Terry Halvorsen was selected to serve as the Acting Department of Defense Chief Information Officer effective May 21, 2014. He previously served as the Department of the Navy Chief Information Officer.
As the Acting DoD CIO, Mr. Halvorsen is the principal advisor to the Secretary of Defense for Information Management / Information Technology and Information Assurance as well as non-intelligence space systems, critical satellite communications, navigation, and timing programs, spectrum and telecommunications. He provides strategy, leadership, and guidance to create a unified information management and technology vision for the Department and to ensure the delivery of information technology-based capabilities required to support the broad set of Department missions.
Before serving as the Department of the Navy CIO, Mr. Halvorsen was the deputy commander, Navy Cyber Forces.

Todd Park is currently a technology advisor based in Silicon Valley for the Obama Administration. He was formerly the second Chief Technology Officer of the United States, serving as an Assistant to the President. Todd joined the Administration in August 2009 as Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In this role, he served as a change agent and “entrepreneur-in-residence,” helping HHS harness the power of data, technology, and innovation to improve the health of the nation.

Mark Warner was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2008 and serves on the Senate Finance, Banking, Budget and Intelligence committees. During his time in the Senate, Sen. Warner has established himself as a national leader in efforts to find bipartisan consensus to create balanced solutions to reduce the federal debt and deficit. He also has been a champion for military men and women, their families and our military veterans. Sen. Warner also is a leader in Congress in efforts to promote private-sector innovation and to help our nation's small businesses and startup companies succeed. Before entering public office, Sen. Warner was an early investor in the cellular telephone business. He co-founded the company that became Nextel and ultimately made early investments in hundreds of startup technology companies that have created tens-of-thousands of private sector jobs.

Sonny Hashmi is the Chief Information Officer for the U.S. General Services Administration. Since his nomination in May 2014, Mr. Hashmi is responsible for managing the agency's $600 million IT budget and ensuring alignment with agency and administration strategic objectives, information security and enterprise architecture. During his previous positions as the agency’s deputy CIO and chief technology officer, he led several technology initiatives that leveraged emerging technologies to modernize and improve GSA operations. His determination in the adoption of cloud for GSA’s email and the creation of agile practices for cloud development boosted GSA’s IT projects.

The emphasis of Frank Baitman as the chief information officer with the Department of Health and Human Services is on delivering improved business outcomes from the agency’s IT investment. In his previous leadership experiences as an independent strategy executive and consultant, with for-profit companies, nonprofits and universities he always focused on innovation and invention. As director of corporate strategy for IBM, he oversaw the Global Market Trends study which identified emerging business opportunities, launching the life science solutions and pervasive computing businesses. Later Frank advised government agencies on public policy matters, including nuclear nonproliferation, physical security, and arms control verification measures.

Mr. David Bennett is the chief information officer for the Defense Information Systems Agency. After getting a masters of science degree in computer science from the University of Florida in 1986, he got a second masters in national resource strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces at Ft. McNair, Washington, D.C. After a successful career, including a few medals like National Defense Service Medal, he is today responsible for the delivery and operation of secure worldwide enterprise information technology services enabling the efficient and effective execution of DISA’s global combat support missions.

Luke McCormack serves as the Department of Homeland Security’s chief information officer. He oversees DHS’ continuing efforts to implement IT enhancements and strengthen IT security. His previous IT and leadership experiences both inside and outside of DHS, as well as in the public and private sector including MCI and Ford Aerospace as private companies represent a fully advantage for the federal government strategic direction.

Adm. Rogers is a native of Chicago and attended Auburn University, graduating in 1981 and receiving his commission via the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps. Originally a surface warfare officer, he was selected for re-designation to cryptology (now Information Warfare) in 1986. He assumed his present duties as commander of U.S. Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency/chief of Central Security Service in April 2014. Since becoming a flag officer in 2007, Rogers has also served as the director for Intelligence for both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and U.S. Pacific Command, and most recently as Commander of the U.S. Fleet Cyber Command/U.S. TENTH Fleet. Rogers' joint service both afloat and ashore has been extensive and, prior to becoming a flag officer, he served at U.S. Atlantic Command, CJTF 120 Operation Support Democracy (Haiti), Joint Force Maritime Component Commander, Europe, and the Joint Staff. His Joint Staff duties (2003-2007) included leadership of the J3 Computer Network Attack/Defense and IO Operations shops, EA to the J3, EA to two Directors of the Joint Staff, special assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, director of the Chairman's Action Group, and a leader of the JCS Joint Strategic Working Group.

Michael Daniel is a special assistant to the president and the cybersecurity coordinator. In this position, Michael leads the interagency development of national cybersecurity strategy and policy, and he oversees agencies’ implementation of those policies. Michael also ensures that the federal government is effectively partnering with the private sector, non-governmental organizations, other branches and levels of government and other nations. Prior to coming to the National Security Staff, Michael served for 17 years with the Office of Management and Budget. From September 2001 to June 2012, he served as the chief of the Intelligence Branch in the National Security Division in a career senior executive service position.

IMPACT is Don’s middle name. As the former director of ITA (Army Information Technology Agency), Don provided unified communications during the infamous and tenuous BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure Act). Under Adcock, ITA collapsed separate IT infrastructures located around the Washington area and brought those operations in-house under ITA management. While busy migrating, modernizing optimizing, one of his key successes was examining enterprise data life-cycle management and re-architecting server hosting – while keeping vital data moving and alive. Don successfully supported unified communications to the Pentagon all the while maintaining open lines with the theater. Upon the implementation of new IT projects across the laboratories, Don saw an opportunity to collapse redundant acquisition capabilities, which began the IMPACT Challenge. With collaboration from Lab CIOs, Don and his team launched the IMPACT challenge in September 2014. The challenge, a crowdsourcing contest running from September 2014-December 2014, encourages users of their Service Automation platform to discover new and innovative ways to use that technology to meet mission critical needs and leverage what is being successfully deployed in the department already. The collaboration between labs allows anyone within the department to be able to create, meet and deploy the needs of other labs across the country. Don’s continued focus on collaboration and modernization, across his many roles within the Government, makes Don a first class Golden Govie.

Mike Krieger became the Army deputy chief information officer/G-6 in July 2008. He has also served as the acting Army CIO/G-6 from November 2010 through March 2011 and again from October 2013 through December 2013. He oversees the implementation of the Army’s strategic direction for the network and the enterprise network infrastructure; Army’s $10 billion IT investments; Army enterprise IT architecture; IT policy compliance; and synchronized delivery of operational C4IT capabilities to support warfighters and business users, enabling joint information dominance. Mr. Krieger served 25 years in the U.S. Army, with operational assignments in tactical communications and command and control.

When Karen Britton became CIO of the Executive Office of the President two years ago, she wanted to improve the status quo and ensure her work and vision would serve as a foundation on which future administrations could build. She made it her priority to implement a new citizen relationship management platform that would improve transparency and foster efficient two-way communication between citizens and the White House. Britton inherited a legacy CRM system dubbed “Frankenstein,” which – cobbled together from disparate, antiquated tools – provided limited development ability, experienced frequent outages, caused data loss concerns, and resulted in over-budget projects, and quickly replaced it with a cloud-based platform. Britton and her team have ushered in a new era in citizen engagement, achieving':' Iterative, agile 4-week sprint cycles; 7 million contacts in the system, with over 280k cases processed in one quarter; delivery of over 100 million emails in the first quarter of use; additional encryption for both web and email traffic; and an estimated $150,000 per year in savings.

Since becoming TSA’s chief information officer in March 2013, Stephen Rice has transformed the priorities and organization of TSA’s Office of Information Technology to more effectively support the increasingly complex TSA mission. This has included consolidating IT elements from across the TSA organization and improving the availability of mobile computing solutions across the enterprise. TSA can also now run audit reports showing a user’s last TRIP access. Mr. Rice has also worked closely with TSA’s Office of Public Affairs to enable enhanced employee communications using mobile devices. OIT and OPA collaborated to demonstrate how a video-enhanced National Shift Brief could be used to brief Transportation Security Officers in a variety of spaces across the country.

Mr. Grant M. Schneider was appointed to his current position as the Deputy Director for Information Management and Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) on June 4, 2007. He was selected for the Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service in February 2003. As the CIO, he leads the technical efforts of a global team of more than 3,000 Information Technology (IT) professionals responsible for the IT assets, resources, capabilities, and services supporting over 54,000 Intelligence Community customers worldwide. He is also responsible for the oversight of an annual IT budget in excess of $900 million. In his capacity as CIO, Mr. Schneider chairs the DoD Intelligence Information System (DoDIIS) Executive Council, and he represents DIA and the DoDIIS community on the Director of National Intelligence IC CIO Council, as well as the DoD CIO Executive Council.

“Gina” Garza served as the Internal Revenue Service associate chief information officer for the Affordable Care Act Program Management Office. Gina was responsible for standing up the new ACA program and leading the planning, developing, testing, and implementation of new IRS IT system builds driven by key provisions of the ACA legislation. Gina is being nominated for her leadership excellence. To implement the mandated technical requirements, Gina established a new ACA IT Project Management Office. She drove the creation of the IT capability roadmap to organize all ACA development by releases and socialize the ACA development schedule among internal/external stakeholders to ensure complex integration points and interfaces were well understood from the outset. She selected a senior executive leadership team to oversee the PMO’s major functions. This 300+ person team operates effectively today due to the direction, motivation, and cohesion Gina instilled, and will continue to support the mandated technical efforts through 2018. Gina was always extremely level-headed and calm, even during times of duress. The work that Gina led has significantly impacted the way the IRS operates from both a legal and IT perspective. The IRS ACA requirements related to information sharing, data reporting, and additional credits, taxes, and penalties are integral to achieving a broader set of objectives associated with national healthcare reform.

Mr. Sheridan assumed the post RMA CIO in 2011 following a distinguished US Navy career. He has realigned his staff, optimized his processes and infused leading technologies while streamlining cost and operations year-over-year. His focus on people, then process, then technology has facilitated organizational change while uniting his team. Mr. Sheridan is an inspiring, motivational, and respected leader both inside and outside his team. The CIO is engaged in industry and across government identifying and bringing process innovation to RMA. He has embraced continual feedback based on the cycle of Deliver, Learn, Adapt and Improve, which has promoted process improvements based on real-time feedback from active projects. By uniting Development, Operations and Security (DevOpsSec) he has torn down silos leading to increased collaboration and efficiency gains. As a result he is delivering projects early and under budget. The CIO has led the charge to move from a hardware-centric environment to a highly virtualized environment greatly reducing hardware investment. He has implemented leading technologies such as Office 365, CRM 2013, Appian business process management, and deployed a comprehensive security toolset. Often referred to by only his title, Chad Sheridan personifies the innovative and visionary CIO.

David Rubin began working with the FBI in 2009, bringing his technical experience from previous employment in the law and financial sectors. As head of mobility for the FBI, Rubin’s goal is to provide the mobile workforce access to vital information any way they need it to further the FBI’s mission. By implementing an enterprise mobility management program, Rubin leveraged the portability and efficiency of mobile devices while securing sensitive information for FBI field operational staff. Under Rubin’s leadership, the FBI has been able to embrace the unique opportunities of mobility while ensuring that security; privacy and information protections are built-in. He was a recipient of the Advanced Mobility Academic Research Center award for Mobility Innovator for 2014. Rubin has also received the FBI Director’s Award for significant contributions to and demonstrated leadership at the FBI. Rubin’s efforts at the FBI have created a culture of stakeholders rather than employees. As the first member of the FBI dedicated to mobility, Rubin created his mobility program office from the ground up, including a shared vision, budget, roles, responsibilities and processes for employee use of agency-provided devices. Rubin’s collaborative spirit and natural leadership skills have enabled him to grow a small but effective mobility team at the FBI.

As senior vice president for government operations at MorphoTrust USA – the leading U.S. identity solutions and services provider – Jim’s work has historically involved helping many federal government agencies implement technology solutions to help prevent bad guys from doing bad things. This has included providing leadership for biometric technologies to aid in identifying and apprehending terrorists and criminals, as well as stopping individuals from obtaining fraudulent travel documents or illegally entering the U.S. This year, Jim has been instrumental in changing this with new government solutions that enable good guys to do good things.

Delivering efficiency and innovation is a cornerstone of ServiceNow’s strategy and execution model for federal government business. And nobody delivers on this with more excitement and passion than Stephen Alfieris. Stephen has spent over 30 years in technology with roles in engineering, sales and sales leadership. Steve now serves as the vice president of federal sales at ServiceNow. In his short tenure, his results speak for himself. In just 11 months he’s':' led a 400% increase in year over year revenue; onboarded 35% more customers; and delivered countless examples of how ServiceNow platform is truly enabling government entities including the Department of the Treasury, NIST and the Department of Energy to deliver services in new and meaningful ways. With this increase in footprint also comes the nurturing of a robust ecosystem of partners. He works closely with federal systems integrators such as Accenture Federal Services and Booz Allen Hamilton to drive wider customer adoption beyond IT. He’s turned partners into customers, including CSC National Public Sector, Lockheed Martin, SAIC and others who are leveraging ServiceNow to improve the way they run their own internal business and to drive new solutions to market to their end customers.

Michael Brown, retired rear admiral with United States Navy, is currently vice president and general manager of the Global Public Sector Practice at RSA, the security division of EMC. In a career spanning over three decades, he has been a pioneer in developing operationally relevant and effective efforts to secure federal IT systems. His pioneering leadership has been felt most strongly in the past year through his involvement in the National Cybersecurity Framework promulgated through NIST and the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) effort executed with DHS and GSA. With both of these landmark programs, Rear Adm. Brown has helped ensure they are designed around “on-the-ground” operational methodologies and organizational behavior. He recognizes the complexity of factors that present vulnerabilities to an organization’s IT systems, as well as cyber monitoring and cyber defense activities. He has been a pioneer in advocating for dynamic approaches that are truly integrated into the workings of the organizations these programs serve vs. rote compliance lists. Through his work with RSA as an industry IT leader and luminary, Rear Adm.Brown has been able to partner with the government and influence the development of standards that are effective at securing vital data and systems, and are resilient in the face of attack. His operational insight is a product of his background and long tenure in public service, particularly leadership positions the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security focused on cybersecurity.

Currently the head of worldwide public sector, Teresa Carlson is responsible for strategy, operations, sales and business development for Amazon's Web Services and cloud computing business. She is charged with driving both revenue and partnership strategy across public sector in all geographies. Carlson also serves as the lead public policy advisor to the business for global public sector. Carlson has more than 20 years of experience as a business executive driving innovation and change and producing successful business results. A highly respected leader in the information technology field, Carlson's customer focus has delivered exceptional value to her client while consistently exceeding her organization's business goals. Carlson has earned a number of awards for her leadership, most recently receiving the 2013 FCW Federal 100 Eagle Award for her service to the federal government customer. She has received numerous other awards for her leadership, including being named to Washingtonian Magazine's "100 Most Powerful Women" and honored as one of the "2013 Tech Titans" for contributing prominently to the growth of the Washington, D.C. tech market.

