Nextgov Awards

Honorees

Winners of the 2010 Nextgov Awards

  • Tiffany SmithTiffany Smith
    Program analyst
    State Department

    Tiffany Smith designed and executed the Virtual Student Foreign Service (VSFS) program; a Department of State virtual internship program that provides opportunities for university students to work virtually with posts abroad to meet foreign policy objectives. Ms. Smith's contributions did much to facilitate the successful conduct of US diplomacy in the information age, and to significantly strengthen knowledge management support to the Department of State and American diplomats. The VSFS program is part of a growing effort by the State Department to harness technology and a commitment to global service among young Americans, to facilitate new and expanded forms of successful diplomatic engagement between the US and other nations, organizations and people around the world. The Virtual Student Foreign Service Program successfully facilitated a partnership between nearly 40 U.S. diplomatic missions around the world and approximately 50 students (students who were also former State Department interns) attending universities throughout the United States. Ms. Smith also worked closely with university administrations, and as a result several universities are now offering official credits to their students who participate in the VSFS program.
  • Daniel StoianDaniel Stoian
    Special assistant to the undersecretary of management
    State Department

    Daniel Stoian dreamed up and implemented 'IdeaLab' which enabled Watch Officers to share ideas and suggestions for their highly sensitive work across shifts in a 24-hour work environment. He not only designed and oversaw development of 'IdeaLab' but he rolled it out to both management and employees to ensure buy-in and acceptance. Mr. Stoian not only convinced management of the benefits of getting ideas from the entire staff, but also convinced the 60 employees of the Operations Center that their voices were welcomed and valued (without fear of punishment). The results were immediate, as Watch Officers suddenly felt empowered to make suggestions and improvements to the Operations Center rather than wait for orders to come down from the top. Overnight shift workers were able to communicate with day workers, and there was a flood of new ideas debated back and forth in IdeaLab before they were worked into formal proposals for implementation for management. This IdeaLab was shared with Secretary Clinton's transition team and helped implement her vision of leveraging all Department of State employees to provide suggestions for improving the workings of the Department.
  • Anita BibleAnita Kelly Bible
    Lead project manager for Ready Retirement
    Social Security Administration

    As the lead project manager for Ready Retirement, Anita Bible led the charge to develop the vision of the Ready Retirement initiative and to implement the first systems release of this initiative, which was the iClaim application. The iClaim application is the electronic application for benefits that replaced the existing online application, the Internet Social Security Benefit Application (ISBA). The overall American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) scores for iClaim are at 91%, which is the highest for any government application, second only to SSA's Retirement estimator. Since its introduction, 83% of the increase in claims filing has been absorbed by the internet. The proof-of-age simplification alone will save an estimated $34 million a year by reducing claims development time to an average of 12 minutes for Retirement and 25 minutes for Disability. Ms. Bible coordinated the efforts of all components within SSA headquarters to effectuate the policy and systems changes to support the application.
  • Jeffrey WheelerJeffrey Wheeler
    Deputy chief of the Office of Boat Services
    Coast Guard

    Mr. Jeffrey L. Wheeler has bridged a significant gap in port security training and protective capabilities, by unifying the entire maritime community under one standard of training, credentialing, and readiness. Working with partner law enforcement experts throughout the country on the state, county and local level, Mr. Wheeler has translated the federal training doctrine to meet the legal and policy requirements of all levels of law enforcement jurisdictions. Mr. Wheeler led the implementation of a training model which has fused federal, state, county and local maritime law enforcement under a single training curriculum and provided them with a set of qualification standards that will truly unify and ready the entire maritime community of law enforcement and emergency responders under one system of training, credentialing and typing of capabilities. The Boat Operations and Training Program (BOAT) is poised to be delivered nationally by NASBLA. Mr. Wheeler has enhanced the protection of our maritime domain from threats as never before. A national data base comprised of graduates of this program will be available to all levels of federal and local law enforcement, identifying units that all will be recognized as true force multipliers, guardians, and partners.
  • Daniel HoganDaniel Hogan
    Program manager for the Fish and Wildlife Service
    Interior Department

