Tom] Udall [D-N.M.] putting this all together, I think we’re not going to have any problems with the conference committee.

I’m looking forward to getting this to the president’s desk to sign and getting this new tool to the CIOs across government.

How the law actually rolls out will depend on the guidance issued by the Office of Management and Budget. What would you like to see in that guidance? What would you like OMB to know about your intent behind the legislation?

OMB and the Office of American Innovation have been instrumental in the process. We’ve been working with them from the very beginning on the intent and the capabilities. They’ve already put in a lot of time and significant effort thinking through how to use the MGT Act as a tool for CIOs to modernize and to upgrade to the latest technology.

My advice to OMB is, this is a tool designed for federal CIOs to modernize: give them the broader authorities and powers to utilize this tool.

The main funding mechanism requires agencies to reprogram funds. There is also a central working fund, but no dollar-figure attached in the MGT Act. How big should that central fund be and how should it be used?

I think what we had in the recent [budget] legislation – $250 million – is more than enough. I think the real focus of MGT was having every federal agency be a laboratory in how to do modernization.

Some are better prepared to take advantage of MGT than others. Those ones that aren’t as prepared, utilizing this centralized fund will be a vehicle to help jumpstart those modernization activities.

I was always fine with the $250 million number. I think the president’s budget was fine with that level of appropriation.

How do you think the bill turned out and what impact will it have on federal operations?

I’m excited to finally get this done. I feel good that we are now giving another tool for our federal CIOs to introduce the latest technology to defend their digital infrastructure and provide a more efficient service to the American people.

It’s a good day.

If MGT does make it through reconciliation, what’s the next big federal IT legislation you’d like to work on?

By the end of the next fiscal year, integrating the oversight of these working capital funds into the FITARA scorecard.

We call it the FITARA scorecard but it really is a digital hygiene scorecard. So, making sure to see whether agencies are utilizing these working capital funds or not. It’s another point we’ll be able to do oversight on. That’s step one.

Now, legislatively, the big initiative we’re going to move to now is the concept of a Cyber National Guard. It’s something that we’ve been talking about and researching on and I think we have an idea on a framework of how to get this done. Now it’s time that my staff and my team will be able to focus our attention on over the next few months.

Wrapped into the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act passed by the Senate Sept. 18 is a version of the House Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act, which requires federal agencies to upgrade their IT systems for efficiency and cost savings, as well as security.

The last major IT reform bill — the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) — passed in 2014 as part of that year’s defense authorization, as well.

The MGT Act is the final version of a bill that has taken many forms, beginning with a call from then-President Obama to modernize the government’s technology using a $3.1 billion central fund. While the bill includes the fund, it does not include a dollar amount. Instead, the main funding mechanism in the bill is agencies own budgets, portions of which will be diverted toward working capital funds dedicated to modernization efforts.

“The amount of money that our federal government spends on antiquated technology is mindboggling,” Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, who sponsored the House version of the bill, said Monday. “Outdated technology policies and poor cybersecurity hygiene have riddled government agencies for decades, leaving our digital information vulnerable to hacks and costing taxpayers billions.”

The working capital funds will enable agencies to set aside funding for four priority goals:

The central Technology Modernization Fund will be administered by GSA Technology Transformation Service Commissioner Rob Cook, with additional oversight from a to-be-created Technology Modernization Board.

• Improve, retire or replace existing information technology systems to enhance cybersecurity and to improve efficiency and effectiveness;
• Transition legacy information technology systems to cloud computing and other innovative platforms and technologies;
  
• Assist and support efforts to provide adequate, risk-based and cost-effective information technology capabilities that address evolving threats to information security; and
  
• Reimburse amounts transferred to the agency from the Technology Modernization Fund (established under this bill), with the approval of such agency’s Chief Information Officer.
  

While the MGT Act is focused on civilian agencies, aging IT systems pose a serious risk to national security, making the amendment a surprisingly good fit for a defense bill.

“This major legislation to modernize the federal government’s grossly outdated IT systems will strengthen our national security and save taxpayers millions,” said Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., who co-sponsored the NDAA amendment along with Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan.

Udall pointed out that some 75 percent of the government’s $80 billion IT budget is spent maintaining legacy systems.

“With the MGT Act’s flexible funding options, we can break that cycle and bring the federal government into the modern era — tackling dangerous cyber vulnerabilities and protecting the American people from increasingly severe cyberattacks, and empowering agencies to move forward with long-overdue projects to streamline how the federal government operates,” he said.

This year’s NDAA also included a provision on open government, the Open, Public, Electronic and Necessary (OPEN) Government Data Act, which requires agencies to publish open data in machine-readable formats.

“By requiring all federal agencies to publish their information in open, machine-readable formats, this reform will bring about greater efficiency within government and unprecedented transparency outside government,” said Hudson Hollister, executive director of the Data Coalition.