In this role, he directs portfolio strategy and solution development for major federal systems programs working with industry partners, Unisys area of strength leads, and market-facing program teams to bring innovation to the marketplace, expand the mission impact of IT, and address enterprise customer needs. He is the strategist for Unisys solutions that enable mobility-driven enterprise transformation and acts as technology emissary for Unisys in the market. Since joining Unisys in 1985, Mark has served successfully in a broad range of engineering and management positions. For several years, Mark was vice president and chief architect for Unisys Global Public Sector, where he provided technical leadership for major public sector engagements in defense and domestic security. Mark is an expert in the design and implementation of trustworthy, highly available distributed systems. He began his career at Unisys as a senior systems programmer on fault-tolerant systems used for aviation infrastructure and workforce management and was the principal designer and chief engineer for nationwide critical command and control capabilities essential to air traffic control that have proven to be among the most reliable systems ever put into operation.

Charles “Charlie” Croom joined Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Solutions in October of 2008. In his role, he shapes the corporation’s cyber security strategy and oversees government relations activities with insight from his more than 30 years of distinguished service, leadership, and technology experience from the U.S. Air Force. Croom retired in 2008 as a U.S. Air Force lieutenant general, director of the Defense Information Systems Agency and the commander of the Joint Task Force for Global Network Operations. While at DISA, he led a worldwide organization of more than 6,600 military and civilian personnel to serve the information technology and telecommunications needs of the president, secretary of defense, joint chiefs of staff, combatant commanders and other Department of Defense stakeholders. Charlie has been instrumental in developing holistic approaches to federal cybersecurity.

Marilyn Crouther is a visionary leader, dedicated to helping our government customers support mission goals and address business challenges. She helps them achieve their goals by leveraging IT and guiding them in their transformation journey to the new style of IT in areas including cloud, mobility, big data and security. She accelerates market expansion and drives business performance with a proven, deep understanding of the government market. As a member of the HP Enterprise Services Executive Committee, Crouther provides integral leadership support to HP business growth strategy and to client relationships while ensuring compliance with government and accounting regulations. Under her leadership, the HP USPS business has continued to excel and grow in a challenging and competitive environment while remaining a responsible corporate steward in the local community. Under Crouther’s leadership, thousands of professionals harness the global scale and capabilities of HP as well as its 300,000+ workforce to support defense, healthcare, homeland security and civilian clients. Crouther’s more than 23 years at HP and 14 years in the USPS region provide seasoned executive-level leadership to large, complex IT projects and implementations.

Maj. Gen. John Custer knows status quo isn’t an option. In his current role as director of federal missions and programs at EMC Corporation, Custer is responsible for leading all aspects of strategy, business development and program execution for the Federal Business Division. He brings an extensive background in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) operations and intelligence training, including serving as director of intelligence for U.S. Central Command, where he supervised intelligence operations in twenty-seven nations across the Middle East and oversaw all ISR operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa and the remainder of the Middle East. He brings a deep understanding of federal challenges and the importance of getting the right information, to the right person, at the right time, to every program. At EMC, Gen. Custer and his team constantly evaluate the needs of federal organizations and identify tools that will substantially contribute to mission success. In an answer to one of the most prevalent IT challenges across federal agencies, Custer and his team identified technology and processes to ease cloud migration. He is accelerating federal cloud adoption by helping agencies map applications to supporting business operations, and evaluate if these applications are good candidates to move to the cloud, using automated, analytical toolsets. Custer and his team know that one cloud model does not fit all. His leadership has led to the delivery of proven technology across the DOD – from compact, lightweight and highly available storage, optimized for the battlefield to virtualization, cloud, and big data analytics solutions that simplify operations and enable defense agencies to keep up with massive data growth, new user demands, and global integrated operations.

Don Dixon, in part with Xerox, is taking active measures to lower operating costs and streamline processes for printing in government agencies. Dixon refers to the waste and ineffectiveness of printing in agencies as the 'unknown unknown', meaning that many agencies aren't even aware of the savings having an effective printing program in place can create. Xerox is now working with agencies to conduct detailed assessments of current printing programs (or lack of), in order to create proactive, automated printing programs that save money and reduce overall operating costs. By using a Xerox managed printing program, the DOD now has yearly savings of 480k.

Lynn Martin is the Vice President of VMware Public Sector. In this role, she is responsible for Professional Services sales and delivery as well as Cloud Management sales. Lynn is a leading channel advocate and will continue to leverage partners to grow and scale the business. Prior to VMware, Lynn spent the past 29 years at HP, most recently serving as Vice President and General Manager of HP Federal Civilian Agencies. Lynn had responsibility for leading all aspects of HP's Federal Sales across the Civilian Sectors and for driving profitable revenue growth and customer satisfaction.

Since co-founding Tenable Network Security in 2002, Ron Gula has served as CEO. Under his leadership the company has become the leader in continuous network monitoring and is relied upon by more than 24,000 organizations worldwide to identify vulnerabilities, reduce risk and ensure compliance. Under Gula’s direction, Tenable developed SecurityCenter Continuous View (CV). Tenable Network Security recognized many years ago that continuous automated testing of a network’s defenses against a security policy is the best method to monitor the health and assurance of a network. Gula also recognized that performing this type of monitoring at scale, including mobile users and cloud based applications, required new forms of technologies. Over the past decade, Tenable has invested and created new types of sensors that allow for the automatic discovery and security assessment of networks that span traditional IT systems, mobile users, virtual networks and cloud-based applications. Gula has also pioneered how to take this data and leverage big data analytics to automatically report a network’s compliance to a security policy. As a community leader and a passionate advocate for education and scientific research, Gula serves on the advisory board for the University of Maryland Cybersecurity Center. He has authored three patents, speaks regularly at industry conferences and is frequently quoted in national publications such as the New York Times, Bloomberg and Forbes on topics related to security.

Joel Gurin is Senior Advisor at the Governance Lab at NYU, where he directs the Open Data 500, a project to study companies that use government Open Data as a key business resource (). He is the author of the new book, Open Data Now, and covers the field through his website, OpenDataNow.com. He was formerly Editorial Director and then Executive Vice President of Consumers Union and Consumer Reports. From late 2009 through early 2012 Joel Gurin was Chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission. He also served as Chair of the White House Task Force on Smart Disclosure, which studied how the federal government can help consumers by providing information on complex choices in the marketplace.

Kay Kapoor leads a team of 4,000 AT&T professionals who are focused on delivering customized information technology and professional services solutions to the Federal Government. The unit is a leader in delivering innovative network solutions and managed services, voice and data solutions, cyber security, and mission support across the Federal government. Ms. Kapoor has 25 years of experience in the Federal Government market and has held management positions of increasing responsibility and complexity. She is the recipient of numerous company, industry, and government awards.

David Kimball is Vice President of Federal Sales for SolarWinds, an IT management software provider headquartered in Austin, Texas. A government technology industry veteran, Kimball applies over 25 years’ experience to direct the rapidly growing public sector of the company. Since starting SolarWinds’ dedicated Federal division in 2010, Kimball has established a specialized public sector team and built a multi-million dollar line of business alongside SolarWinds’ ever-expanding commercial business, which was featured in this year’s Fortune Fastest-Growing Companies list. In the past year alone, Kimball grew his Herndon, Virginia-based team 75 percent, adding expertise in sales, sales engineering and marketing. Kimball endorses the concept and practice of improving government operations through the use of affordable technology and makes a concerted effort to spearhead research efforts to better understand the current and evolving problems government IT pros face. As a member of the American Council for Technology (ACT) - Industry Advisory Council (IAC), Kimball engages with other experts in the industry and participates in the discourse about tech challenges and trends.

Jason serves as the area director of federal sales for Intel, providing executive leadership across Intel and the federal IT ecosystem in designing and delivering secure, innovative technologies and solutions that address mission requirements of U.S. federal agencies. With his guidance and leadership, Jason’s local team and Intel division resources work directly with government agencies and other leading technology contractors to architect IT solutions, addressing digital government, open data, cloud first, mobility, big data and other government IT priorities.

Curt Kolcun is vice president of Microsoft Corp.’s U.S. Public Sector business vertical. He assumed this position in the summer of 2008, after leading the U.S. Federal business since August 2003. In his leadership responsibility, Curt is responsible for sales, contracting, citizenship and marketing efforts for the company’s U.S. government, education, and public sector healthcare markets. Kolcun has been with Microsoft for nearly 20 years and has been instrumental in helping grow the company’s federal government business, providing the leadership and inspiration to achieve over 22 percent growth in the business and attain the highest customer satisfaction ratings in North America.

John Marshall co-founded AirWatch and serves as senior vice president and general manager, driving the company’s strategy and operations. Under his leadership, AirWatch has become the largest enterprise mobility management provider in the world with customers that include the top four global Fortune companies. In February 2014, VMware acquired AirWatch for $1.54 billion. Prior to founding AirWatch, Marshall helped launch Celarix and Manhattan Associates.

Johnny is a results-oriented sales professional with 22 years of comprehensive experience achieving revenue goals and exceeding organizational quotas by negotiating the most challenging of sales cycles, bids, and contract opportunities while working for major companies such as AT&T, Verizon/SkyTel, Bell Atlantic Mobile, and R.H. Donnelly. Exceptional ability to exceed sales targets in the commercial, federal government, and state and local government markets.

As president of MAXIMUS Federal, Thomas Romeo helps the company live its mission to help government serve the people. Under his leadership, MAXIMUS introduced a game-changing initiative to federal customers in 2014 designed to help drive innovative, cost-effective government IT services, equitable risk sharing between agencies and contractors and measurable results for citizens. Outcomes-based contracting is poised to redefine the industry business model for both technology and services, and it has been warmly embraced by government leaders across many levels of federal, state, local and international government. Romeo has been a vocal advocate for this new approach to contracting, and has delivered multiple presentations on the issue to leaders at GSA, Dept. of Veterans Affairs, USCIS, and many more, working tirelessly to educate and build support. Romeo’s strong leadership in the development and promotion of outcomes-based has demonstrated leadership that not only supports improved relationships between government and industry, but also delivers real results for citizens in need.

Rob Stein leads NetApp’s U.S. public sector team overseeing all aspects of the public sector subsidiary, including sales, engineering, business development, finance, operations, and marketing. Rob joined NetApp in December 2007 and has more than 30 years of experience supporting public sector customers. Rob understands the special needs and opportunities of public sector customers, and has a proven track record of delivering value. Throughout his past six years as a leader within NetApp’s public sector team, he has been a pillar of what it means to lead with the bottom line in mind.

As director of innovation programs for Red Hat’s U.S. public sector team, Shawn Wells partners with U.S. intelligence and defense communities to drive the competitive superiority of U.S. intelligence gathering through the identification, scoping, and management of open source projects. Previously recognizing a need to automate security compliance utilizing repeatable, standards based processes, Shawn collaborated with NSA’s Information Assurance Directorate to create the SCAP Security Guide (SSG), an open source project that delivers security guidance, baselines, and associated validation mechanisms using the Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP).

Converting a presidential directive on information sharing into detailed policy sounds a bit like herding cats. The effort included coordinating 16 teams, each focused on a strategic priority that involved federal agencies and state, local, tribal and private partners. Finalizing the Strategic Implementation Plan for the National Strategy for Information Sharing and Safeguarding meant Bartoldus had to confront long-standing policy and technology challenges while dealing with the pressures of sequestration. He did it all by engaging stakeholders and crafting a policy that addresses the fast-evolving threat picture.

Dr. David Bray assumed the role as chief information officer for the Federal Communications Commission in August 2013. Previously he was the Executive for Innovation, Integration, and Interoperability for the Office of the Program Manager, Information Sharing Environment from October 2010 to August 2013. He received the National Intelligence Exceptional Achievement Medal in 2013 and the team he supervised received the National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Citation that same year. He was also one of 13 individuals across the entire federal workforce recognized for the Arthur S. Flemming Award for public service leadership.

Brown is the point man on the Pentagon's data center consolidation efforts, and he is the department's liaison for the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative. He also ensures that efforts are synchronized with the Joint Information Environment and Enterprise Software Initiative. James led the rework on consolidating DOD's data center and Joint Information Environment initiatives.

Mr. Burchard is recognized for his leadership on using social media to message public health. His development and promotion of the UV Index demonstrates how the federal government can get health information into the hands of the public. More engaged, more aware Americans will have better health outcomes. EPA’s UV Index is a numeric indication of exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun. The EPA UV Index’s suite of tools provides Americans the knowledge they need to protect themselves from ultraviolet radiation, a known carcinogen. The tools are used':' the UV Index has been for years EPA’s most accessed source of public information, with queries averaging one million per month. Summertime UV Index queries regularly average 4.5 million a month. Between 10,000 and 50,000 installs on Android phones The value of UV awareness is demonstrated by the inclusion of a UV sensor in Samsung’s Gear S Smartwatch as part of its health suite. These sun safety tools are here to stay.

John DeLong is the Director of Compliance at the National Security Agency. He worked instituting new privacy and compliance guidelines mandated by President Obama’s Presidential Policy Directive on Signals Intelligence during one of the most challenging and difficult times in the agency’s history. In previous positions, DeLong has supported NSA/CSS senior leadership in various transformational efforts – advocating and leading the careful and efficient resolution of complex policy, technical, compliance and oversight issues. He has also developed and taught numerous classes at the National Cryptologic School in areas such as computer science and cybersecurity.

Ms. Diaz joined the NASA Office of the CIO in December as associate CIO for architecture and infrastructure and director of the IT integration program, the new IT infrastructure program created to consolidate the $4.3 billion of agency's IT and data services. As an experienced information technology executive, she is recognized as a top agent of change who has provided innovative, business solutions and developed strong partnerships between industry and government. Prior to NASA she worked as the chief information officer for Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate where she developed and implemented $1 billion of high-profile, ground-breaking scientific programs and IT infrastructure as well a she served to provide new and effective ways to fight the war on terrorism.

It’s no secret that the United States Postal Service operates under a stringent budget deficit, but what may surprise you is that the IT organization has converted that deficit into an innovation surplus. John Edgar is the driving force behind a fundamental shift in the way services are managed and delivered not just within IT but across the enterprise. Within just 6 months of igniting this transformation, he’s now managing a ground-swell of demand across USPS for more. Improvements in efficiencies, costs and customer satisfaction are remarkable in and of themselves, but equally impressive is John’s success at redirecting these savings toward other innovative solutions that are impacting revenue. John is responsible for the technology behind one of the world’s largest and most efficient logistics and delivery networks':' $837 million in online revenue; 10 billion transactions per day; $67 billion in collected revenue annually; the 75th most visited US website; 618,000 postal users; 37,000 USPS locations; and five solution centers and two data centers. As one of the first responders to the business, John is keenly focused on ensuring IT’s relevancy amid massive organizational and industry change. John has realigned IT to enhance operational efficiency and meet new business needs at USPS. He is transforming his organization into an IT as a Service model to maximize capabilities, reduce cost and align with cloud services.