    For over ten years Daniel Hogan has been in the forefront of using technology to support the operations and the mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Mr. Hogan has been able to use his knowledge, expertise and personality to greatly enhance the operational efficiency of the agency. Mr. Hogan designed and developed the Habitat Information Tracking System (HabITS) a critical tool for the Service's habitat restoration activities. HabITS is a customized web-based national data management system that captures all the activities implemented by the Partners for Fish and Wildlife and the Coastal Programs. He developed this system by incorporating the needs of users in all 50 states and 6 U.S. territories. The system was designed with the end user in mind and incorporates every single component necessary for the efficient management of a national program. HabITS immediately saved millions of dollars in staff time and eliminated the duplication of efforts in data entry at all levels.
  • Lynn MokrayLynn Mokray
    Chief of the Legal Division
    Air Force

    Lynn Mokray organized two exceptional IT projects that today provide seamless reach-back in all areas of law and enhance the accuracy, speed, reach and responsiveness of legal services provided to commanders and Airmen. First, she skillfully crafted a partnership that consolidated Army, Air Force (AF) and Marine legal research needs into one contract for computer-assisted legal research (CALR). This unprecedented collaboration harnessed not only superior buying power and economies of scale but provided almost 15,000 DoD personnel cutting-edge, customized legal research tools available nowhere else. Second, she piloted a groundbreaking effort to connect all offices in The Judge Advocate General's Corps (TJAGC) through video teleconferencing (VTC). By leveraging communications technology to an extent previously untried in the DoD legal community, this pioneering initiative created the AF's most robust, widespread VTC capability ever. The global VTC program has extended legal education beyond the walls of the AF JAG School, secured speakers and instructors who could not appear in person, enabled real-time meeting and conferences with offices and participants ranging from two to hundreds, ensured that justice is not delayed or denied by witness geographic unavailability, and improved morale by giving military members and employees previously impossible personal interaction with senior leaders.
  • Susan BurrillSusan Burrill
    Director of the Risk Management Division
    Homeland Security Department

    Susan Burrill spearheaded the development of a revolutionary new system that will change the way the Federal Protective Service (FPS) protects more than 9,000 facilities nationwide. The system she has created, called the Risk Assessment and Management Program (RAMP), is a secure, web-enabled tool that will revolutionize the way FPS collects, stores, analyzes and shares information to manage security risks for federal facilities. Working closely with a multitude of colleagues internal and external to FPS, Ms. Burrill was able to not only plan the development of RAMP, but lead the effort to revitalize multiple FPS programs that will utilize the system. With the development of RAMP, FPS will be recognized as the premier facility security experts within the federal government. Ms. Burrill provided exemplary leadership and direction during the development and integration of RAMP into the FPS community, and continues to do so every day. Since leading the development of RAMP, Ms. Burrill has also overseen the development and execution of the national level training initiative for over 1,000 FPS personnel to learn how to utilize this new system.
  • Christopher JacksonChristopher Jackson
    Deputy chief at the ISR Integration Division
    Joint Forces Command

    Christopher Jackson led the effort to provide direct support to combat operations through the implementation of the Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Information Service (ISRIS). Mr. Jackson recognized the operational potential of ISRIS during MAJIIC ACTD demonstrations and proposed that it be used to address a USCENTCOM urgent need in Iraq to better integrate full motion video (FMV) into the combat supporting network environment. Mr. Jackson's decision to field a capability directly out of an Advance Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) changed the way FMV was used in the combat environment. ISRIS provided war fighters at the end of bandwidth-constrained networks, access to the FMV needed to support their operations. ISRIS was widely used at the Brigade and below, providing Situational Awareness FMV to war fighters when no other capability could due to bandwidth constrains.

