Executive Mosaic is pleased to announce U.S. Senator Mark Warner, D-Va., has been selected to the 2018 edition of the Wash100 — Executive Mosaic’s annual selection of the most influential voices in the government contracting arena — for his legislative achievements promoting U.S. cyber defense. This marks his second consecutive win.
Along with fellow Sens. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., Tom Udall, D-N.M., and Steven Daines, R-Mont., Warner worked to get the Modernizing Government Technology Act, an addendum to this fiscal year’s National Defense Authorization Act, through Congress. The bill, signed into law in December, obligates $250 million for FY 2018 and 2019 to be dispersed to federal agencies for information technology upgrades. As a spokesman for Sen. Warner told Executive Mosaic, “This was necessary to supplement low levels of government spending on IT modernization. The President’s most recent budget request estimates that the federal government will spend approximately 80 percent of its IT budget on operations and maintenance of legacy systems in the coming year, leaving little available to develop, modernize and enhance IT solutions.”
Fellow 2018 Wash100 winner Larry Prior said in a statement, “[The MGT Act] is an important step in the journey to a next-gen federal government. [It] gives agencies more resources to modernize, helping to enable moving to the cloud, implementing shared services and improving their cyber defenses.”
Warner has pioneered several cybersecurity initiatives in recent years, starting with creating the bipartisan Senate Cybersecurity Caucus with Sen. Corey Gardner, R-Colo., in 2016 to spur dialogue on cyber issues. According to the caucus’ description, “Cyber crime has affected hundreds of millions of Americans and American businesses, costing at least $120 billion in economic and intellectual property loss in the United States … Cybersecurity is not a sector-specific issue, however. It is a systemic threat that requires an equally systemic understanding and response.”
In FY2017’s NDAA, Sen. Warner pushed for a provision that would limit the Department of Defense‘s lowest price technically acceptable source selection policy, allowing for greater flexibility in choosing the best cybersecurity and IT software and platforms. That March, he introduced the State Cyber Resiliency Act to establish a new grant fund for cybersecurity improvements to state and local critical systems. In August, Warner introduced the Internet-of-Things Cybersecurity Improvement Act, which establishes minimum security requirements for IoT devices meant to mitigate the risks of massive distributed denial-of-service cyber attacks.
Also in 2017, Warner collaborated with the Virginia Governor’s Office to host the first-ever Commonwealth Cyber Fusion competition and job fair, an invitation-only event for Virginia colleges and universities, giving students a chance to demonstrate their talent to IT recruiters across the state. 2018’s competition is being held from February 23-24.
Sen. Warner is a member of the Senate Finance, Banking, Budget, and Rules Committees and serves as vice chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence. He has sponsored over 300 pieces of legislation and co-sponsored more than 1,000 since taking office in 2009; and was an initial investor in FleetCall, which later became Nextel and is now merged with Sprint.
Warner plans to run for reelection in 2020.
Executive Mosaic congratulates Sen. Mark Warner and his staff for receiving this award.
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About The Wash100
This year represents our fifth annual Wash100 award selection. The Wash100 is the premier group of private and public sector leaders selected by Executive Mosaic’s organizational and editorial leadership as the most influential leaders in the GovCon sector. These leaders demonstrate skills in leadership, innovation, reliability, achievement and vision.