Over the past year, NHTSA has been working to make a distributable, re-usable product to manage the process of communication between business units and remote IT development teams. To bring the project to completion Mr. Frenchik served as the lead designer and manager for the process, development and base application and is charge with management of the technology for the capture of crash data and crash data statistics within the Office of Data Acquisition (ODA). Because the world of IT has become more and more “virtual”, teams business and technical do not always meet, or have the opportunity to, in the same geographical location. As a result there is a base need in any project to capture communications, ideas and ultimately requirements.

Janice Glover-Jones serves as the Deputy Chief Information for the Defense Intelligence Agency, where she is transforming the CIO organization by centralizing the budget function and applying robust business analytics. Ms. Glover-Jones supports DIA’s mission through her day-to-day management of a global IT organization with thousands of employees providing IT support to Department of Defense and IC customers worldwide. In this position, Ms. Glover-Jones is spearheading a program to baseline the CIO organization’s key business activities, align them to the office and agency missions and ensure the optimal level of staffing and budgetary resourcing. Her commitment and attention to detail in these efforts has achieved a $56 million cost savings. Ms. Glover-Jones is developing and managing a strategically sound, financially wise and legally compliant IT budget. She is transforming the CIO organization by centralizing the budget function and applying robust business analytics. Additionally, she implemented the IT Value Scorecard, which provides DoD Intelligence Information Systems (DoDIIS) customers a multi-perspective view of strategic performance and aligns the value and strategic drivers to the customers’ values. Ms. Glover-Jones routinely provides comprehensive briefings and responses to congressional committees, the Office of Management and Budget, Combatant Commands, the DoDIIS CIO Forum and the IC Governing Boards. She also works closely with the Federally Employed Women and other groups to provide mentoring and career advice to both senior and junior government and military personnel.

As the U. S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Deputy Chief Information Officer (CIO) since 2008, Margaret H. Graves oversees an IT portfolio of $5.4 billion in programs. In addition, Ms. Graves manages the operations of the Office of the Chief Information Officer, which covers the functional areas of Applied Technology, Enterprise Architecture, Data Management, IT Security, Infrastructure Operations, IT Accessibility, Budget and Acquisition. During one of her previous positions as the Executive Director of the Enterprise Business Management Office within the DHS Office of the CIO, she developed and executed IT Portfolio strategies in alignment with the DHS Enterprise Architecture and established business processes for Capital Planning and Investment Control, departmental IT budget reviews and acquisition reviews.

Kimberly Hancher is not just a tech savvy federal leader with a pragmatic approach to solving complex IT problems, she is also a highly respected IT service management consultant for many large and small agencies. She is a trail blazer in electronic government and a thought leader on federal mobility programs. Many agencies seek her guidance on establishing bring your own device (BYOD) programs and mobile device management (MDM) services. Always willing to share best practices and lessons learned, she is also widely known for figuring out ways to lower IT costs.

Over the last year, Paul Huang has led the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Data and Dissemination Branch in improving the accessibility and understanding of key information. In support of making critical data more accessible to the public, Paul has overseen a series of transformative improvements to the primary flood hazard information distribution point, the FEMA Flood Map Service Center, culminating in the launch of a completely redesigned platform. To improve the public’s understanding of the data, Paul directed a full overhaul of help text and supporting documentation, improving its consistency, readability, and usefulness. With the new site, local, state, and national leaders; developers; the general public; and other stakeholders can better access this information and make informed decisions to help mitigate flood risk. Since the supporting materials for flood mapping and analysis has regulatory and safety impacts, Paul has emphasized that branch staff and contractors take significant steps to make this information more accessible and open. In the past year, Paul has led consolidation of disparate IT systems. Accessibility and transparency of information is not actionable if stakeholders don’t understand it. Under Paul’s leadership, FEMA completed an effort to assess and improve the flood hazard information on FEMA.gov. Paul’s vision and leadership led to transformative changes to mission critical systems.

Dr. Alissa Johnson is the Deputy Chief Information Officer for the Executive Office of the President. As the DCIO she is responsible for the technology vision, guidance, and leadership for the development and implementation of IT initiatives at the EOP. Dr. Johnson has the rigorous task of keeping the White House’s systems online and secure. She is responsible not only for the infrastructure at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, but also for providing innovative IT solutions to enable EOP’s components. In doing so, she has created the 2014 EOP OCIO Strategic Plan that includes new goals and new objectives focused on stabilization, preservation, innovation and efficiency. The strategic plan is designed with agility to accommodate the rapidly changing environment and the changing needs of the customers based on political focus areas and sets the vision of future projects. Along with the strategic plan, Dr. Johnson developed the EOP’s first roadmap to give customers an idea of various services to expect throughout the quarter and the year. She led the development of a scorecard and dashboard for projects that maps the projects’ goals to the strategic plan’s objectives. Dr. Johnson has held several town hall meetings communicating the plan and ensuring that the customers understand its impact to the EOP. She notes it as a contract between OCIO and customers to set the expectation of the goals that OCIO plans to deliver. For the IT roadmap, she worked across components within the EOP to understand their needs. She negotiated the priorities to develop a roadmap that satisfies the needs of each organization as well as the requirements of OCIO. Every quarter, Dr. Johnson leads a governance review that discusses successes and future expectations for each strategic area.

Antwane Johnson, the Director and Project Manager of FEMA’s National Continuity Programs’ Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS), joined the team in 2009 and immediately stepped forward as a champion of the program. FEMA established the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) in response to Executive Order 13407 to provide the President of the United States the capability to alert and warn the American people under all conditions. Currently, there are 353 public alerting authorities with approved use of IPAWS within their jurisdictions and another 224 in the approval process. Because of his leadership, most modern cell phones now have the technology to receive Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEAs) through IPAWS, which warn about imminent threats to public safety. Strategic partnerships established at his direction with the CTIA and commercial mobile service providers allow WEAs to be sent even when cellular networks are overloaded, ensuring that vital information can reach the public even when the networks can no longer support person-to-person calls, texts, or emails. Mr. Johnson’s mission-driven management has been instrumental to partnerships between the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), law-enforcement agencies, broadcasters, and the wireless industry that permit America’s Missing':' Broadcast Emergency Response (AMBER) alerts to be issued through IPAWS.

Mr. Johs has almost thirty years of combined experience and expertise with operations, maintenance and management of people, processes and technology of IT systems. He has been tasked as the technical director of all aspects of IT with a specific concentration on operations and maintenance of enterprise infrastructure. The scope of work and responsibility for his role is staggering, which includes 100,000 square feet of data center space spanning across multiple cities that contain 5,000 servers, 1,000 databases, 300 applications and 9 petabytes of storage and network. What is astounding is how the efforts of one particular person can truly make a difference by setting an example based on team leadership, executive management, strategic and tactical planning. Mr. Johs continues to impress with his dedication, knowledge and skills, as well as the endless hours he works in determination to support the mission and purpose of better supporting our nation’s veterans. In addition to his technical responsibilities, Johs has an extremely high acumen for business related duties that include customer capture, contract creation, budget planning and forecasting, development of product lines and services, vendor negotiation and other activities that come with managing such an expansive enterprise. Mr. Johs works unbelievably hard, maintains composure during issues and always tries to inspire and lift the spirits of those around him.

Klimavicz will provide leadership and oversight of the department’s information technology programs and services in support of the department’s technology-intensive law enforcement mission. Prior to joining the department, Klimavicz was the CIO of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at the Department of Commerce since January 2007. In that capacity, he was responsible for all aspects of the acquisition, management and use of NOAA’s information technology resources, to include NOAA’s high performance computing and communications infrastructure. During his tenure at NOAA, he strengthened the agency’s cyber security posture, consolidated and expanded high performance computing and modernized a variety of business systems. Klimavicz served as deputy CIO for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency from December 2003 to January 2007. While there, he managed the design, implementation and operation of the information technology infrastructure. Klimavicz has served in various roles in the Department of Defense, including director of the Enterprise Services Office and Chief, Infrastructure Operations and Support Division for the National Imagery and Mapping Agency. He received a U.S. Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Executive Service for his outstanding efforts in information technology in 2012.

Since assuming the position of Chief Technology Officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs last year, Marina has been a champion of change in the department. She is spearheading a number of efforts that will bring the VA's interactions with Veterans into the 21st Century, ensuring that they get the benefits and care they deserve for their service to our country.

He was sworn into office on May 13, 2013. Richard served most recently as a Senior Fellow for the Center for Digital Government. From 2005 to 2011, he was the Government Technology Advisor for Microsoft’s State and Local Government division. Richard served from 1999 to 2005 as Chief Information Officer for the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, a consolidated city/county government. Prior to working for Nashville city government, Richard was the Director of Information Services for the Tennessee General Assembly from 1995 to 1999. He served as Assistant Commissioner of Administration for the State of Tennessee Department of General Services from 1987 to 1995.

Eric Nelson, Director of the State Department Office of eDiplomacy in the Bureau of Information Resources Management, manages 70 employees across three divisions. Since arriving in September, 2013 he has made it his mission for the office to realize its potential in bringing innovation in information technology (IT) and a much higher level of customer service to the conduct of U.S. diplomacy. eDiplomacy was established in 2003 to overcome knowledge barriers and improve communications and knowledge sharing, and leads State in innovating knowledge management and collaboration technologies for foreign affairs goals. Eric has championed eDiplomacy’s tools – professional networking platform, wiki, blogging platform - for collaboration and information sharing across State, boosting participation 30%+ by focusing on ways to embed those in business practices and encouraging IRM to use these tools to demonstrate to others at State the benefits. He has been a steadfast advocate for greater support from senior leadership of knowledge management, information sharing and TechCamp programs.

A little more than two years ago, Ken Nesbit was appointed ACIO of infrastructure operations at the Treasury Department. The challenge he faced? There was no infrastructure to operate. Treasury was a managed services IT environment fully owned and overseen by a system integrator. Ken was directed to immediately develop and execute a plan to transform Treasury into an internally constructed managed services operation capable of providing IT infrastructure, services and support to Treasury and other agencies. While Ken was no stranger to large initiatives, the new directive was substantial. He was given four mandates, any one of which is a daunting challenge to a large federal agency':' consolidate nine data centers to two locations; establish big data capability; and build an environment to support cloud computing; provide the architecture to implement mobile device management . To compound the ambitious technical scope, these objectives had to be achieved without any lapse or overlap in service. In just two short years, each of these transformation components has been achieved. Treasury successfully exited actual facilities and consolidated to two primary centers. Under Ken’s direction, the current organization has replaced the third party managed service functionality resulting in substantial cost savings and service improvement. Ken Nesbit has transformed how Treasury provides IT services now and for the future.

Ms. Powell is a proven civilian leader who expertly led a multi-disciplined team that assessed and provided integrated solutions for Joint and Coalition Warfighters. Ms. Powell led development and testing of the Automated NATO Database Interface (ANDI), which resolved an urgent USEUCOM interoperability shortfall by automating target data exchanges between US and NATO systems. She directed execution of the Joint Cross Domain exchange Interoperability Assessment, which resolved operational issues between US and UK maritime intelligence tracks. Prior to resolution, allied maritime intelligence data was not accessible to US Forces. Ms. Powell supervised connection of US, NATO, and coalition partner networks to achieve US Mission Partner Environment (MPE), NATO Coalition Interoperability and Assurance Validation (CIAV), and NATO Federated Mission Networking (FMN) interoperability objectives during a NATO exercise. Finally, Ms. Powell led the effort to connect C4AD’s Persistent Environment to the Enterprise Cyber Range Environment to demonstrate cyber operational impacts on C2 systems.

Penny Pritzker was sworn in as the 38th Secretary of Commerce by Vice President Joe Biden on June 26, 2013. She is a civic and business leader with more than 25 years of experience in the real estate, hospitality, senior living and financial services industries. Ms. Pritzker served as CEO of PSP Capital Partners and has previously developed such diverse companies as Vi (formerly Classic Residence by Hyatt), a leader in luxury living for older adults; The Parking Spot, a large U.S. network of off-site airport parking facilities; and Pritzker Realty Group. President Obama appointed Ms. Pritzker to the President's Council for Jobs and Competitiveness, which formerly advised the administration on economic growth and job creation. Ms. Pritzker previously served on the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. She has also served on the boards of Hyatt Hotels Corporation, Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, Marmon Group and LaSalle Bank Corporation. She is past executive chairman of TransUnion, a global financial services information company.

Michael Reardon is a supervisory policy advisor for the Labor Department’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP). Michael directs ODEP’s Employment Supports Policy Team, which addresses a wide range of issues affecting the employment of people with disabilities, including accessible technology, transportation, housing and health care. Michael has made a significant impact on the federal IT community, most notably through his establishment of ePolicyWorks and through his guidance of the Partnership on Employment & Accessible Technology. Michael has always believed that effective policy making is collaborative policy making. In response to the President's Open Government Initiative, he spearheaded the ePolicyWorks initiative utilizing Web 2.0 technology to more efficiently and cost effectively elicit the targeted, meaningful discussions needed to generate policies for people with disabilities. ePolicyWorks is now recognized as a trailblazing model for government efficiency and transparency. Combining cutting edge technology with expertise from the federal government and beyond, Michael has successfully created an initiative to effectively use technology and save federal dollars and staff time, while modernizing government business practices, promote lasting change and fulfilling America’s promise of equal employment opportunity for all citizens.

As a result of Mr. Riddle's leadership, the Government Printing Office will be the first legislative branch agency in the federal government to migrate its email to the cloud. GPO is in the process of transforming itself from a print-centric organization to a modern, digitally focused agency that fully leverages technology to achieve its mission. Mr. Riddle continues to push GPO forward in this transformation. By moving to Office 365 for email, GPO will be able to offer more capabilities such as collaboration, Software-as-a-Service and online storage than we would have been able to deliver on our own, and be positioned to continue expanding on its use of cloud technologies in the future.

As the FEMA owner of the MSC, Paul Rooney had a vision for a completely reconceptualized site':' a streamlined, digital product portal that would integrate many disparate sources of data into an intuitive yet powerful platform. It would serve the needs of both the one-time or novice public user and the power business user. It would be completely free and allow FEMA to do away with costly physical infrastructure and legacy commerce systems. FEMA has strived to underscore the technical credibility and sound engineering that goes into its flood risk analyses. Paul Rooney has played a lead role in this effort, managing the creation of the Flood Risk Study Engineering Library (FRiSEL). This resource consolidates many disparate sources of supporting engineering data into a unified, readily searchable repository. As IT continues to transform the way the federal government communicates with its citizens, leaders like Paul Rooney will be critical to getting it.