Finalists for the 2010 Nextgov Awards

  • Eric BermanEric Berman
    HAZUS program manager
    Homeland Security Department

    Eric Berman runs the HAZUS Program within FEMA Mitigation Directorate. When Mr. Berman stepped into his role as program manager five years ago, the program was suffering from bad publicity internally and in the public. Under his leadership, HAZUS has been tuned and improved over time, to provide more accurate analyses. By 2008, the HAZUS Program went from being almost eliminated to becoming a key component of FEMA's multi-million dollar Map Modernization Program which has been re-named Risk MAP. Because of his visionary leadership, Mr. Berman has elevated the perception of HAZUS from an uncontrollable software product to an award winning risk assessment tool created by the best scientific and engineering minds.
  • Michael Bucceroni
    Division chief for business support service acquisition
    Army

    Michael Bucceroni embraced ITA's Enterprise Architecture vision of a single acquisition office. His keen sense of strategic planning, team building, and customer service are key contributors to his ability to execute quickly on that vision. He inventoried ITA contracting services by function and mapped contract terms to specific functions. He then developed a strategy where all directorates would receive contracting services associated with any given function from the same contract vehicle. Through proven success, Mr. Bucceroni has convinced even the most skeptical of critics that centralized acquisitions is a good idea with a positive impact on the ITA organization's ability to provide excellent IT services while yielding a savings of $75 million over the next three years. Mr. Bucceroni not only faced the typical challenges associated with standing up a new organization, but he cleared obstacles based upon cultural resistance to changing the conduct of business, identifying internal resources to staff the enterprise acquisition function, poorly documented processes, poor collaboration skills and weak historical relationships with stakeholders and suppliers. In spite of the challenges, he laid the foundation for and implemented a robust, credible acquisition support activity within the first year.
  • Laura Wade CarrLaura Wade Carr
    Contract specialist
    Navy

    Laura Wade Carr developed PACTp as her senior intern project, striving to improve processing of contract price adjustments under the Service Contract Act. Ms. Carr recognized the need to standardize and automate this process required yearly on thousands of contracts. During the last year and a half, Ms. Carr envisioned the concept, developed a working model, field tested, and filed a patent application, for a processing tool that can be used in every contracting agency in the federal government; the Service Contract Act Price Adjustment Calculation Tool prototype (SCA-PACTp or PACTp). Ms. Carr's eye for innovation has yielded a streamline initiative which holds the potential to save the DoD (and beyond) hundreds of millions of dollars yearly by reducing unchecked, unallowable pay-outs to contractors, as well as thousands of government man-hours for effort expended in calculating adjustments. The PACTp project was recognized last month for Team Excellence by the Defense Procurement, Acquisition Policy, and Strategic Sourcing Program (DPAP) at the Defense Procurement eBusiness Conference.
  • Alan CohnAlan Cohn
    Deputy assistant secretary for policy
    Homeland Security Department

    Alan Cohn was responsible for the execution of the first Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) in 2009. Rather than set policy internally and implement it in a top-down fashion, Mr. Cohn decided to undertake the QHSR in a new and innovative way by informing the process through the engagement of tens of thousands of stakeholders and soliciting their opinions and comments. Over a three week web-based discussion series, stakeholders had the opportunity to review materials developed by DHS study groups, submit and discuss their own ideas for review, and rate feedback to surface the most relevant ideas and important themes that deserved further consideration. Mr. Cohn's innovative use of web-based social networks, coupled with his approach to engaging federal and departmental stakeholders, resulted in one of the most inclusive, groundbreaking public engagement efforts by the federal government. In tackling this extremely complex task, Mr. Cohn exhibited unmatched creativity and tenacity, all while embracing the spirit and practice of open government.
  • Jo Ann JenkinsJo Ann Jenkins
    Chief operating officer
    Library of Congress

    Jo Ann Jenkins launched an initiative called The Library of Congress Experience (LCE), which has transformed the public face of the institution, beginning with a new brand messaging platform and ending with an entirely new interactive, educational onsite and online experience for the general public. As one of her many efforts to lift up a new generation of leadership within the Library, Ms. Jenkins formed a program management office and set into motion the largest and most complicated program in the Library's history. To ensure the program's success, Ms. Jenkins established entirely new business processes and methodologies to work effectively across the agency, encouraging collaboration and the spirit of innovation. Showing strong visionary leadership and staying directly involved with day-to-day program operations, Ms. Jenkins created a fun, rewarding, educational and enriching experience for all visitors. She has radically changed public perception of the Library of Congress, catapulting the agency into the 21st century and helping to create new relationships between the Library and life-long learners around the country and the world.
  • Chris KempChris Kemp
    Chief information officer
    NASA

