The Defense Department wants to add 4,000 more people to its Cyber Command. The plan envisions revving up the three-year-old command with a three-pronged program to defend federal networks, protect critical infrastructure and attack if necessary. Pentagon planners leaked the plan to The Washington Post ahead of making a formal request. Should the plan gain approval in Congress, the question would be where DOD hopes to find 4,000 cyber professionals.

The General Services Administration has been famously burned by problems with travel and conference spending. It wants to turn last year's lessons into a learning opportunity for all of government. It has hired Blackboard, a company right in Washington, D.C., to provide a Web training platform. This will take GSA's Travel Basics course to a new level.

A recent contract award protest showed there are some jobs that people with severe disabilities can't do. The Army found out the hard way. In awarding a folliow-on contract for missile range support, Army officials moved the work to the procurement list reserved for the severely disabled. But the incumbent contractor protested and won.

The Pentagon is struggling to conquer one of the military's most stubborn enemies: mental illness. A scandal at Walter Reed Army Hospital six years ago revealed how poor a job the military was doing in treating warriors with mental wounds like post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury. Since then, hospital conditions have improved but Pentagon leaders say they face an "epidemic" of suicide. The Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury is trying to raise the level of mental health care across the department.

In these days of budget cuts, drawdowns and the still-looming threat of sequestration, efficient and innovative acquisition has never been more important. And now the Professional Services Council is launching a new commission to find out what's working and what isn't.

Seasoned federal executives often have knowledge and wisdom that applies beyond their own agencies. Each year, a few of them get themselves detailed to the Center for Leadership Development's Executive in Residence program. Suzanne Logan, OPM's deputy associate director for the Center for Leadership Development, updated us on all of the activities of the Federal Executive Institute, starting with the signature Executive in Residence program