Biden Eyes Douglas Bush as Permanent Army Acquisitions Assistant Secretary

President Joe Biden is set to nominate Douglas Bush as the permanent assistant secretary of the U.S. Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, the White House announced Tuesday. Bush has been holding the role on an acting basis. If confirmed, he will continue handling acquisition activities related to the service’s modernization strategy.

Bush served on the House Armed Services Committee as a lead staffer between 2007 and 2018. During his 11-year tenure with the committee, he staffed the Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittee. He also became the HASC’s deputy staff director in 2019, Defense News reported Tuesday.

HASC Staff Director Paul Arcangeli told Defense News that Bush’s experience with the committee and the Army would help the service in its efforts to improve mission capabilities for future challenges.

The nomination comes as the Army continues to test Project Convergence, the branch’s contribution to the Department of Defense’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control concept. Project Convergence is slated for its second test in November. The test will put American technologies against adversaries and will feature different scenarios to determine how the solutions would fare. The test comes after the concept underwent nearly a year’s worth of testing in controlled environments.

The White House also announced the nomination of Carrie Ricci as Pentagon general counsel and Ashish Vazirani as the DOD’s deputy personnel chief.

Ricci is a retired Army lieutenant colonel who currently serves as an associate general counsel for the Department of Agriculture. Meanwhile, Vazirani currently serves as a principal at A2O Strategies.