The NDAA — with the MGT and OPEN amendments — now heads to conference to be reconciled with the House bill passed in July.

“This action is based on the information security risks presented by the use of Kaspersky products on federal information systems,” Duke said in a release announcing the BOD. “The department is concerned about the ties between certain Kaspersky officials and Russian intelligence agencies to request or compel assistance from Kaspersky and to intercept communications transiting Russian networks.”

Duke cited the anti-virus’ broad access to files and secure areas of federal networks on which the software is installed.

“The risk that the Russian government, whether acting on its own or in collaboration with Kaspersky, could capitalize on access provided by Kaspersky products to compromise federal information and information systems directly implicates U.S. national security,” she added.

The directive gives agencies 30 days to identify all instances of Kaspersky products on their networks; 60 days to work up plans to remove those products; and 90 days to implement those plans. That means agencies must be clear of Kaspersky by Dec. 12, “unless directed otherwise by DHS based on new information.”

“This is a risk-based decision we need to make,” White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Rob Joyce said Wednesday while speaking at the annual Billington Cybersecurity Summit. “For us the idea of a piece of software that’s going to live on our networks, going to touch every file on those networks, going to be able to at the discretion of the company decide what goes back to their cloud in Russia — and then what you really need to understand is under Russian law the company must collaborate with the FSB. So for us in the government that was an unacceptable risk.”

DHS said Kaspersky will be given a chance to offer a “written response addressing the department’s concerns or to mitigate those concerns,” an offer that is also extended to other companies that feel they will be adversely impacted by this directive.

“Given that Kaspersky Lab doesn’t have inappropriate ties with any government, the company is disappointed with the decision by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, but also is grateful for the opportunity to provide additional information to the agency in order to confirm that these allegations are completely unfounded,” Kaspersky Lab told Fifth Domain in an email Wednesday.

The comment continued:

U.S. intelligence community officials have long been skeptical of Kaspersky products being used within the government and critical infrastructure, though few have spoken publicly about those concerns.

Richard Ledgett, who was most recently deputy director of NSA until his retirement at the end of April, spoke about the U.S. intelligence community’s concerns in a July podcast interview.

“The concern over Kaspersky is well founded and I think that there’s growing recognition — there has been for a while and more recently [within] Congress — that we probably don’t want that in really significant parts of the government or critical infrastructure networks,” he said.

Ledgett, like most current officials, noted there is much he cannot say on this topic.

Fifth Domain reporter Mark Pomerleau contributed to this report.

Over 30 days, the companies – Caddell Construction Co. LLC, of Montgomery, Alabama; Fisher Sand and Gravel (Fisher Industries), of Dickinson, North Dakota; Texas Sterling Construction Co. Inc., of Houston, Texas; and W.G. Yates and Sons (Yates Construction), of Philadelphia, Mississippi – will build 30-foot-high, 30-foot-long sections near the border in San Diego, California. Once built, those prototypes will be judged based on aesthetics, how penetrable they are and the anti-climbing features being used, according to acting CBP Deputy Commissioner Ronald D. Vitiello, who announced the awards during an Aug. 31 press conference.

Compared to past border efforts, these awards are the result of a “more holistic view,” he said. “We thought through on these action plans all of the equipment that the agents’ need. This is a much safer environment.”

The awards ranged from just under $400,000 to just under $500,000. However, Vitiello warned against using those figures to extrapolate a larger cost for the entire border, as land purchases and geographic issues mean costs could vary greatly.

The prototype sections will be made largely out of concrete, though alternative materials might also be employed, Vitiello said. Additional awards for see-through, secondary wall sections closer to the immediate border will be made next week, he added.

Once built, the wall will “compliment the various other tools we employ to secure our border,” Vitiello said, mentioning sensors, cameras, lighting and others.

He also noted that these concepts will not be used along the entire 2,000-mile border. Rather, the final sections will be built “where impedance and denial makes a difference,” based on enforcement data and past immigration patterns.

The winners were among more than 180 companies to submit proposals based on two RFPs issued by CBP in March of this year.

As the prototype construction gets underway, CBP officials plan to work with the companies and others in industry to identify the best solutions and outline a plan to build out the wall along sections of the U.S.’s southern border.

“Prototyping is an industry-tested approach to identify the best solution when considering a new product or methodology,” CBP said in a release announcing the RFPs in March. “Through the construction of prototypes, CBP will partner with industry to identify additional means and methods to construct a border wall before making a more substantial investment in construction.”

Vitiello said this stepped approach is meant to ensure CBP is “good stewards of our funding resources,” i.e., taxpayer dollars.

The prototypes might remain in place if they are aesthetically pleasing and otherwise meet local needs in San Diego, he added.

“If they add to the infrastructure in the San Diego area in a beneficial way, we can keep them. If not, we can move them elsewhere,” he said.