Defense Digital Service Director Chris Lynch speak during the JEDI Cloud Industry Day in Arlington, Va. March 7, 2018.

Defense Digital Service Director Chris Lynch speak during the JEDI Cloud Industry Day in Arlington, Va. March 7, 2018. EJ Hersom

Pentagon’s Digital Guru Chris Lynch to Depart

DOD office instrumental in the JEDI cloud competition is getting a new director this month.

The Pentagon’s original hoodie-wearing digital guru, Chris Lynch, is leaving the department.

In the four years since former Defense Secretary Ash Carter tapped Lynch to stand up the Defense Digital Service, or DDS, Lynch became an iconoclast as well as a sort of ambassador of the Silicon Valley ethos of rapid experimentation. Frequently seen at the defense secretary’s right hand, he was known for his frank and colorful language, casual attire, and an impatience with the pace of government acquisition and reform embodied in his catch phrase: “Get shit done.”

Brett Goldstein, who advises the Navy on issues related to cybersecurity and previously has served as chief data officer for the city of Chicago, will take over at the end of the month.

Carter originally tasked Lynch to set up DDS and help bring Silicon Valley talent into the Defense Department and bridge a perceived culture gap with the civilian technology industry. “DOD doesn’t have many effective ways to harness promising technologies they come up with,” he said at the time. “We need to fix that. I don’t want us to lose out on an innovative idea or capability we need because the Pentagon bureaucracy was too slow to fund something, or we weren’t amenable to working with as many startups as we could be.”

DDS soon set up a series of hacking contests to crowdsource the discovery of vulnerabilities in some public-facing Defense Department websites. Since launching the “Hack the Pentagon” program, (with its sequels, Hack the Marines, Hack the Army, and Hack the Air Force,) the program has led to the discovery of more than 10,000 vulnerabilities, according to DDS.

Related: Watch Chris Lynch on stage at the 2018 Defense One Tech Summit

“When I first showed up everyone thought I was the IT Support Desk wearing a t-shirt, hoodie, and jeans. At this point I’ve served under three Secretaries of Defense. I have to admit… I didn’t see that coming. Through each transition, our teams continued to gain new supporters and to take on even more critical projects that change and save lives,” Lynch said in a letter sent to DDS team members Monday night.

One of those projects: DDS has played a key role in helping draft the Defense Department’s requirements for the massive JEDI cloud, to help move the Pentagon toward a modern cloud architecture capable of supporting, among other things, next-generation artificial intelligence programs.

The potentially $10 billion contract for the JEDI program attracted fierce competition — and complaints that it’s unique size and security requirements were written in a way to unfairly favor just one or two of the largest companies.

The fight became so ugly that at one point a private detective company was shopping around a shadowy dossier to Washington D.C. reporters to suggest improprieties in the contracting process, including that a senior aide to former Defense Secretary James Mattis had used her position to rig the game for Amazon, which had been a client of her consulting firm prior to her Pentagon employment. The Pentagon found nothing in it, as did an independent investigation by Defense One and Nextgov.

Late last year, Oracle sued the Defense Department claiming that a former Amazon employee named Deap Ubhi, who came to work at DDS, had unfairly influenced the contract. The Defense Department conducted an internal investigation and again found nothing to the accusation. A judge last week lifted the stay on the competition, and the JEDI program is on track to announce an award no earlier than July 19.The two contenders for the contract remain Amazon and Microsoft.

“DDS will continue to drive JEDI forward today as we have since the start to better protect the young men and women who keep us safe,” Lynch said in his letter.

The service also worked to overhaul the Defense Department logistics system related to moving personnel and their families. And it has led efforts to build new drone detection and GPS technologies.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan had high words for Lynch and his contributions to the Defense Department. “Although we will miss Chris, the unique startup culture he built and the talented team he recruited will continue to disrupt and transform technology at the DOD,” he said in a statement. “We are excited for Brett [Goldstein] to be taking on the role of director to build and expand the team and its work. His public and private sector knowledge, technical expertise, and commitment to improving government through technology will be invaluable to a range of critical missions across the department.”

Goldstein served as the Chief Data Officer in the City of Chicago and became the city’s Chief Information Officer. He’s the co-founder of the venture capital firm Ekistic Ventures.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.