Page 26 - FCW, March 2017

Jonathan Alboum
CIO
Department of Agriculture
COMMUNITY CONSOLIDATOR.
Alboum is spearheading a major modernization push at USDA that involves consolidating the agency’s IT networks from 17 to just three or four, which will lead to a massive increase in efficiency and security. He is also pushing to shift the focus from individual components to the needs of the entire USDA IT com- munity. Through his leadership of the USDA IT Fellows Program — composed of 25 employees from across the agency who collaborate to solve IT challenges — he further strengthened the connections among members of the IT community. The program was adopted as a model by the Partnership for Public Service.
Kristen Baldwin
Deputy CIO
Department ofTransportation
THE IT TRAFFIC COP. DOT is a far-flung and complex organization, yet Baldwin kept a number of major initiatives moving in 2016 — includ- ing a complete security and band- width review of DOT networks and the tricky reprogramming of core
IT staff. Subordinates praised her management skills and commitment to providing “top cover” for innova- tion efforts, while her former boss declared that “at least half (if not more) of the credit I am generously given for making changes at DOT... actually belongs to the efforts and the dedication of Kristen Baldwin.”
Alan P. Balutis
Senior Director and Distinguished Fellow, U.S. Public Sector
Cisco Systems
THE CONSUMMATE COACH.
When fellow Federal 100 winners consider you a mentor, that’s a pretty good sign you’re having a positive impact on federal IT. Balutis has always invested in the next genera- tion of leaders, but in 2016, his influ- ence was felt on multiple major IT issues as well. He was a key liaison between the Obama administration and Congress on implementation of the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act, and he was a linchpin for the
IT community’s transition planning. As a fellow former CIO said, “Few people had as broad and sweeping an impact...in 2016 as Alan Balutis.”
Luis Barés
Enterprise Collaboration Services Lead
NASA
PUTTING PURCHASING POWER INTO PRACTICE. All 70,000 NASA employees are IT users, but when it comes to the procure- ment of IT and collaboration tools, each center has traditionally made purchases separately, resulting in duplication and inefficient purchas- ing. Barés set out to define require- ments for NASA’s collaboration tools and rejected traditional procurement methodology in order to reduce duplication and get the right tools
at an affordable price. That coor- dination and combined purchasing power facilitated the agency’s move to a commercial cloud provider.
Impressed by Barés’ success, the General Services Administration tapped him to lead an interagency IT optimization team.
Barry M. Barlow
Senior Vice President and CTO
Vencore
BIG-PICTURE PERSPECTIVE.
Big data doesn’t help much if it’s poorly managed and secured. Fortu- nately, Barlow has played a central role in creating public/private part- nerships to handle the massive influx of data and security vulnerabilities flooding the federal IT infrastruc- ture. That work brought insights that the National Security Council used daily to monitor hostilities in the Middle East, and they helped drive the Defense Department’s project
to secure the computers embedded into major weapons systems against foreign hackers. Barlow, a former National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency executive, is now applying his expertise to challenges at NASA and across the defense and intelli- gence communities.
26 March 2017 FCW.COM
JONATHAN KRISTEN ALAN P. LUIS BARRY M. ALBOUM BALDWIN BALUTIS BARÉS BARLOW