Page 65 - FCW, August 2021

Alan Balutis
Senior Director and Distinguished Fellow
Cisco Consulting Services
Marathon man. Balutis has now won eight Federal 100 awards in the past quarter-century — a testament
to his unwavering commitment to the federal IT community and the mission of making government work better.
In 2020, he served as chairman of the IT Systems Expert Panel at the Social Security Administration — a blue- ribbon panel that was assembled to provide guidance and advice on IT modernization. The group’s recom- mendations were well received by SSA leaders and the new president’s transition team. Balutis was also a major contributor to IT-focused tran- sition planning via ACT-IAC, the Part- nership for Public Service and
the National Academy of Public Administration.
Ron Bewtra
CTO
Justice Department
Network connector. In addition to his leadership role at Justice, Bewtra devoted tremendous time and energy in 2020 to advancing government- wide initiatives related to network infrastructure design. He serves as co-chairman of the CIO Council’s Innovation Committee and chairman of the Federal IPv6 Task Force, where he provided strategic vision, tactical recommendations and operational insight to accelerate adoption of the next-generation protocol. Colleagues praised his commitment to maintain- ing open-government tenets and his
unique ability to facilitate dialogue and information sharing between the federal government and the private sector — traits that make him a driv- ing force in efforts to transform agen- cies’ IT infrastructure.
Branko Bokan
Cybersecurity Directives Program Lead, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
Department of Homeland Security
Security at speed. Bokan had a direct hand in the government’s recovery efforts after the discov-
ery that Russian intelligence agents had breached federal networks via SolarWinds’ software platform. He worked with dozens of agencies across the government, including the Defense Department, to ensure they were able to meet the requirements of CISA’s emergency directive regarding the hack. Through this coordinated effort, all affected agencies contained the compromise and removed the SolarWinds platform within 72 hours. Bokan also worked with SolarWinds and the National Security Agency to ensure that the newest version of the software was free of malicious code.
Beth Cappello
Deputy CIO
Department of Homeland Security
Ms. Modernization. Cappello was instrumental in ensuring that a trio
of financial systems for three DHS component agencies successfully migrated to the cloud on time. She did this by coordinating with the chief financial officer, chief procurement
officer and contractor personnel. Cap- pello’s pragmatic approach and her ability to remove barriers for her team helped drive efforts to overcome the department’s historical difficulties in aligning disparate components and bring Customs and Border Protection, the Coast Guard and the Transporta- tion Security Administration onto a common financial system.
Nicole Carey
Vice President, Strategic Communications and Integrated Marketing
Dynamic Integrated Services
Vet-centered design. Carey is relent- lessly committed to helping veterans access their hard-earned benefits through the Department of Veterans Affairs. According to VA’s research, 26% of veterans do not know how to apply for health care benefits. Carey used creative, evidenced-based com- munications to reach veterans via multiple channels. Thanks to her efforts, VA had awarded more than $720 million in retroactive benefits
as of November 2020. She also led an initiative to rebrand two programs, which are helping to boost the iden- tification and subsequent enrollment of hundreds of thousands of service members and veterans for education and career counseling support.
Alan Balutis Ron Bewtra Branko Bokan Beth Cappello Nicole Carey
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