Page 46 - FCW, March/April 2018

2018 FEDERAL 100
Will Roper
Director, Strategic Capabilities Of ce, Of ce of the Secretary of Defense Department of Defense
Acquisition alchemist. Roper’s abil- ity to balance modernization demands and the costs of ongoing operations is part of what landed him a new job as the Air Force’s assistant secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics. Con rmed for that role in February, Roper is now responsible for usher- ing in major changes to that service’s acquisition processes. Many of his accomplishments are not for attri- bution — to keep adversaries from catching up, he once said, “you just don’t talk about your best capabili- ties” — but the Federal 100 judges praised Roper for transforming DOD’s approach to advanced technologies.
Kris Rowley
Chief Data Of cer, Of ce of the CIO
General Services Administration
Demanding better data manage- ment. Rowley has forged a model of data management for the rest of the government by providing secure, cost- effective data management solutions that can improve ef ciency. His proj- ect, Data2Decision, provides a secure setting to share data from across GSA and other agencies that can help of - cials make informed decisions on an array of topics. As useful as it sounds, Rowley initially had to convince executives that his project had value. “We did this without a mandate,” he said. “There was no requirement. We just thought it would be better.”
Col. William M. Russell
Project Manager, General Fund Enterprise Business System U.S. Army
The numbers man. Russell drove
the modernization of GFEBS, which standardizes, streamlines and shares critical data across the active Army, the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve. Its core nancial man- agement system provides distribu- tion and execution of appropriated funds, cost management and nancial reporting. He also oversaw a com- plex source selection for the Army Contract Writing System in 11 months — six months ahead of the published goal and one year faster than projects of similar size and complexity. Thanks to his efforts, the contract was also awarded for $100 million less than
the original estimate and will deliver capability 20 months sooner than planned.
Paul Saladna
Enterprise Architect
NTT Data
Modernizing “the beast.” Saladna updated the Air Force’s 420 legacy logistics data systems, which included more than 1 million lines of code written in Cobol and thousands more written in the C programming lan- guage. He moved all those activities onto a modern system while staying ahead of schedule. Based on com- mercial tools, the new environment already has trimmed operational costs and proven to be more sustainable. Saladna’s devotion to the project began 11 months before the Air Force
even released the solicitation, when he conducted a study of potential solutions. Once the work began, he was involved in every aspect of modernization.
Alvin Salehi
Senior Technology Advisor, White House
Of ce of Management and Budget
Open source all-star. When Code. gov launched in November 2016, the repository started with 45 projects. Now, thanks to the commitment of folks like Salehi, the site hosts more than 3,000. Throughout 2017, he and his team demonstrated the value of the platform, which promotes code sharing and collaboration to help the government reduce duplicative soft- ware development and save millions of taxpayer dollars. Salehi’s efforts also involved helping agencies imple- ment open-source software policies while making more ef cient use of feds’ brainpower. “This platform is for everyone — both technical and non- technical — who wants to make our nation’s technology systems better,” he said.
Will Roper Kris Rowley Col. William M. Paul Saladna Alvin Salehi Russell
42 March/April 2018 FCW.COM