Colonel (COL) William M. (Bobby) Saxon leads an Army, big data initiative staffed by military, government and contract personnel called the Enterprise Management Decision Support (EMDS) system. COL Saxon and his team are charged with the development, sustainment, and delivery of the Army’s EMDS readiness/resourcing system. EMDS provides Senior Leadership, their staff, and Unit Commanders with visually-driven, dashboard-displays of information integrated from across the Army-enterprise, to provide decision-support tools for deployment planning and forecasting. EMDS cuts across the Army’s functional areas to serve as one-stop-shop for critical information for people, equipment, training, and more. Under COL Saxon’s leadership, EMDS has a growing user base of over 1,600 worldwide users; supporting 70 Army organizations which include 300 directorates/divisions. COL Saxon works with knowledge experts, data scientists, and domain specialists to provide the Army with predictive information 5+ years into the future for personnel and manning, equipping and installation information across the enterprise.

Nick Sinai is U.S. deputy chief technology officer at the White House in the Office of Science and Technology Policy. In this role, Nick helps lead President Obama's open data initiatives to liberate data to fuel innovation and economic growth and helps lead the open government initiative to ensure the federal government is more transparent, participatory, and collaborative. Nick previously served at the Federal Communications Commission, where he played a key role in crafting the National Broadband Plan and led a team that explored how broadband and advanced communications could help the nation achieve its goals of energy independence and energy efficiency. Prior to joining the Obama administration, Nick was a venture capitalist at Polaris Partners and Lehman Brothers Venture Partners (now Tenaya Capital). Nick also served in executive and advisory roles with two Boston area start-up technology companies, and served as a senior advisor to the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center.

Bryan Sivak joined HHS as the Chief Technology Officer in July 2012. In this role, he is responsible for helping HHS leadership harness the power of data, technology, and innovation to improve the health and welfare of the nation. Mr. Sivak has distinguished himself in his previous positions such as the Chief Innovation Officer to Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, where he has led Maryland’s efforts to embed concepts of innovation into the DNA of state government, as someone who can work creatively across a large government organization to identify and implement the best opportunities.

For nearly 40 years Dennis Stephan has been a respected leader in government. Continually innovating the organizations under his watch and keeping fresh on current technologies, Stephan has spent his professional lifetime at the forefront for federal IT. After serving honorably as a US Army officer in charge of the IT infrastructure at a military installation, he joined the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Risk Management Agency (RMA) in 2000, where he now serves as the Deputy Chief Information Officer (DCIO). The federal IT policies and processes he has continually re-invented over the past 14 years have shaped and improved RMA’s infrastructure and services to the Federal Crop Insurance Program. He has directly minimized risks to agri-business and served to build and improve the agricultural safety net for our nation’s producers. His policies have promoted the use of sound industry best practices and have matured the agency’s IT portfolio, approach to project management and IT infrastructure for over a decade. In 2014 he has continued to push the technology envelope, leading the organization forward with regard to patch and release management and leading by example in guiding his staff in the evaluation of new technological options and approaches. The DCIO has participated and contributed to numerous USDA level IT working groups to shape policy and improve integrated IT governance across his agency.

Mr. Tombe has more than 25 years of IT management experience in the Federal government serving in a variety of Agencies on both the West and East coast. Mr. Tombe has served as the Chief Technology Officer of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the country’s largest law enforcement agency since 2005. Mr. Tombe is leading the formation of cross-cutting integrated technology strategies and architectures, the establishment of CBP’s Strategic Technology Direction and its associated Information Technology Transformation initiatives. In December of 2008, Mr. Tombe founded the first US Government “Federal CTO Forum” in recognition of the tremendous benefits to be gained by reusing technology best practices and innovations among Federal Agencies.

Jack is a bright technologist and has the ability to well understand the business. He is a Princeton graduate and he was promoted to SES at the age of 35 last year. Jack is the one of the rising stars within DOD and these are the kinds of government employees that DOD needs to retain as more and more senior enlisted folks are retiring.

Veda is "an advocate of employing systematic and holistic information assurance (IA) strategies, with specific senior level expertise in information governance, risk management and compliance." What is most inspiring about Veda, however, is not the success she has had as the CISO/DCIO at RATB, but how she uses her success. Veda is an active supporter of the STEM initiative, focusing on increasing the involvement of young girls and young African Americans, two demographics that currently have little representation in the field. By involving a wider demographic at younger ages, Veda's efforts and passion for STEM will undoubtedly help to create an innovative, well prepared future workforce.

The NARA Description and Authority Service (DAS) project is breaking new ground on several fronts and is a game changer for the archives. NARA’s Chief Innovation Officer, Pam Wright, and her DAS Program Team led by Carol Lagundo, wanted to update an older legacy system that was nearing the end of its support. The DAS system provides a web based, thin client application in the presentation tier and a large XML data store in the data tier. The new ground is in the heart of the system; the SOA layer in the service tier. The SOA layer allows NARA to interface with any applications they build going forward. This flexibility will serve the archives well as they now have a robust backbone that can support a wide number of applications that can simply link to the SOA layer and send ‘web service requests’ directly to the service tier looking for the designated data store. No ‘new’ or ‘temporary’ data repositories are created or needed as the SOA layer can interact with the source directly. Add to this one of the game changers, the SOA layer is built using open source technologies. Reducing license and maintenance costs over the life of the system. They built and currently host all three tiers; presentation, service and data in the cloud. NARA was one of the first, if not the first, to build a major, federal, n-tier system entirely in the cloud. The costs savings on the hardware alone are projected at 70% over the life of the contract.

Richard V. Young is the Director of Information Technology Policy & Compliance within the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In this capacity, he is responsible for IT policy development and oversight of the Departments $5.6 billion investment in Information Technology. Overseeing the $13.5 million IT Working Capital Funds initiatives, he leads the collaboration of Shared Services with various internal components and external federal agencies. His leadership skills make his staff able to challenge themselves “to be better than [they] could ever imagine”.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), one of the largest multi-program laboratories stewarded by the Department of Energy, realized it had too many concurrent efforts. Brian Abrahamson, CIO, PNNL, posed a challenge to the IT organization to align its time, resources, passion, and talent around just two or three strategic and impactful efforts in an attempt to build an IT reputation based on impact – not quantity – of initiatives. Brian and the PNNL IT team decided to address two paradigm shifts in the workplace':' connecting people with people in new and different ways, such as collaboration in virtual teams, and connecting staff to information in a mobile, just-in-time, personalized way. Over the course of nine months, the organization implemented a transformational program and launched a powerful set of mobile and collaboration capabilities to PNNL staff. The project, Connected@PNNL, includes a voluntary bring-your-own-device (BYOD) program in which employees can enroll personal devices, receive access to a PNNL app store complete with PNNL-specific apps, seamless access to documents across their computers, share points and network drives, and more. To promote these new capabilities, PNNL modeled consumer experiences by placing a “genius bar” in the lobby of every building across the PNNL campus where staff members could work with Connected@PNNL team members to enroll devices, ask questions, and share feedback. Each stage of the program was designed to be personable, approachable and intuitive. With the goal of providing employees with a familiar consumer-like experience, PNNL selected Citrix XenMobile as its enterprise mobility management (EMM) solution, delivering MDM, mobile application management, and enterprise-grade productivity apps in one comprehensive solution. By rethinking paradigms, obsessing on the user experience, and showcasing the value of a focused team, the PNNL IT team created a “new blueprint” for driving impact at PNNL.

Randy Abramson has worked in the digital media field for nineteen years and he is the visionary behind the Relay mobile reporting platform, used by journalists from the Voice of America Urdu, French to Africa, Indonesian and Cambodian services, as well as by NASA. The platform is revolutionary in that it allows reporters on the ground to transmit real-time video, photo and text from their mobile phones, simply by attaching their reports to Email, a process that doesn’t need extensive training and bypasses complex content management systems. Relay has most recently been used to cover the World Cup games in Brazil, bringing reports about Brazilian culture, protests and, of course, the matches.

Ben Balter is a Government Evangelist at GitHub, the world’s largest software development network, where he leads the efforts to encourage adoption of open source philosophies, making all levels of government better, one repository at a time. Previously, Ben was a member of the inaugural class of Presidential Innovation Fellows where he served as entrepreneur in residence reimagining the role of technology in brokering the relationship between citizens and government. As an attorney passionate about the disruptive potential of technology, Ben holds a J.D. and an M.B.A. from the George Washington University and is a member of the DC Bar.

After five years of development across three technology platforms, the State Department had yet to successfully replace eServices, an antiquated workflow system for requesting and fulfilling services at overseas posts. Identifying this as one of the department’s greatest technology priorities, Ceci Coates, director of property management and policy, saw the potential for the eServices program to benefit from an enterprise owner with more than 15 years of successful overseas deployment expertise and proven experience delivering a global integrated supply chain system using commercial-off-the-shelf products. In April 2014, Ceci challenged the status quo by stepping up with a new and innovative, cloud-based solution using ServiceNow, a highly configurable and extensible cloud platform built on an enterprise-grade infrastructure, and partnered with the eServices business owner at the Department to rapidly demonstrate the benefits of this forward-thinking approach. Within just eight weeks, a new enterprise service management platform, myServices, went live in San Jose, Costa Rica. Serving more than 250 customers from 13 federal agencies at the embassy, myServices processed over 1,000 requests within its first month, more than double the average number of requests submitted monthly in the legacy system. With a focus on the potential that modern, cloud-based technology brings to address the department’s greatest technological challenges rapidly and at a lower cost, Ceci is helping to set a new standard for using technology to deliver business outcomes not only for the department, but for the entire federal government.

Before being named USDS administrator, the Pomona grad made a name for himself at Google’s site reliability engineering department, and did a quick stint on the data team of Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012.
Last year he was drafted to the elite “trauma team” called in to overhaul the beleaguered healthcare.gov. His colleagues at HHS credit him with fixing the site, and Obama even called him a “hotshot.”
Dickerson’s success with the now-infamous website – which he lovingly calls his “government adventure” – led to a push for an IT overhaul, and the U.S. Digital Service was born.Launched just last month, the USDS aims to do for the rest of government what the trauma team did for healthcare.gov':' improve citizens’ online interactions with government agencies.

Robert Ellison, an Enterprise Architect, at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a technologist who promoted the integration of functional technologies to align customer needs and organizational requirements into reliable, effective, secure and cost effective technology solutions for the Department since its inception in 2002. He stands as a shining example of a technology disruptor, constantly thinking “outside of the box.” He was responsible for the Department’s mandated Secure Video Initiative for President George W. Bush. His innovative approach resulted in the development, adoption of the “Software Defined Data Center” vision to migrate the DHS Applications and Data over the next 5-10 years as technology matures, and governance is developed to support the architecture transformation. Rob tirelessly continues to work towards repeated success and increased efficiencies in his role as an Enterprise Architect, Technology Innovator, and Disruptor paragon.

No one knows better than Greg Frey, Executive Director at U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Headquarters IT that “necessity is the mother of invention.” Greg is an accomplished serial disruptor of the status quo in Federal government IT. Having led the Presidential transition from the George W. Bush administration to the Barrack Obama administration for IT systems and electronic records and having held senior level IT positions at the Executive Office of the President, American Management Systems, Fannie Mae, and in the U.S. Navy, Greg understands IT procurement and management challenges very well. At every turn, Greg’s inventiveness, insight, creativity, and financially savvy business minded approaches to problem solving and continuous drive toward operational excellence, make him a great choice for this year’s “Disruptor of the Year” award. Greg engineered and implemented a new, disruptive IT operating and service delivery business model at DHS to fully capitalize their LAN management costs which leveraged performance based contracting and managed services to complement in-source capabilities.

At the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Indu Garg proves herself as a leader who asks “Why not?” But she has gone far beyond simply questioning status quo – she has uprooted it. Specifically, she carefully examined a disjointed, inefficient collection of over 30 siloed systems – one for each USDA agency and office – as every agency operated its own human resource IT department without a common vision or strategy. She observed that the fragmented implementations were leading to increased spending on maintenance and external contracts, given that the agencies hired multiple vendors to do the same jobs. Internally, duplicated efforts and excess capacities throughout the entire department resulted in numerous personnel tasked with performing the same role and responsibilities. Additionally, small agencies within USDA did not possess the financial resources to shoulder the cost for a “best-in-class” HR technology system, thus having to use antiquated systems or manually process transactional items, driving up costs. Through One USDA, Indu and her team have migrated USDA to a consolidated HRIT platform and service model, providing uniform HR technology throughout all USDA agencies. As a result of the ensuing streamlined processes, USDA now saves almost $2 million annually by consolidating multiple hiring solutions.

Mrs. Theresa Grafenstine is an advocate for changing the way the audit adds value to an organization. Within the House of Representatives she has helped drive a culture where House organizations and oversight officials come to her to help them address potential risks BEFORE they occur. Her office provided proactive Management Advisory Services that work with groups to identify and help mitigate risks. Instead of "pointing the finger" and looking at issues after they have occurred, she has her organization engaged on the front-end to help her organization avoid costly or embarrassing problems. She has been an outspoken advocate for "Changing the Audit Paradigm" and is a frequent speaker talking about how the role of audit and Inspectors General needs to change.

Xavier Hughes led DOL's response to President Obama's Executive Order on Improving Customer Service and in the process developed a government-wide business model that was showcased as "the model" for all other federal agencies to use. It covers several areas. It improves the customer experience by adopting proven best practices in the customer service industry and coordinating informational consistency across service channels (including on-line, mobile, phone, in-person, mail, and others). It establishes mechanisms to solicit customer feedback on government services, use feedback to regularly measure success, and make necessary service improvements based on customer input. Using customer service standards and setting clear expectations, including performance goals in customer service for agencies was a clear focus. Xavier streamlined agency processes to reduce costs and accelerate delivery and leveraged best practices to reduce the need for customer calls and inquiries. This effort is considered an enormous innovation at DOL and across government. It used a "channel agnostic" approach and categorized all work across People, Process, Policy, Data and Technology sectors.

Always pushing the technical envelope, occasionally ruffling feathers and constantly asking “Why?” Ron Mackenzie embodies positive disruption in Federal IT. An unlikely candidate for Disrupter of the Year, Ron is a life-long federal employee who started within the business organization and found his home in IT. One day he woke up and said, “There has to be a better way to do this.” As the Chief of Business Applications for the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Risk Management Agency (RMA), Ron runs an Applications Development shop with more than 50 developers pumping out an impressive 20+ software applications every year. Through the definition of a new Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) that is based on Agile best practices, Ron has re-envisioned the entire federal process for applications development. Ron has turned the classic Federal IT waterfall shop on its head. Ron spent numerous hours working with the program to help bring definition to roles to ensure that all responsibilities are being covered. By focusing on deliverables that are organic to the development lifecycle and eliminating unnecessary processes and documentation, Ron has improved speed-to-market and reduced cost to taxpayers.

