Page 36 - FCW, October 2016

data from sources throughout the department.
She also developed an internal FISMA scorecard, which has enabled better decision-making at almost every level of leadership. Her efforts have become essential to the department meeting its FISMA goals. And she generously
shared her expertise by spending several months as a detailee helping the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services enhance its FISMA compliance program.
— Aisha Chowdhry
Marc A.
Santoro
At the age of 13, Marc Santoro got his hands on a used computer with
a 386 processor and a 40MB hard drive. He then joined an online chat about programming, and someone told him to learn Linux.
“Linux was a very crude operating system at the time,” Santoro said. “I was just entranced. It was so cool.”
He was hooked. He went on to earn an M.S. in computer science from Tennessee Technological University and got a
job in the private sector that focused on high- availability, high-reliability applications. After a year in industry, he joined the Department of the Navy and is now deputy lead
of the Electromagnetic
Railgun Fire Control Integrated Product Team.
To save the government time and money, Santoro recommended using open- source technology and modular design, which allows the team to develop software functionality independently and then integrate and test the modules. The approach also facilitates rapid integration with other elements, such as different sensors and gun mounts, rather than having to rewrite the entire code base to accommodate
new elements. He also ensured that the hardware components would meet the system’s requirement for low latency.
His efforts have resulted in 23 internal engineering builds, with one used
in a successful live-fire test and six delivered to external organizations for various testing activities. The results are helping
the Navy design a game- changing next-generation weapons system that will provide all controls for gun power, aiming and projectile initialization
in surface and air engagements.
Colleagues say
the team has met the railgun’s complex design challenges with optimism and determination as a direct result of Santoro’s leadership and motivation.
“Many other software engineers excel at one or a small number of tasks, but Marc excels at everything he does,” said Howie
Wendt, leader of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division’s Electromagnetic Weapons Systems Division. “Additionally, he is as likely to spend his time with junior team members helping them with coding basics as with more senior team members dealing with integration and advanced testing.”
— Sean D. Carberry
vulnerabilities that couldn’t be patched without risking system failure. Furthermore, the old systems were largely built on custom code that was not well documented, and they could not run
on or were not optimized for mobile devices, an increasingly critical path for an agency charged with protecting the nation’s justice system.
Skorny negotiated a task order that rewards the vendor based on
its performance. It will replace stand-alone mission systems at the Marshals Service with a web-based IT solution that will increase operational and business capabilities and integrate all mission data into a single solution for enhanced business intelligence gathering, reporting, operational support and decision- making by a mobile workforce.
Skorny is now launching a recompete procurement for the Enterprise Networked Services Support contract for the Department of Homeland Security’s global classified networks. The contract will define the future of such networks across civilian agencies, and Skorny has given every indication that he is more than qualified to handle the challenge.
— Mark Rockwell
34 October 2016 FCW.COM
Michael Skorny
As one of the General Services Administration’s top IT shoppers, Michael Skorny negotiates complex technical issues for his federal clients and contractors.
Those talents were obvious in his handling
of a $200 million task order for a modernization effort at the U.S. Marshals Service under GSA’s Alliant contract.
The cutting-edge refresh was needed by the Marshals Service, whose aging mission IT systems had security