This week, I wanted to send a special thank you our nation’s veterans. Your service is vital to our country and a big part of the work that many federal contractors perform.

With that in mind, here are some of the interesting federal contracting updates from the past week. This week we have stories about a potential government shutdown, the annual suspension and debarment report, and new tools coming to protect the supply chain from potential malicious actors.

It’s a busy travel period in our office. Just this week, I went to Warrensburg, Missouri for the Procurement Conference 2019 featuring Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler. It’s been great to chat with folks at these conferences.

Despite all the travel, we’ve been keeping up with federal contracting news. This week, we wanted to share a number of stories, including the Justice Department’s anti-price collusion “strike force”, a crackdown on supply chain cybersecurity, and the number of suspended and debarred contractors fell for the fourth year in a row.

Hope everyone had a great Halloween yesterday! Around these parts, the thermometer got down to freezing last night. But I took the kids out for a quick trick-or-treat outing down the street. And we also had some fun painting pumpkins in the office.

Next week I’ll be in Warrensburg, MO on Wednesday for Congresswoman Hartzler’s Procurement Conference. We hope to see many of our SmallGovCon readers out there!

Amidst all the spooky fun, the government contracting news kept rolling in. This week, we highlight updates about supply chain cybersecurity, DOD modernizing software development, and the Pentagon announcing a big push to incorporate 5G technology.

Last night marked the start of the college basketball season here in Lawrence, and I attended the exhibition game for our Jayhawks in historic Allen Fieldhouse. For you college basketball fans, the road to March Madness begins now.

For you government contracting fans, there’s also news in that world. This week, we bring you updates about security guidance for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud, a reminder about FedBizOpps going away, and a House of Representatives panel looking into Native 8(a) contracting issues.

The end of the government’s fiscal year always brings a rash of government purchasing. We hope the government’s purchasing push has been good for all of our readers. As you recover from the busy last couple of weeks, enjoy this week’s updates in government contracting, which may help put some perspective on what just happened at the end of the last fiscal year and identify future trends for government acquisitions.

This week’s updates include a recap of large defense deals, the future of the Federal Data Strategy, and a State Department contracting officer convicted of bribery.