Marsha Mullins brilliantly spearheaded improving digital interoperability within the department by leveraging existing processes while challenging those that are less effective. The result of her work is a set of innovative and unique solutions, known as coordinated implementation (CI), which begins to resolve highly complex interoperability challenges. Mrs. Mullins astutely recognized there is no single organization responsible for defining and funding Joint and Coalition interoperability requirements. The CI methodology, originated under Mrs. Mullins’ extraordinary leadership, fills a gap between traditional standards management/compliance and desired interoperability. It does so by defining "how" communications standards are implemented to meet mission information exchange requirements and achieve interoperability within the context of military missions. With Mrs. Mullins directing the effort, the Joint Staff J6 demonstrated that existing interoperability certification augmented with the CI methodology provides significant Joint and Coalition digital interoperability improvements.

Mr. Palmer has been with the USDA for 5 years and is the team leader for the Open Systems Branch. He has been a key component of the development of a Cloud IaaS platform, which is based on OpenStack. As the lead Linux expert, Mr. Palmer conducted extensive research on possible options prior to proposing OpenStack; he performed complex installations, customizations, and integrations of various software options. Additionally, he installed and configured OpenStack well before commercialized distributions provided simpler methods; and he developed a working proof-of-concept within 90 days of the start of the effort. Mr. Palmer also performed expertly in his development of scripts and code to enable the integration of Software Defined Networking (SDN) nearly 1.5 years prior to commercial integrations of these technologies being generally available. The result of Mr. Palmer’s efforts has culminated in the creation of a new USDA IaaS cloud offering with integrated SDN, which integrates with all governmental security systems and is compliant with FedRAMP and FISMA. Without Mr. Palmer’s knowledge and can-do attitude, the USDA would not be as far ahead as it is with its cloud offering leveraging OpenStack and SDN leading technologies. Mr. Palmer is an expert in his field and is always ready to tackle new challenges as he looks for new and innovative ways to solve unique and complex problems. His efforts reflect great credit upon himself, the USDA, and the IT industry within the U.S. government as a whole.

Mike is a Lead It Specialist at the DOL responsible for web and mobile application development, and public-facing open source and certain open data initiatives for the Office of Public Affairs in the U.S. Department of Labor since 2004. Additional responsibilities include directing the citizen-facing mobile efforts at DOL and representing the department on many interagency workgroups, including mobile development, mobile UX, open source, and API management. His specialties include web technologies, presentation slide design, mobile app design and development, open data, UX.

Since his arrival at USCIS just over 4 years ago, Mr. Schwartz has proven to be the "mastermind of disruption" to many of those he engages. This is engagement is not only within USCIS but also to his peers and colleagues across DHS, as well as the IT industry. He is more than a change agent; Mark is what many consider the ultimate disruptor in thinking lean, agile, and eliminating waste. Mark is clearly a visionary and out-of-the-box thinker who makes others think and work differently and better - while achieving a higher level of quality and productivity! Mark has developed innovative oversight mechanisms for agile development and has led initiatives across DHS to streamline governance and the SDLC for agile projects. He has worked with the new US Digital Service to pilot their assessments of IT programs and with the new 18F group at GSA to develop user-centric digital services. He has made agile development the standard approach at USCIS and worked tirelessly to develop support for the agile approach among agency and DHS leadership.

Rich Struse is one of the Department of Homeland Security’s most gifted innovators, possessing a unique combination of technical know-how and marketing savvy. Over the past several years, he has developed and championed the STIX/TAXII specifications. Not only have these specifications proven a viable standard, but they have also won numerous followers in the difficult-to-crack world of standards implementation. People who work with him see Mr. Richard Struse as a leader that embodies the qualities of an “ innovator not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom and shake up the status quo.” Indeed after having recognized in 2012 that traditional approaches for cyber security were insufficient, he began the process of developing two technical specifications called the Structured Threat Information expression (STIX) and the Trusted Automated exchange of Indicator Information (TAXII) rather than accepted the status quo for information sharing.

This team challenges conventional wisdom and shakes up the status quo at a critical time in US healthcare history. This visionary team - Christina Lachance, CDR Nancy Mautone-Smith, Johanna Goderre, and Lauren Corboy, directs the transformation of OPA’s Title X Family Planning Annual Report (FPAR) system from an antiquated aggregate system to a 21st century encounter-level system. This new system will receive standards-based summaries of health encounters directly from EHR systems in over 4000 clinical settings. With the advent of the ACA, EHR adoption and data capture have become critical components in the private and public healthcare arenas. EHR adoption in the US has been challenged by underfunding, lack of training, and lack of mechanisms to interoperably exchange data among clinical settings. This is particularly problematic in publically-funded health systems, such as Title X. In a time of uncertainty and shrinking resources, it is tempting to maintain the status quo. The OPA HIT Team challenged this notion - and their work impacts not only the Title X network, but the entire field of family planning. The HIT Team led a strategic effort to gain the interest of health IT industry-partners. The involvement of IT industry-partners with OPA is unprecedented. The HIT Team ventured into uncharted territory for the Title X program, tactically engaging standards development organizations like HL7, IHE, HIMSS and EHR vendors. The recent IHE Family Planning profile beat the 16-year record for public comments to a technical specification, with over 600 comments! The HIT Team galvanized the Title X network, resulting in providers engaging directly with the health IT community – a never before seen occurrence! The HIT team also engaged an expert panel of clinical Title X family planning providers to develop an awareness of the potential challenges of the proposed system, and promote its value for providers. A result of this effort was gaining “buy-in” on how the transformation to an encounter-level system will allow clinics to use their own data, in real-time for quality improvement. The HIT Team next engaged a contractor to conduct a feasibility study to evaluate the current state of EHR systems’ structured data capture. While this was underway, the HIT team wrote a solicitation to test the Family Planning specification and build capacity among vendor partners to capture and transmit data elements key to clinical quality improvement metrics. The new FPAR system, on track for completion by 2018, will revolutionize the way the Title X network submits data to OPA. Data will be more accurate allowing OPA to provide Congress, Title X sites, and the public, with real-time data on critical performance metrics. This system will also push an industry-wide shift towards quality improvement across the United States. This team has broken new ground- fearlessly engaging in new ways that challenge the status quo. I fully believe they fulfill the intent of “Disruptor of the Year” award and would be a shining example to FedScoop 50!

As the leader of the JS J6 C4/Cyber Assessment Team, Randy Coonts exceptionally contributed to the Department’s capability to address DoD’s Strategy for Operating in Cyberspace. His resolute leadership and technological innovations tremendously improved DoD’s Computer Network Defense activities in support of current operations. He and his team developed a closed network environment to develop cyber defense capabilities and simultaneously discover existing vulnerabilities and provide mitigation recommendations. His tenacious efforts promptly accelerated stakeholder teamwork, system engineering, data collection, and analysis across the Department’s cyber ranges and with event participants. It is testimony to Randy’s nomination as the Cybersecurity Leader of the Year that Combatant Commanders recognized the value of his JS J6 Cyber Assessment Team. They initiated actions linking NORTHCOM’s Vigilant Shield and EUCOM’s Austere Challenge exercises and objectives to the C2IS cyber environment. This linkage created an operational environment for Combatant Commander to dramatically improve their cyber theater readiness levels and to mitigate existing vulnerabilities.

Jeffrey Eisensmith was named chief information security officer at DHS in December 2012 and co-chair of the joint continuous monitoring working group in 2013. Prior to his current position, Jeff had been a recognized security professional in the federal government and private sector for more than 30 years. Jeff is an uncommon leader in the realm of federal cybersecurity. He possesses the consistent ability to galvanize colleagues around a common goal, with the high intellect to solve very complex problems. Jeff is the rare leader who can quickly operationalize his ideas and concepts into action and reality. He is not only a leader but also a critical thinker who drives tangible results. He has developed a federal program in lightning speed that solves significant challenges for cybersecurity leaders across fed government. Early in his CISO role at DHS, Jeff spearheaded the Ongoing Authorization program to reform the audit/compliance-based method for authorizing systems under FISMA. The move to continuous monitoring required a modernized approach to the certification and authorization of systems. None existed. This challenge had been discussed by federal leaders for many years, but it was widely considered too complex of a problem to tackle. In one year, Jeff successfully developed a program that solves this issue and has operationalized it in record time.

Adrian R. Gardner serves as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at the agency's headquarters in Washington, DC. In this position, Mr. Gardner is responsible for the governance and operations of the agency's information systems, ensuring the system complies with regulatory requirements in support of FEMA's mission and objectives.
Prior to his appointment to this post, Mr. Gardner served as (CIO) and Director of the Information Technology and Communications Directorate at the National Aeronautical and Space Administration's (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center. Prior to serving as CIO at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Mr. Gardner served as CIO of the National Weather Service. Prior to his time at the Weather Service, he was with the Department of Energy as the Deputy CIO for Cyber Security from September 2005 to September 2006 and the Deputy CIO for IT Reform from October 2006 to January 2007. He chairs the Working Group for DATA.GOV and co-chairs the Information Sharing Subcommittee within the Federal CIO Council.
Mr. Gardner has served within the federal government for over 20 years, working to enable mission capability and readiness within the scientific and defense sectors.

Mr. Brian Gough, Branch Manager for the Secure Infrastructure and Vulnerability Management Branch (SIVM) within the Office of Information Technology's (OIT) Information Assurance and Cyber Security Division (IAD), volunteered to lead the collaboration and manage all logistics associated with a Department of Homeland Security (DHS)-wide project called Personal Identity Verification (PIV). Mr. Gough possesses the necessary personal skills to unite offices with competing priorities, as well as the technical skills to understand the technology and logistical requirements. In just three short months, Mr. Gough led efforts to identify technical requirements for all airports, and he developed a master schedule for PIV Deployments. Beginning in June 2014, actual PIV Deployments started! By the end of September 2014, Brian knocked his projections out of the park achieving 85% deployment to nearly 58,000 users TSA-wide.

Mr. Alen Kirkorian has served as the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) since April 2012. While in this role, he has also chaired the Small and Micro Agency CISO council, which fosters collaboration and communication between government security professionals for over 96 different small and micro government agencies. In his role as chair, he has set up an online collaboration portal for both Federal CIO and CISOs to share information in a secure manner. In his CISO Council role, he has created an environment where agencies can reuse, repurpose and adapt successful approaches.
His future prospects keep going on being successful, he just accepted a position at the Department of State as the Chief Innovation Engineer working directly for the Chief Architect.

Michael has been an integral leader within the HHS cyber security program during his time as the Director of Security Design & Innovation (SDI). SDI is a unique portion of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Information Security which is focused on solving complex security problems facing the vast federated HHS enterprise. As the Director of SDI, Michael uses his background as a forensic analyst, consultant, attorney and entrepreneur to lead a diverse team of security architects & subject matter experts as they tackle complex problems across the enterprise. SDI’s efforts have resulted in a greater level of engagement from HHS’s Operational Divisions then at any time in HHS’s history and have resulted in the department’s coordinated Continuous Diagnostic & Mitigation efforts, multiple large scale enterprise purchases, a stronger cybersecurity community, higher levels of cross organizational collaboration, threat intel sharing, teamwork and innovation. The coordination has also extended to the implementation of enterprise tools and the dramatic reduction in HHS’s attack surface and increased situational awareness.

Greg Maier is the Chief Information Security Officer at the Transportation Security Administration. Greg has been with TSA as both a Federal Employee and a Contractor for the past 10 years. Before becoming a Federal Employee, Greg worked at General Dynamics, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Deloitte on Federal IT Security Contracts. Prior to his work with the Federal Government, Greg worked in both the Medical Software and Banking Industries.

Charles L. (Chuck) McGann, Jr. is the Corporate Information Security Officer for the United States Postal Service (USPS). In this capacity, he has the responsibility of securing an intranet that is one of the largest maintained by any organization in the world with over 145,000 workstations, over 45,000 retail terminals and more than 8,000 servers. The USPS infrastructure encompasses over 600 business applications that support all aspects of business operations as well as movement of the mail.
In his 25 years with the Postal Service, McGann has held numerous positions, entering as Manager, Information Systems for the Springfield, Massachusetts district, and later served as an acting postmaster, business systems analyst, business project leader, distributed systems security specialist and CIRT manager.
McGann holds an MBA from Strayer University, a bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts, and two associate’s degrees from Springfield Technical Community College. He is a certified information systems security professional (CISSP), a certified information security manager (CISM) and holds a certification for information assurance methodology (IAM) from the National Security Agency (NSA).
Chuck is currently the Co-Chair of the (ISC)2 Government Advisory Board on Cyber Security, and served as a Government Information Security Leadership Awards Judge for the last three years. He is also a member of the Symantec Government Education Advisory Board.

Roberta “Bobbie” Stempfley served as the Acting Assistant Secretary of the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications (CS&C), from January 18, 2013 to April 6 2014, where she played a leading role in developing the strategic direction for CS&C and its five divisions. Ms. Stempfley has also previously served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for CS&C and as Director of the National Cybersecurity Division (a legacy CS&C division).
Prior to her work at CS&C, Stempfley served as the Chief Information Officer for the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), a major Department of Defense (DOD) agency, where she was responsible for supporting the Director in decision making; strategy development and communication; aligning DISA program execution with planning, engineering, acquisition, fielding and support of global-net-centric solutions; operating the Global Information Grid; information assurance; and management of DISA information technology resources.

As the Associate Chief Information Officer for Cybersecurity, Mr. Turk serves as the Department’s Chief Information Security Officer charged with managing the agency’s enterprise cybersecurity program. Mr. Turk advises the Department’s CIO and senior agency officials in the implementation of cybersecurity and the Department’s Risk Management Approach. Mr. Turk provides executive leadership and guidance for joint agency and Administration cybersecurity initiatives including for the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity and Initiative, safeguarding of the Defense Industrial Base and critical infrastructure protection, and assistance to the Mission Executive Council in establishing cybersecurity Research and Development (R&D) priorities to improve the national cybersecurity posture.
Prior to joining the Energy Department, Mr. Turk’s was the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at the U.S. Commerce Department’s Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Mr. Turk managed and oversaw the Department of Commerce's compliance with the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and implementation of IT security best practices. Mr. Turk joined the Senior Executive Service with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in September 2004. He has held several Senior Executive positions within the Federal government, including serving as the CISO at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

COL Vince Wallace is clearly one of the best division chiefs within the Joint Staff J6. Vince transformed the administrative focused Cyber Security Division into an operational focused team to advocate and emphasize cybersecurity for the Joint Staff and the entire DOD. Utilizing the same group of people, Vince has the Cyber Security Division performing at an extremely high level. Under his leadership, the team has accredited 30 network systems in a timely fashion and developed a PKI program that has distributed, recreated, reset and revoked over 8358 tokens. Finally, Vince revived the vulnerability management program resulting in captured/identified 20,000 CaT1 vulnerabilities and prioritized mitigation by level of risk. As a result, the Joint staff received an "outstanding" rating on the CYBERCOM Watch list two quarters in a row. Vince's most important contribution is his work with Negligent Discharge of Classified Information (NDCI). Not only has Vince instituted process changes resulting in 46 NDCIs successfully mitigated. He also worked with the OSD-CIO and USD(I) offices to developed the DoD NDCI policy that was recently approved by the DepSecDef. COL Wallace's influence spread beyond the Joint Staff. He and his team were instrumental in assisting the Joint Forces Staff College in successfully passing both their Command Cyber Readiness inspections after failing all previous inspections. In short, Vince provides leadership and expertise to the oversight body responsible for ensuring Pentagon common information technology programs and services meet DoD standards for confidentiality, integrity and availability.

