Supporting Missions at Army IT Day

Christina Morrison
Manager, Public Sector Marketing, Hewlett-Packard

Wednesday, January 25, 2012 · 2:19 pm

This week we’re gearing up for a big week at AFCEA West in San Diego, where we’ll meet with experts from the Navy to find out how our technologies can help them better accomplish their missions. (Stay tuned for videos and other posts from that show in the weeks to come.)

But before we dive in to AFCEA West, I wanted to highlight a great experience I had just before the holiday season at Army IT Day, hosted by AFCEA NOVA.

Army IT day was a must-attend show for government and industry professionals working with the Army, and it was great to engage with senior Army leaders to get insight into their top priorities and issues and learn the best ways that the technology industry can innovate to help them meet their goals. The sessions centered on how the Army can make our Warfighting efforts effective, affordable and defensible in the years to come, and how the technology industry can support those efforts.

In addition, we were able to honor a few of those senior leaders who have served our country and remind us that the products we develop are being used to carry out the most critical of missions.

Lieutenant General Susan S. Lawrence, the chief information officer of the Army, headed the tribute to Avon Blevins, CMC (ret), who served on the USS O’Brien from Omaha Beach through to Okinawa through the end of WWII and retired after 30 years of service. The USS O’Brien DD-725 Navy Destroyer served from 1943 to 1972, received 19 Battle Stars, and was hit by enemy power several times in both the Pacific and Atlantic Theatres during WWII, Cold War, Korea and Vietnam.

Blevins is the father of one of my HP colleagues Patricia Bortz, so it was great to see him honored for his accomplishments and life-long service to the Navy. HP has been a strategic partner of AFCEA and we’re committed to delivering Army-ready solutions that are designed and tested to meet industry standards. I’m glad that our HP team was able to attend the event and I would recommend future Army IT days to anyone in the industry.

Over 15 years, Christina Morrison has created, led and managed successful government communications programs and teams for high-technology companies. She currently leads government marketing efforts for Hewlett-Packard's Personal Systems Group, driving core initiatives such as telework, social media and Green IT. As a Teleworker herself, Christina serves as an active telework champion for the public sector, advocating the secure use of personal technologies to safely enable telework initiatives. Christina actively participates in a variety of social media communities to offer insight into the technology trends and issues that impact government. Prior to her position at Hewlett-Packard, she served as Government Marketing Director at NCR Government Systems, and then moved to Teradata Corporation, where she was responsible for world wide marketing and public relations to federal, state and local governments. She holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from Towson University. Christina is proud to be from New Jersey and currently lives in Northern Virginia, where she enjoys cooking, running, skiing and spending time with her husband and three boys.