Page 32 - FCW, April 15, 2016

BRYCE BHATNAGAR
LT. GEN. MARK S. BOWMAN
DEVON BRYAN
HEATHER B. BURKE
MICHAEL CARTER
28
April 15, 2016 FCW.COM
BRYCE BHATNAGAR
Chief Technology Officer
State Department
Secure and protect. The Defense Depart- ment’s withdrawal from Iraq meant the State Department would lose a method for verifying visiting personnel to high-threat diplomatic posts. Bhatnagar proposed a process that would capture biometric data and significantly reduce the possibility that harmful individuals could gain access to diplomatic posts by using fraudulent documentation. He made multiple trips to high-risk areas in Iraq and Afghanistan to help install the system and train embassy personnel — and he did it all in a matter of months. His efforts have given the State Department a fast and powerful method for protecting personnel worldwide.
LT. GEN. MARK S. BOWMAN
Director of Command, Control, Communications and Computers/Cyber Joint Staff
Defense Department
Straight shooter. Bowman is not afraid
to talk bluntly about the Pentagon’s IT shortcomings. In June 2015, he said of a departmentwide IT security project: “A lot of people are happy about where we are. I’m not.” Described by one colleague as a “tireless change agent,” Bowman has been a big backer of DOD’s push
for better cyber hygiene for all person- nel, from privates to commanders. He has also put a vast bureaucracy on the path to widespread use of modern IT tools. One example: Thanks to his efforts, more than 80 percent of Joint Staff employees now use virtual desktops.
DEVON BRYAN
Founder and President
International Consortium of Minority Cybersecurity Professionals
Cyber evangelist. Over and above his
day job last year as a vice president at ADP, Bryan co-founded the International Consortium of Minority Cybersecurity Professionals to raise funds and advocate for programs and scholarships designed to prepare minority students for careers in
cybersecurity. So far, the organization has raised $60,000 for scholarships, partnered with Howard University to launch a pilot project so that students can gain valuable experience and worked with the Depart- ment of Homeland Security to connect students with internship opportunities at DHS. Bryan also advocates for veterans who want to adapt their military experi- ence to the cyber battlefield.
HEATHER B. BURKE
Chief Engineer
Program Executive Office for Defense Healthcare Management Systems Defense Department
Health record reinvention. Burke has two big jobs: make DOD’s current electronic health records compatible and interoper- able with data from the Department of Vet- erans Affairs and prepare the Pentagon’s sprawling health service for the transition to a new EHR system, due to begin testing in 2016. Burke tackled the notoriously thorny problem of VA/DOD interoperabil- ity by standardizing processes, tools and accountability. Additionally, she devel- oped a testing infrastructure to smooth the transition to the new system — a critical project that her supporters say came in on time and on budget.
MICHAEL CARTER
Vice President
Governance, Risk and Compliance Veris Group
FedRAMP facilitator. As “cloud first” evolved from a federal aspiration to an actual practice, 2015 saw a surge of cloud service providers seeking authorization under the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program. Each one required a third-party assessment organization,
and Carter’s team guided more of them through the process than any other 3PAO. A former government IT specialist himself, Carter has worked on FedRAMP since the program’s beginning, collaborates closely with the General Services Administration on possible improvements and has estab- lished himself as a key resource for the government’s cloud security community.