Flip Anderson was appointed Acting Associate Chief Information Officer Information Management Resources (IRM) in August 2014.
He assists the Chief Information Officer and Deputy Chief Information Officer in providing leadership, strategic direction, and executive oversight of the Department’s $2.6 billion information technology (IT) investments. IRM establishes policy and maintains oversight of the information technology investments that support the diverse portfolio of programs across more than 29 USDA agencies and staff offices.
Flip has over 25 years of hands on and managerial experience in all aspects of information technology, to include information management, information and physical security systems, and program management. He specialized in the development and management of Information and Knowledge Management systems with a strong background in Program Management and Systems Development.

Luke Berndt is a Program Manager for the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA) working within the Cyber Security Division in the Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T). Berndt manages a diverse range of programs and efforts. The Experimental Testbed Program focuses on providing a secure testbed for cybersecurity research. Improving the security of Internet routing and addressing protocols is the goal of the Secure Protocols Program.
The Mobile Device Security program is developing solutions to allow government to securely use consumer mobile devices. He graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, CT with a B.S. in American Studies and Computer Science and from George Washington University with a M.S. in Computer Science

Ken Blakely graduated from the Westpoint Military Academy in 1986 with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, and was commissioned in Armor. He served in a variety of positions in 4-68 Armor at Fort Carson, CO and 2-35 Armor at Mannheim Germany, and commanded a tank company in 1-32 Armor at Ft Lewis Washington. COL Blakely earned his Master of Arts in Information Systems Management during his Armor assignments, and after giving up command in 1996, he was assigned to the National Ground Intelligence Center in Charlottesville VA.
Following the Naval War College, COL Blakely served for three years as the Chief of the Combined Communications Interoperability Division (J61) at US Pacific Command. As J61, COL Blakely managed the relationships PACOM maintains with partners in the AOR relative to communications interoperability.
COL Blakely took command of the Command and Control Support Agency, an element of the Army Staff in July of 2012. The CCSA provides end-to-end communications support for the Army Operations Center and the Chief of Staff of the Army, as well as the operational elements of the Army staff (G-3/5/7). Additionally, COL Blakely serves as the Chief Information Officer for the G-3/5/7, and assists in planning and synchronizing applications and services across the Army enterprise.

Jonathan has more than 10 years of relevant experience in information privacy and information access responsible for providing national oversight in the formulation, implementation and coordination of information privacy, open government, and disclosure programs.
If DHS used the designated hitter rule, Cantor would ably fill the position. He stepped into one of the department's most difficult posts in early 2013 -- acting chief of the the Privacy Office. The focus on safeguarding personal information has increased across government and so have the challenges. But Cantor immediately set about building an effective program that is now serving as a model for other agencies. He has also been an energetic advocate for government-wide privacy committees at the CIO Council and the White House

Camsie McAdams is the Deputy Director for the Office of STEM at the US Department of Education (ED). She leads policy development, strategic planning, serves on multiple inter-agency STEM education groups and represents ED’s STEM commitments in a variety of public-private forums. Prior to her appointment, Camsie served as Director of STEM for DC Public Schools, where she created a vision for STEM and led professional development and instructional improvement. Camsie began her STEM career as an engineering intern with the Department of Energy at the Western Area Power Administration. She taught middle/high school math and science in Oakland, CA and New York City for 10 years, and helped start and lead a small public school in the South Bronx. Camsie received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics Teaching in 2009.

Ms. Ellen E. McCarthy serves as the chief operating officer of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. She oversees the daily business activities of the agency and is a senior advisor to the director of NGA on a wide variety of issues related to strategic planning, programming and budgeting, corporate governance and partner engagement. Prior to this assignment, Ms. McCarthy served as the president of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA). As president, she led INSA in a number of initiatives that supported government policy and program development relating to cyber security, counterintelligence, acquisition and homeland security intelligence. Prior to joining INSA in 2008, Ms. McCarthy was director of the Human Capital Management Office (HCMO) and the acting director of security within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (OUSD(I)).

Maureen K. Ohlhausen was sworn in as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission on April 4, 2012, to a term that expires in September 2018. Prior to joining the Commission, Ohlhausen was a partner at Wilkinson Barker Knauer, LLP, where she focused on FTC issues, including privacy, data protection, and cybersecurity.
Ohlhausen previously served at the Commission for 11 years, most recently as Director of the Office of Policy Planning from 2004 to 2008, where she led the FTC's Internet Access Task Force. She was also Deputy Director of that office. From 1998 to 2001, Ohlhausen was an attorney advisor for former FTC Commissioner Orson Swindle, advising him on competition and consumer protection matters. She started at the FTC General Counsel’s Office in 1997.

James (Jim) Steven serves as the Acting Associate Chief Information Officer for Data Center Operations and Director of the National Information Technology Center (NITC). Mr. Steven oversees the management of the USDA’s enterprise data centers located at Kansas City, MO, St. Louis, MO, Beltsville, MD and Salt Lake City, UT.
Mr. Steven began his federal service in 1980 as an active duty member of the US Navy where he served as a Nuclear Engineer on Fast Attack Submarines. In 1994 Jim began his civil service career with the National Weather Service where he served as the Central Region Mechanical Systems Engineer and senior agency officials in the implementation of cybersecurity and the Department’s Risk Management Approach. Mr. Turk provides executive leadership and guidance for joint agency and Administration cybersecurity initiatives including for the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity and Initiative, safeguarding of the Defense Industrial Base and critical infrastructure protection, and assistance to the Mission Executive Council in establishing cybersecurity Research and Development (R&D) priorities to improve the national cybersecurity posture.

Recently, TSA reviewed its communications procedures to improve emergency response and identified a requirement to be able to dial a short number at airports to quickly contact local law enforcement first responders in emergency situations. Since 911 is used at airports to contact airport emergency services, 888 was identified as the appropriate number for emergency dialing. As a result, TSA’s Office of Information Technology researched and deployed an enhancement to TSA's Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Telephone network at Airport locations to allow 888 to be pre-programmed into these phones to allow direct-dialing to associated Airport Law Enforcement Officers (LEO). The 888 dialing feature allows direct-dialing to the on-site LEOs, thereby expediting a local emergency response. After successful implementation at LAX Airport, TSA leadership decided to implement this feature at all TSA Federalized Airport locations where TSA VoIP phones were installed. There are currently 143 TSA Airport/Off-Site locations utilizing this solution.

Developed jointly by the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The suitcase-sized system, called FINDER, contains three low-power microwave radars that blanket a disaster area and pick out those minute changes in frequency that would indicate a person’s heartbeat or their breathing. FINDER can distinguish between multiple victims, a human heart and an animal heart, like a rat, as well as between a human heart and something mechanical, like the arm of a grandfather clock still swinging back and forth. The key thing about FINDER is its ability to locate victims quickly. First responders refer to the first hour after a disaster as “the Golden Hour” — it’s the best chance of survival. With FINDER, vitals about survivors show up on a ruggedized computer or tablet within a minute, allowing search and rescue workers to focus their attention on locations where they know there are living victims.

The Parking and Transit Subsidy Automation Tool (PTSAT) is an electronic system designed to provide benefits to employees. Richard Young led the design to facilitate faster enrollment, reduce administrative time and expense, receive immediate reporting, assure regulatory compliance, institute green and paperless initiatives, and align with the Digital Government Strategy.
The PTSAT system imports data from the application database, identifies duplicate applicants, performs calculations, and reduce program manager’s and employee’s workload resulting in savings of thousands of dollars in fraudulent/duplicative activities. Due to his innovative efforts, applicants can now complete the application within minutes compared to the paper-based labor instinctive past process. Mr. Young has led the development of the PTSAT system with an enterprise view. He fostered a collaborative environment with the stakeholders, Component Agencies, and DHS Enterprise Development System Office, which align the department goal of “One DHS”.

The Standard Energy Efficiency Data (SEED)™ Platform is a software application that helps organizations easily manage data on the energy performance of large groups of buildings. Users can combine data from multiple sources, clean and validate it, and share the information with others. The software application provides an easy, flexible, and cost-effective method to improve the quality and availability of data to help demonstrate the economic and environmental benefits of energy efficiency, to implement programs, and to target investment activity.

Hillary Hartley is the Deputy Executive Director, Creative Services at 18F, a digital services agency inside the General Services Administration. She came to the GSA as a Presidential Innovation Fellow in 2013, where she worked on the development of MyUSA.gov. Hillary has been working to make government more accessible and available online for nearly two decades, starting as a web designer for Arkansas.gov in 1997. As Director of Integrated Marketing for eGovernment provider NIC, Hillary helped NIC’s 30 state government partners embrace new technology and concepts for a 21st century government. She speaks at events across the country, educating and evangelizing “government 2.0” and customer service/community engagement best practices for government.
Hillary spends much of her free time on community-based movements such as BarCamp and Coworking, and has participated in or helped organize several government-focused unconferences: eDemocracyCamp, TranparencyCamp, Gov2.0Camp, CityCamp, etc

Dale Partridge, Enterprise Architect, at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a staunch Champion of Technology, constantly thinking “outside of the box.” His technical expertise, fresh perspectives on governance, keen business case analysis, and strategic vision are called upon regularly to provide support and analysis, and drive Department emerging technology strategy and implementation. His oversight and support have been invaluable for the DHS Intelligence Community-Information.
Dale oversees the DHS interests to develop and build the IC-ITE planned service for the entire IC community. Dale’s focus is to support the Executive Order 13522 enabling telework, the mobile workforce, and continuity of government during inclement weather, pandemic, or other events. His programmatic experience shines through as he advocates and drives proper requirements gathering, testing, and integration of systems/applications to allow successful deployment. Dale is the epitome of a technical champion continually driving technology to improve DHS business and mission efficiency and effectiveness.

Mr. Sokwoo Rhee, Ph.D Co-founded Millennial Net, Inc. in 2000 and serves as its Chief Technology Officer. At Millennial Net, Dr. Rhee developed the breakthrough design for ultra-low-power wireless instrumentation circuitry and the power-efficient ad-hoc networking protocol which make up the core of Millennial Net's miniature wireless sensor networking devices. He also designed and implemented several novel electromechanical systems and time-critical embedded software environments, including a Windows NT-based, real-time operating extension. During his career at MIT, he designed and implemented several innovative biomedical sensors for wireless physiological monitoring, including an ambulatory health monitoring device called the Ring Sensor. Before he joined Millennial Net, he was a Research Associate at MIT focusing on wireless biomedical instrumentation. Dr. Rhee holds a B.S. degree from Seoul National University, and an M.S. degree from MIT. He received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the field of wireless biomedical instrumentation.

Marla Somerville serves as the Internal Revenue Service associate chief information officer for the Affordable Care Act Program Management Office. About 50 provisions of ACA directly impact the IRS requiring major modifications to the filing and compliance processes, IT systems and communications with IRS customers. Marla is responsible for completing the stand-up of the new ACA program and leading the planning, developing, testing and implementation of new IRS IT system builds driven by key provisions of the ACA legislation. The IRS IT system builds required are significant as the IRS will develop or modify over 200 tax products and nearly 80 applications between 2010 and 2018. The new IT system is expected to handle a volume of transactions growing from 9 million individuals in the first year to 25 million by 2020. The IRS ACA requirements related to information sharing, data reporting, and additional credits, taxes, and penalties are integral to achieving a broader set of objectives associated with national healthcare reform. Marla’s leadership and collaboration with 2,000 plus stakeholders continues to enable the IT capabilities required to implement ACA and extend health coverage assistance for millions of eligible U.S. citizens.

Since joining TSA earlier this year, Mr. Vojtik has been an outspoken champion for using available technology to solve TSA security and logistical challenges. As the director for end user services in the Office of Information Technology, he leads his staff to deploy enhanced technology solutions to assist TSA headquarters and field employees to more efficiently accomplish the TSA mission. OIT was challenged to meet a DHS mandate that communications over land mobile radio (LMR) be transitioned to utilize the NIST Advanced Encryption Standard. Working with other TSA partners, Mr. Vojtik challenged his employees to achieve LMR encryption at the 28 Category X airports no later than December 31, 2014, comprising over 5,100 of TSA’s 10,000 radios. Mr. Vojtik’s leadership and commitment to employing technology to improve the execution of TSA’s mission is exemplary and has had a significant impact in the short period of time since he’s joined the agency.

It’s no secret that the United States Postal Service operates under a stringent budget deficit, but what may surprise you how IT operates with an innovation surplus. Kathleen Warnaar is the epitome of a champion. Within six short months of introducing ServiceNow as its new cloud-based enterprise service management platform, she has helped IT transform service delivery at a velocity even they were surprised by, improved operational efficiencies, recognized cost savings and increased customer satisfaction.
What Kathy led in six months is remarkable considering that a “dot” release upgrade to its prior ticketing system would take more than 1 year to accomplish. And in fact, just the launch of the egregious mailer report took only 2 weeks when a similarly scoped project would take over 3 months. “Delivering innovations at velocity” could credibly become the new motto of IT and Kathleen’s personal tagline. One effort led to the formation of a new group, IT Performance Management, credited with saving tens of millions of dollars in hardware and software performance improvements.

18F will transform how the U.S. Government builds and buys digital services — we focus on user needs and work in a design-centric, agile, open, and data-driven way. Our projects focus on the interaction between government and the people and businesses it serves, helping agencies deliver on their mission through the development of digital and web services. Our newly formed organization, within the General Services Administration, encompasses the Presidential Innovation Fellows program and in-house digital delivery and consulting teams. We’re doers, recruited from the most innovative corners of industry and the public sector, who are passionate about driving efficiency, transparency, and savings for government agencies and the American people. We make easy things easy, and hard things possible.

