Page 62 - FCW, November, December 2018

Rising Stars
CAPT. ANTHONY N. RODRIGUEZ
Aide-de-Camp to the Commander of the 24th Air Force, U.S. Air Force
For Capt. Anthony Rodriguez, working above his pay grade is a given. He has taken on increasingly important roles — often far above the ones he’s been assigned — throughout his career in support of the Air Force’s mission-critical IT and cyber operations.
A former cyber operator for U.S. Cyber Command, crew commander for network operations and assistant director for network warfare operations, Rodriguez has been described as being on a relentless quest for innovation, and his achievements put him on the fast track to become the aide-de-camp for the 24th Air Force Commander, Maj. Gen. Christopher Weggeman.
Rodriguez has protected the $14 billion F-16 aircraft fleet by identifying cyber vulnerabilities and advising the Air Combat Command on the best options for fixing them, led the Air Force Cyber Command’s insider threat program and spearheaded the first cyberthreat hunt missions across the U.S. Forces Korea’s critical logistics and airpower bases.
In addition, he oversaw cyber defensive operations for the White House and secretary of the Air Force during the service’s first joint Air Force Cyber and Mission Defense Team defensive mission, unearthing and patching a vulnerability on Air Force One’s network.
SUNIL SADASIVAN
Senior Engineering Lead, Nava Public Benefit Corp.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has a backlog of almost half a million appeals by veterans seeking disability benefits, and that number is growing. On average, those appeals take about five years to resolve.
Sunil Sadasivan is using technology to cut the backlog and the average resolution time as a member of Nava’s Caseflow team, which seeks to modernize the services and tools at regional VA offices and give veterans more visibility into how the appeals process works.
The Caseflow engineering team crosses public and private lines to include engineers from Nava, other contractors and the U.S. Digital Service. Sadasivan works with all stakeholders to make sure the solutions remain focused on veterans, team members stay on target and feedback is incorporated.
His combination of management skills and technical proficiency is helping to streamline the appeals process for veterans.
His focus on team motivation “changed attitudes and improved overall team collaboration — a difficult yet crucial aspect of working on a team with people from different contractors,” said Alicia Liu, Nava’s vice president of engineering.
Sadasivan tackles some of the most challenging engineering tasks himself, fixing bugs and scaling up so engineers aren’t pulled away from tasks they’re already working on.
62 November/December 2018 FCW.COM