*Raytheon [RTN] has received a $1.2 million contract from the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) for an eight month, phase two effort to develop a capability for Stand-Off Warning Against Radiological Materials (SWARM). “The team is developing modeling capability to optimize the number and types of sensors being used for detection, along with the architecture necessary to implement a distributed sensor network to protect our nation from the threat of nuclear terrorism,” says Michael Del Checcolo, vice president of Engineering for Raytheon’s Integrated Defense Systems division. The five phase effort is potentially worth $2.9 million. Raytheon’s teammates include Los Alamos National Laboratory, Physical Sciences, Inc., AMETEK’s [AME] Ortec division, MIT, and Boston Univ. Raytheon won an initial $764,000 SWARM contract last fall (TR2, Nov. 26, 2008).
*RedXDefense CEO Dr. Regina Dugan has been named director of the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the company named Joseph “Keith” Kellogg to succeed her. Kellogg, a former Lt. Gen. in the Army where he was director of C4 for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, most recently was executive vice president for Research and Technology Systems at CACI International [CAI]. In 2002 and 2003 he was senior vice president of Homeland Security Solutions for Oracle Corp. [ORCL]. RedX also says that Tom McVeigh, the company’s chief operating officer, will also assume the position of president.
*Precise Biometrics has received a $131,000 contract from the State Department for the company’s Biometric Enterprise License for 60,000 users in support of the department’s Public Key Infrastructure program. The PKI program uses the company’s Precise 200MC hardware, which includes both smart card and biometrics fingerprint readers. The award uses funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and is being made to the Swedish company’s U.S. subsidiary.