Annie is a mobile messaging system that VA is developing in partnership with the National Health Service (NHS) England. With this technology, VA patients can choose to receive personalized and targeted text messages from VA, including general health tips, appointment reminders and prompts to help them track their own health data or care plan. Annie, named after Lt. Annie G. Fox, the first woman to receive the Purple Heart for combat, was inspired by the award-winning technology developed by NHS –Florence (Flo), named after Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing. In England, mobile messaging through Florence has proven highly effective in helping patients who suffer from chronic diseases to self-manage their care, which increases patient engagement and motivation for change.

As the official benefits website of the U.S. government for 12 years, Benefits.gov (www.benefits.gov) features over 1,000 Federal and state government benefit and assistance programs. The site was developed to provide all American citizens with a single, online source of accurate information and personalized eligibility prescreening services for government benefit programs, while reducing the expense and difficulty of interacting with the government. The Benefits.gov Program generates value to citizens by providing easy access to information and eligibility prescreening, and to government by reducing call center calls, decreasing ineligible benefit applications and providing cloud-hosted, customized shared services to agencies. The Program operates through collaboration between 17 federal agencies who provide operational and financial support, and the Department of Labor which serves as the managing partner.

Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which is the Nation's premier combat support agency within the Defense Intelligence Enterprise, is committed to winning today's wars, preventing strategic surprise, deterring conflict, and preparing to defeat future adversaries. DIA's critical role is grounded in its core mission capabilities to collect, process, exploit, and analyze foreign military and defense-related information, and then produce and disseminate timely and relevant all-source analysis. The DIA Chief Information Office (CIO) nominates the Business Information Technology Modernization and Auditability Program (BITMAP) Time and Labor (T&L) Project which distinguished itself by delivering a new, automated time sheet submission capability for the DIA worldwide workforce of over 15,000 employees. This Project eliminated a critical audit deficiency relating to payroll record keeping and improved employee "quality of life" through the reduction of hardcopy time sheet processing. Time sheets now take a fraction of the time to process, freeing staff for mission-focused activities and allowing management to re-purpose over 47,000 hours annually or the equivalent of 22 staff personnel.

The Continuous Diagnostics & Mitigation (CDM) procurement team successfully executed a highly complex and innovative contract package for continuous diagnostics sensors and services that will benefit the entire federal government. The Continuous Diagnostics & Mitigation (CDM) program will measurably improve federal cybersecurity by moving from the current compliance based approach to a novel paradigm based upon risk-inform prioritization and management.
The CDM contract package will be utilized to deliver CDM serves to federal civilian government agencies, and is also available for the Department of Defense and state, local, tribal and territorial governments. The Continuous Diagnostics & Mitigation Program will save the federal government over $400 million per year when fully implemented. In the release of the first Delivery Order the program was able to achieve a cost avoidance of $18 million dollars of tax-payer money.

The Data Center Consolidation (DCC) Project provided critical operational support to DIA and members of the Intelligence Community (IC) through the modernization and standardization of data centers. The DCC Project included the modernization of five separate facilities, major reduction efforts in all geographic regions, and engineering reviews on three continents. DIA, which is the Nation’s premier combat support agency within the Defense Intelligence Enterprise, is committed to winning today’s wars, preventing strategic surprise, deterring conflict, and preparing to defeat future adversaries. DIA’s critical role is grounded in its core mission capabilities to collect, process, exploit, and analyze foreign military and defense-related information, and then produce and disseminate timely and relevant all-source analysis. The Project not only created fewer, modernized facilities, but also enabled outdated hardware and software to be retired. These fiscally responsible and reasonable solutions met DIA’s requirements and lay the foundation for the IC for the next 10 years.

The DECRE project is a wide-ranging, multi-agency operation with the underlying objective to support execution of cyber operations in large-scale exercises, assess unit’s ability to support cyber training on the ECRE, enhance cyber situational awareness through integration of a comprehensive suite of instrumentation, and develop mitigation strategies for discovered vulnerabilities.

The Enterprise Management Decision Support (EMDS) system is a big data initiative staffed by military, government and contract personnel under the leadership of Colonel (COL) William M. (Bobby) Saxon. COL Saxon and his team are charged with the development, sustainment, and delivery of the Army’s EMDS readiness/resourcing system. EMDS provides Senior Leadership, their staff, and Unit Commanders with visually-driven, dashboard displays of information integrated from across the Army-enterprise, to provide decision-support tools for deployment planning and forecasting. EMDS cuts across the Army’s functional areas to serve as one-stop-shop for critical information for people, equipment, training, and more. EMDS has a growing user base of over 1,600 worldwide users; supporting 70 Army organizations which include 300 directorates/divisions. The system reduces man-hour data research and reporting methods by hundreds of hours per month and displays critical cross-functional information for over +8,000 Operating & Generating Force units. EMDS assists Army Leaders to quickly identify and project Warfighter resourcing/readiness issues and conduct operations planning to support an agile, efficient, global Army force – all within a leaner budget environment. Leveraging the best of Federal & Industry practices, EMDS is leading the Army’s effort to bring Predictive Analytics capabilities directly into the hands of senior decision-makers.

Sponsored by the Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), ePolicyWorks is a Web-based approach to policymaking that engages citizens and stakeholders in new and innovative ways in an effort to address barriers to employment for people with disabilities. Since its inception, ePolicyWorks has expanded to harness even more new tools and innovations, and its latest phase includes additional issue-based collaborative workspaces focused on technology and transportation; the use of accessible crowdsourcing tools for idea generation and stakeholder input; and public-private partnerships to improve the accessibility of social media content and platforms. In an effort to successfully utilize new technologies to seek meaningful policy input from a variety of key constituency groups, the ePolicyWorks has incorporated crowdsourcing technology into its arsenal of tools resulting in cost savings and an expanded range of policy input.

The Federal Project Management Community of Practice (FedPM CoP) is the first effort to leverage the energy and thought leadership of project managers (PM) from agencies across the federal government. The furloughs of FY13 and the government shutdown highlighted the limitations that project managers would have in accessing resources needed in house. The logical next step was to create an interagency community allowing federal project managers to share knowledge, tools, and expertise. Launched in spring 2014 by co-chairs from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, the first meeting gathered interest from over twenty agencies and provoked energetic discussion of common project management challenges in the federal environment.

The HHS IDEA Lab is working to cultivate innovation to create a more modern and effective government. The foundational effort of the HHS IDEA Lab is to overcome barriers to communication and collaboration between organizational siloes and practices that prevent people from working together.
Within the Office of the Secretary, the IDEA Lab was developed to establish new pathways and programs that will equip the workforce with new workflow processes, new methods, and communication and analytic tools that will help accelerate the adoption of open government principles.

In response to Executive Order 13407, FEMA established the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) to provide the President of the United States the capability to alert and warn the American people under all conditions. IPAWS allows officials to send an alert through multiple communication pathways simultaneously from a single interface. The IPAWS Program Management Office (PMO) has been working with recognized government, industry leaders, and technical experts to expand partnerships that allow for incorporation of new technologies and capabilities that increase the system’s ability to reach more people, more efficiently in times of crisis. This includes Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEAs), which enables most modern cell phones to receive alerts and warnings through IPAWS. IPAWS has furthered its reach and ability to enhance public safety by teaming with The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), law-enforcement agencies, broadcasters, transportation agencies, and the wireless industry to issue warnings though IPAWS. IPAWS provides a national system that alerting authorities at Federal, state, tribal, territorial, and local (FSTTL) levels can leverage to save lives and protect property; therefore, creating cost efficiencies by aggregating messages into one system for delivery to multiple alerting channels.

The US Navy Medicine launched an ambitious program to transform healthcare delivery at US Navy and Marine bases from a mix-match of electronic and outdated paper record systems by incorporating a fully mobile clinical desktop which enables access and update to personnel medical records from any device in any location. The project also centralized desktop computing enabling US Navy Medicine to provide their desktops as a service across Military Treatment Facilities (MTF) and remote clinics thereby centralizing, standardizing, and securing these resources. The result is removing much of the burden for desktop maintenance and support from local CIOs and IT staff. The new clinical desktop solution is saving significant time for care providers who are now able to enter clinic notes in CHCS (Composite Health Care System) and AHLTA (Armed Forces Health Longitudinal Technology Application) at the point of care, rather than later in the day. In addition to improving accuracy and reducing potential errors, the system has the potential to save healthcare providers 20 or more minutes every day. With 25,000 providers, US Navy medical estimates the savings coupled with productivity improvements to be significant. Moreover, by moving the desktop and tools to the cloud, US Navy Medicine was also able to save significant manpower, removing much of the requirement for every MTF CIO to be a provider of desktop services. US Navy Medicine is turning this to a service model improving delivery, management and information security.

OCSIT has implemented a customer experience (CX) program that includes the creation of the first-ever Government Customer Experience Index (GCXi) for our agency customers and our public customers. OCSIT has created and delivered many programs that assist agencies in delivering service so it's critical that what we create is of value to agencies. These programs include digital services such as DigitalGov Search, DigitalGov University, Sites.usa.gov, FedRamp, Connect.gov (formerly FCCX), Data.gov, Challenge.gov and the Digital Analytics Program. In addition, OCSIT has created a framework that includes our CX values and principles and much work on culture. Many of the components of the OCSIT program are now being considered across GSA. In addition, due to OCSIT's focus on CX, GSA has now hired its first ever Chief Customer Officer to create a customer strategy and drive service improvements across GSA.

One USDA a Human Resources Enterprise Solution Project, Department-wide to support its strategic goals, align with the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM’s) Human Resources Line of Business (HRLOB), and the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB’s) Plan to Reform Federal Information Technology Management’s Shared Services Strategy. One USDA is driven by the very latest in cost-effective technology innovation, primarily with regard to the integration of NGA.NET’s eRecruit software and HRWorX’s EODonline software: Fueled by remarkably advanced, business-intelligence (BI) technologies, eRecruit delivers advanced assessment tools and enhanced reporting, search and security capabilities to maximize customers’ effectiveness. EODonline’s onboarding process enables one-time data entry through an interview process. By migrating to a consolidated HRIT platform and service model, USDA is reducing technology and manpower costs. As a result, it has emerged as an instant success with stakeholders. For the first time, USDA is providing uniform HR technology across all USDA agencies, promoting streamlined processes and reducing the HRIT footprint, with a single technology platform condensing process and system redundancies.

The Joint Staff (JS) Combined/Coalition Branch provided flawless Coalition Information Sharing capabilities to the highest military staff in the nation, supporting over 5,400 military, civilian, & contractor personnel. It served an expanding role as the VCJCS’s key enabling organization to positively influence multi-national information sharing, capabilities & implementing strategies for the FVEY partners, Services, COCOMs, and other governmental organizations by providing Pegasus services at the desktop to senior leaders across five countries. The Pegasus Program is delivering selected information sharing services to improve near real time collaboration, and facilitate access to and the sharing of critical data to enable richer Command and Control (C2) capabilities leveraging existing national applications and infrastructure to the maximum extent possible. Pegasus capabilities are delivered and managed collaboratively by the Combined Communications- Electronics Board (CCEB) nations, through existing national acquisition and delivery programs.

Like most Defense organizations, PEO EIS has done a good job hardening the Army’s architecture against security threats, but realized that the software layer had not been analyzed or hardened. To address this problem and improve the quality and security of US Army mission systems, multiple groups within PEO EIS worked together to implement the Software Code Review (SCR), the largest code review program in the US Army and one of the largest anywhere in the Federal Government. The PEO EIS application portfolio is 100+ applications and over 100M lines of code (LOC). Prior to the SCR it was not possible for PEO EIS to review applications for quality and security issues at the static source code level as a manual review would take about 100 man-years to complete. PEO EIS felt that an automated approach coupled with formal policy was the best way to attack the capability gap.

For over a decade it has become increasingly apparent that future defense efforts will be fought collaboratively with U.S. and mission partners working side-by-side. Stove-piped, proprietary systems hamper coalition interoperability and mission partner information exchange. The Tactical Infrastructure Enterprise Services (TIES) Coalition Warfare Program (CWP) is a two-year effort to improve interoperability of coalition command and control information technology (IT) with participation from seven North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries, the U.S Army’s Project Manager Mission Command, and the Joint Staff. TIES CWP developed and experimented with innovative solutions for exchanging information via web services, while protecting that information with identity and access management technologies, and filtering data release by applying security metadata labels. For example, a U.S. Special Forces unit may spot a "bad guy" and need to share this information with France, but the U.S. may not wish to disclose how they located the individual. TIES CWP, using GCCS-A and NIEM, showed that users can share only "need to know" information; specifically, that a bad guy is in a particular area. This is the first time information of this type was exchanged automatically among the seven NATO participants, greatly increasing the efficiency of information exchanges. The TIES CWP is identifying and proposing solutions for U.S. and NATO interoperability issues and assessing progress on those solutions.

The Transportation Security Administration’s Technology Infrastructure Modernization (TIM) Program is the person-centric credentialing system implemented by TSA to safeguard the nation’s critical modes of transportation through advanced screening and credentialing security technology while improving the transportation worker experience. The complete TIM System deployment framework includes universal registration and enrollment, vetting, security threat assessments, adjudication, credential issuance/management, waiver, and expiration and revocation services for transportation worker populations. To date, TIM has produced and delivered more than 150,000 Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) cards. TSA currently screens or provides credentials to an estimated 12.5 million individuals per year, and this number is expected to continue to grow.
The TIM program was the first program to navigate the formal DHS SELC acquisition gates with total scrutiny and documentation load. The success of the TIM program simplifies credentialing for any transportation worker and modernizes the back-end data sharing for TSA.

The Virtual Student Foreign Service (VSFS) was launched by Secretary Clinton in 2009, and brought into operation by the Office of eDiplomacy of the State Department Bureau of Information Resource Management that year. During its first few years, the VSFS provided unpaid online “eInternship” opportunities for U.S. college students to work remotely with State / USAID offices and overseas posts. In the past year, the program was expanded to provide an internet portal for other agencies to participate. The expansion of VSFS in 2013-2014 into a program that serves as the most important way for a broad range of students to learn while working virtually to provide high-performing people-power that helps advance important U.S. government initiatives qualify it to be named Tech Program of the Year. Since the VSFS was established in 2009, the program has seen tremendous growth. Growing from a handful of students in 2009, by the 2014-2015 placement cycle just complete, about 570 students were chosen out of 3,385 applicants, to work for 11 agencies on 323 projects. In addition to State and USAID, Commerce, Agriculture, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, Smithsonian, Interior, Education, NASA, HHS, and EPA are participating in the VSFS in the 2014-2015 academic year.

