Page 40 - FCW, April 15, 2016

DIANE B. GONGAWARE
SUE GORDON
CHRISTIAN O. GRIJALVA
RICHARD HALE
34 April 15, 2016 FCW.COM
KEVIN GATES
Professional Staff Member
Armed Services Committee U.S. House of Representatives
All about DOD IT. Gates played a critical role in ensuring that Federal IT Acquisi- tion Reform Act language was included in the fiscal 2015 National Defense Autho- rization Act, but his IT efforts hardly stopped there. During his nine years as
a committee staffer, he has been a strong advocate for improving the Defense Department’s IT capabilities, and his work on issues such as counterfeit electronic parts and improving the oversight of DOD information systems has been invaluable. In 2015, he was instrumental in stream- lining the department’s ability to better attract and retain a highly skilled IT and cybersecurity workforce.
DIANE B. GONGAWARE
Senior Director
U.S. Public Sector Partner Organization Cisco
The market’s matchmaker. A major aspect of Gongaware’s job is to build relationships with IT executives across the defense, civilian and intelligence sectors. She created Cisco’s Federal Authorization Pro- gram to support the government’s interest in contracting with small businesses by certifying that those companies’ products are up to snuff. The program has helped more than 250 companies meet federal requirements and maximize their IT value to agencies. Gongaware also created a partnership that offers a unified commu- nications solution via the cloud; it is the first, full-featured FedRAMP-ready UC solution.
SUE GORDON
Deputy Director
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Tools for transformation. Getting a large mission-focused organization to pivot to the cloud is not easy, but throughout 2015, Gordon guided that change at NGA with
a message of collaboration, innovation and necessity. She continually stressed the need to bring the latest tools to NGA
employees, including the Intelligence Community IT Enterprise. The commercial cloud services offerings she pioneered will allow more participation in cloud technol- ogy across classification levels, facilitate collaboration and streamline information sharing. Colleagues say her leadership during this change will help transform the intelligence community for years to come.
CHRISTIAN O. GRIJALVA
Division Director of Physical Security, Intelligence and Law Enforcement Defense Manpower Data Center Defense Department
DOD’s triple threat. Grijalva spearheaded a trio of complex security projects in 2015: an initiative to automate the security clearance process, the Defense Biomet- ric Identification System used to autho- rize access to military facilities and the Identity Matching Engine for Security and Analysis, which links FBI background- check files with DOD facility entry logs. His work led to the confiscation of some 100,000 false or expired credentials. “Each program is award material,” said Michael Butler, a deputy director at DMDC. “All of them at the same time are breathtaking!”
RICHARD HALE
Deputy Chief Information Officer for Cybersecurity
Defense Department
The cyber judge. Hale has been at the center of DOD’s push to hold commanders more accountable for their organizations’ IT security flaws. He has often been the public face of the cybersecurity score- card, introduced last year, that provides Secretary Ash Carter with a snapshot of vulnerabilities across DOD components. Hale sees the scorecard as an impetus
for changing cybersecurity culture at the Pentagon and never hesitates to push the department forward. “We were not suf- ficiently aggressive at two-factor authenti- cation everywhere in the department...and we have fix-it plans that may last for a few years,” he said recently.