August 2014, the FTC challenged the tech-savvy public to help zap Rachel and her robocall buddies by creating the next-generation robocall honeypot at DEF CON 22. A robocall honeypot is an information system designed to attract robocallers and help investigators and academics understand and combat illegal calls. This was the FTC’s second robocall challenge, and our first DEF CON competition. DEF CON attendees showed great interest in this contest and in learning more about the robocall problem. Sixty teams and individuals registered across three phases. An expert panel of judges reviewed and scored the submissions based on functionality, accuracy, innovation, and creativity, and selected the winners for all three phases, along with two honorable mentions for the final phase

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is an independent bureau within the U.S. Department of Treasury; the establishment serves to charter, regulate and supervise all national banks and thrift institutions. Supporting roughly 3,000 bank examiners, the OCC IT group focuses on ensuring the productivity and effectiveness of this team as well as working to make sure that banks can submit required documentation to the OCC in a timely manner.
Daniel Alonso, the OCC’s Enterprise IT Operation Manager, is responsible for how operations are managed across the enterprise; this includes overseeing the service desk, resolving customer issues, fixing outages within the environment and the ITSM suite. Alonso and his team play an integral role in managing all forms customer communication as it relates to support. Leading the charge within the Customer Support Operations Center, Alonso works to track, report and resolve customer issues. Most importantly, the IT team owns customer service integration – adjusting how the OCC assists internal infrastructure and application development as it relates to production.

Alison directs NIFA’s digital communication effort. One of the biggest projects has been the website redesign. Alison envisioned and drafted resources and staffing plans to meet redesign requirement and overall Web presence needs. She planned, directed and implemented the Web Presence Initiative, lead the Web Advisory Board and trained Web detailees. Alison created a plan to drastically improve the website’s content, organization, navigation, search capabilities, technology, process and procedures. She completed site reviews, focus groups, card sorts and content inventory and developed the website’s information architecture, site map, page layout, and design. Alison created an innovative, unprecedented Web Detail Program resulting in support from leadership and the implementation of 6 to 12 month details. She successfully launched the Web Detail Program to teach a group of administrative assistants, scientists and program specialists with no prior experience how to redesign a website. The web details now have a better understanding of agency mission and they gained experience in project management, communications, Web design and digital communications. She has made great progress in modernizing the NIFA website and overall digital communication needs and serving our stakeholder’s needs under a period of constant budget uncertainties and extreme resource limitations.

Ms. Sebrina Blake is Branch Chief in the New Service Design and Development Division for the Department of State’s Office of Consular Systems & Technology. She is leading the effort to modernize the country’s Passport Renewal system to enable U.S. citizens around the world to renew their passports completely online. This project is the initial delivery of the enterprise wide ConsularOne modernization program. ConsularOne will modernize the architecture and re-develop the full suite of Consular Affairs applications used to provide passport and visa issuance and other American citizen services to Consular users and U.S. citizens worldwide. The Online Passport Renewal project will implement a new underlying architecture that will become the baseline for the entire ConsularOne effort. Ms. Blake’s bold management has enabled the project to move quickly from design to actual code development with incremental demonstrations of functionality. Through visionary management matched by precise execution, Ms. Blake has set a standard for all phases of ConsularOne’s implementation while establishing a baseline architecture that will be used by all other components of the ConsularOne application modernization.

Mika Cross is a Human Capital policy strategist specializing in work/life balance, inclusion and employee engagement. Her background includes military personnel and federal civilian human resources management. She joined the United States Department of Agriculture in 2010 as the Work/Life and Wellness Program Director. She is responsible for program oversight and policy guidance for quality of life programs including Telework, flexible work arrangements, parenting and elder care support and healthy workplace wellness initiatives. She has also been instrumental in shaping key strategies in support of Secretary Vilsack’s Cultural Transformation initiatives. Following 9/11, she helped develop workplace policy, doctrine and protocol within the United States Intelligence Community, for deploying a primarily civilian workforce in support of the War on Terror.

Dr. Aaron Drew in many ways exceeds the challenging requirements and expectations for his role providing IT support to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for the purpose of better supporting our nation’s veterans. Dr. Drew specializes in enterprise architecture, solution architecture, systems engineering, acquisition and program management. Dr. Drew’s intelligence, accomplishments and ambitions make him the ideal example of the ‘Most Inspiring Up & Comer’ award. Dr. Drew’s distinguished career has spanned multiple government agencies and institutions for higher education. He has been an advocate of leading industry discussions to provide a more interactive dialogue on solutions for VistA Evolution Program. Dr. Drew has pioneered the 4-year vision for the program, which includes improving the experience of care, improving the health of populations and reducing per capita costs of health care. His task involves providing an open platform where tools and services can be integrated in support of veteran’s evolving needs in correlation with the technological landscape. In addition to his complex work responsibilities, Dr. Drew is not only a leader in the field; he takes the same dedication to the classroom as an adjunct associate professor at the University of Maryland University College. Dr. Drew has spent six years teaching courses such as the foundations of information technology, systems engineering and information technology enterprise project management.

Neil C. Evans, MD is a board-certified, practicing primary care internist at the Washington, D.C. Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) and the Co-Director of Connected Health, aligned under the Office of Informatics and Analytics, in the Veterans Health Administration within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Dr. Evans and fellow Co-Director Kathleen L. Frisbee, PhDc, MPH (Program Director) lead the effort to improve services to Veterans, their families and Caregivers by increasing access, fostering continuity and promoting patient empowerment through electronic health technologies. They oversee the development and implementation of enterprise-wide Veteran digital health strategies, which will transform care delivery across the care continuum and geography, and facilitates alignment of health information technologies within VHA to produce a consistent experience for users and continuously improve based on user input, research and evaluation.
In addition to his role with Connected Health, Dr. Evans manages a panel of patients at the Washington, D.C. VAMC, where he also serves as Associate Chief of Staff for Informatics.

Enjoying TSA PreP? Thank Hao-y Froemling. She stood up TSA’s new program to enroll travelers across the US for expedited screening. Initially, TSA PreP was only for airline high-mileage flyers and global entry. TSA knew it needed its own enrollment program to expand access. That is where Hao-y entered the picture. TSA knew Hao-y was the right choice to lead its new high-profile program. She led cross-functionally — across TSA, CBP, DHS, FBI, DOJ, COMPACT Council, airports, and air carriers — to establish technical, operational and physical capabilities needed for enrollment. She also coordinated with OMB, National Security Staff and White House communications for a successful December 2013 launch. Hao-y led development of state-of-the-art technology to capture biometric and biographic information for background checks, while making it easier to apply. She leveraged existing capabilities to deploy online and in-person enrollment — enabling travelers to apply in just minutes. TSA PreP™ launched with astounding success and under intense scrutiny in the wake of other government programs that had encountered performance issues. Hao-y led a sweeping launch at more than 300 enrollment centers in under a year, 100 within the first eight weeks. In less than nine months, Hao-y has vetted more than 500,000 PreP applications. Hao-y is an up-and-comer whose innovative, collaborative, outcome-focused leadership style will serve TSA and the public well in the future

Gray served as the chair for the HHS Cloud Security Working Group that completed the first department-wide Federal Risk Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) security authorization for Amazon Web Service’s cloud environments. Even more importantly, Gray’s leadership resulted in HHS becoming the first agency to grant an agency authority to operate (ATO) through the FedRAMP process for a major cloud provider. Gray’s work significantly impacted agencies across the government, who can now utilize the services of one of the largest CSPs without the cost of their own authorization process. Each agency that leverages HHS’ FedRAMP security assessment will save taxpayers $200,000-$275,000. Within HHS alone, the agency projects over a million dollars in savings. Gray’s foresight in collecting resource metrics for future planning has been invaluable in this regard and reported to HHS OCIO CIO of the savings derived from FedRAMP compliance. In part due to the project’s success, Gray was promoted to the Cloud Lead for the Office of Strategic Planning & Governance – Systems Engineering at HHS. In this capacity she is working on enterprise wide adoption of the cloud and leading the agency’s overall cloud strategy.

Mr. Brian Jones, JS, J6, Information Technology Services - Hampton Roads Division, Chief, System Management Branch, is nominated for his efforts to modernize the way the Joint Staff (JS), J6 Information Technology Services Directorate-Hampton Roads Services Division provides reliable, scalable, and secure classified and unclassified desktop services using Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). Over 80% of JS Hampton Roads (HR) users are now operating with virtualized desktops versus thick-client computers. In additional, Brian quickly responded to a new strategic direction to implement VDI for the Joint Forces Staff College in Hampton Roads. An initial 90-day pilot with 25 users on NIPR and SIPR networks was so successful, that JFSC requested an additional 500 NIPR and 100 SIPR VDI clients. Mr. Jones is not just an innovator in DoD, JS, J6 Information Technology Services Directorate, but a visionary, a role model achiever, and a leader for change. Mr. Jones’ work in implementing the VDI infrastructure to the Joint Staff has already, and will continue, to reduce the costs of providing the Command a viable, world class, communication and computing system.

Christopher Jones demonstrated exceptional versatility in a variety of functions and effectiveness in his role as Service Area Manager of video services for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), facilitating changes in culture which enhanced workforce engagement and cost avoidance/savings. Chris led the improvement, enhancement, and expansion of the $8 million video teleconferencing (VTC) capabilities at TSA locations across the globe. Chris reviewed, validated, scheduled, and implemented all 68 of the recommended configuration changes, ultimately eliminating conference interruptions and increasing reliability and performance. Chris established and simplified procedures to request support in scheduling and establishing VTC sessions, utilizing a form he developed on SharePoint which ensured all information required by his support team was provided. This VTC capability has facilitated TSA leadership’s efforts to engage the workforce in its myriad of locations across the globe while providing opportunities to avoid time and expenses for travel associated with traditional face-to-face conferences.

Roopangi Kadakia earns praise for having played a pivotal role in standing up the NASA WestPrime indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract vehicle for cloud-based web services via a cloud-broker--an IDIQ that drew an office of inspector general suggestion (.pdf) in July that NASA make it mandatory, rather than typical auditor censure. One reason for vehicle's success was the outreach Kadakia conducted with NASA centers--entities capable of resisting top-down directives from the headquarters chief information officer--and her belief that centers can be persuaded rather than forced to use it. "It's rare for somebody at headquarters to take time to talk to the stakeholders," said one official. Kadakia also replaced a proprietary public-facing web content management system with open source tools like Drupal and WordPress.

Mary Maher oversees an ongoing digital communications program for USDA’s Economic Research Service, keeping ERS on the cutting edge of products to meet the agency mission to inform public and private decisions. She continues to build the foundation, while working across the aisles to forge new directions—including an improved customer-centric website, several new and revised products that meet increasing quality criteria, and improved data quality and access. Mary’s willingness to go beyond executing ERS work to define what government excellence should be makes her an asset that educates, sets the example, and improves success in delivering public services. As an advocate for open government, Mary champions a variety of causes such as open data and data visualization that contribute to the agency’s plans and accomplishments in support of the White House Digital Strategy. Under her leadership, the agency released several new tools to accelerate and expand agency efforts to make government information resources more publicly accessible and to help consumers more easily access critical programs and information—and stimulate further innovation.

Majma is a researcher passionate about the field of open data. Most recently, he worked on the Initiative on Open Government Data and the Nonprofit Sector for Professor Beth S. Noveck at New York Law School. Previously, he studied intellectual property and information law. He has also worked as a legal contributor to the Mozilla Foundation on the Open Badges Project. Majma holds a JD from New York Law School. He served as a Student Research Fellow at the school’s Institute for Information Law and Policy. Raphael Majma was selected as a Presidential Innovation Fellow for Project OpenData as part of the new White House Presidential Innovation Fellows program. The program pairs top innovators from the private sector, nonprofits, and academia with top innovators in government to collaborate on solutions that aim to deliver significant results in six months.

Overall, Amen deserves this award because of his desire to use technology to create a positive impact through public service. He developed OPM's first IT strategic plan and is a graduate of the Brooklyn Technical High School, one of the top technical schools in the country, and a former software engineer at the once mobile phone giant Motorola — he has always been a tech guy. But in the federal space, the chief technology officer at the Office of Personnel Management is just starting to craft his legacy. As a fellow, Mashariki was placed at OPM. About a year later, after being exposed to the importance of public service from the fellows program, Mashariki was kept on board at OPM as the agency’s first CTO. During his first 100 days at OPM, Mashariki worked with the agency’s various stakeholders to develop its first IT strategic plan. Almost a year into the job, Mashariki said he wasn’t going anywhere and will continue implementing the plan.

Erie Meyer is a Senior Advisor to the U.S. CTO at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she works on the President’s Open Data Initiatives.
Before joining the White House, Erie worked at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), where she was a member of the founding Tech + Innovation Team. She helped to develop and launch a system to collect consumer complaints about financial products and services, such as students loans and credit reporting, and then to publish the complaint data (Why Banks Are Scrambling To Hear Your Complaints). She also served as Editorial Director of the Digital Team, leading strategy to increase citizen participation in developing consumer finance regulations and to connect the public with better information about their rights as consumers.
She also launched the first open source website for Ohio’s state government, led user research, and stood up a digital team in the Ohio Attorney General’s office at the time. student loan issues for Senator Ted Kennedy and campaigns like She Should Run, a nonpartisan effort to get more women in elected office.

Ashley was hired into the DHS Headquarters (HQ) after serving as the ICAM Program Manager at the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS). While there, he established the USCIS ICAM Program and forged strong cross-organizational ties and stakeholder buy-in. His leadership, expertise and collaborative nature were recognized by HQ and he has since replicated his successes across the Department. Within a few months at HQ, Ashley shepherded an effort to mitigate a significant barrier to the DHS progress on HSPD-12 Logical Access compliance. As a result of his action, a major system of over 90,000 users is now PIV compliant by utilizing the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) single sign-on capability to serve a cross-agency user base. The CBP SSO capability is now a foundational piece of the DHS enterprise ICAM capability. In a separate effort, Ashley coordinated the Trusted Identity Exchange (TIE) capability that enables DHS agencies to connect various authoritative data sources and share identity and other attributes within the shared enterprise infrastructure. The TIE is being leveraged for the new DHS Performance Management and Learning System (PALMS) sponsored by the DHS Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer (CHCO). These are just two examples of successful cross-agency engagements that he is leading. At the Department level, Ashley set a spirit of achievement in motion that others have emulated and has laid the ground work for much needed ICAM capability.

Challenging processes, embracing technology, innovating ideas, and articulating high-level solutions are just a few reasons why David Zanoni will be “Running the show some day”. An example of David’s innovative ideas include his leadership on the Price Discovery 2 (PD2) project. Within PD2 he worked with the development team, challenging them to be creative which resulted in a system that delivered far beyond the look and functionality originally planned. David pushed the envelope, suggesting look-and-feel and high-level technical considerations delivering an app that has been labeled a Rich Internet Application. As a leader David exhibits a strong ability to lead through mentoring his staff, while inspiring and evoking innovative ideas. He understands how the application of new technologies can solve business problems, and infuses them in the discussions at the right time.