    Chris C. Kemp is responsible for the IT infrastructure at NASA Ames Research Center, including; networks, data centers, systems, and IT security. Mr. Kemp is responsible for the NASA Nebula cloud computing Platform, a pilot project under development at NASA Ames Research Center. Nebula integrates a set of open-source components into a seamless, self-service platform, providing high-capacity computing, storage and network connectivity using a virtualized, scalable architecture that achieves massive cost and energy efficiencies. Leveraging Nebula, Mr. Kemp partnered with Microsoft Research to develop the WorldWide Telescope (WWT), a web visualization environment that enables computers to function as virtual telescopes. His implementation of the Nebula Cloud Computing Platform is an example of government using private industry best practices and putting them into effect quickly and economically. It is also one of the most advanced examples of government using Cloud Computing technologies and was acknowledged by Federal CIO Vivek Kundra as one of the most innovative projects in the federal government today.
  • Col. Michael LewisCol. Michael Lewis
    Senior information assurance official
    Air Force

    Col. Michael Lewis assumed a second major duty as the USAF's Senior Information Assurance Official (SIAO), replacing a member of the DoD Senior Executive Service. In order to improve USAF information assurance (IA) compliance, Col. Lewis changed the existing process with group improvement events and direct action. Working across organizations and cutting out cumbersome coordination hoops, he created an entity that wanted to work together. He forged a way ahead to examine IT system vulnerabilities in our industrial control systems (ICS); an area that has been neglected in the past. Further, he advocated for a new USAF IT Governance Structure that focuses both IT acquisition and AFNet development on a Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) and singularly simulated and managed infrastructure. While the theories of SOA, single authoritative data bases and a single security layer running across an entire network enterprise have been around for a while, the achievement of creating a real world, working model is monumental. Finally, Col. Lewis' work putting together a USAF strategy, to not only bring knowledge management to reality, but achieve concurrence throughout USAF for a realistic plan to procure standard, interoperable Enterprise tools across USAF to execute knowledge operations, is a first and one-of-kind innovation.
  • Igor Marchosky
    Technical manager for the Distributed Tactical Communications System
    Navy

    Igor Marchosky spearheaded the development, prototyping, testing, validation and deployment of the Distributed Tactical Communications System (DTCS). Over the last three years, NSWCDD has played a critical role in the development, testing and deployment of this commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technology in response to a U.S. Central Command urgent operational requirement for units in Afghanistan. The DTCS program team, under Mr. Marchosky's leadership, overcame all technical hurdles to deliver working products to the field, with the result that the DTCS Netted Iridium handsets are currently making an important contribution to war fighters in the field. The DTCS program stands as a model on how private industry and the DoD can successfully partner to overcome technical challenges and efficiently meet the critical needs of the nation's military forces.
  • Susan PenneySusan Penney
    Management and program analyst
    Homeland Security Department

    Susan Penney standardized the set up and deployment of technology that allows Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) as well as local law enforcement agencies to receive immigration information on persons being booked for criminal offenses. While on the surface, this may seem to be a very simple task, it was incredibly complex and required an inordinate amount of time, patience and thought. The set up of ORI's is integral to deploying Secure Communities (SC) Interoperability. Prior to Ms. Penney's efforts, this piece had delayed efforts in locations and threatened to derail the entire deployment process. SC Interoperability has been instrumental in increasing the accuracy and reliability of identifying criminal aliens via biometrics at the earliest stage of an encounter. Through her part in ensuring the deployment and success of SC Interoperability, Ms. Penney has directly contributed to keeping thousands of violent criminals from being released from police custody, and enhanced information sharing between local, tribal, state and federal law enforcement agencies to promote the GAO-06-385 Congressional information sharing mandate. SC Interoperability has streamlined criminal alien enforcement operations throughout the ICE agency, allowing for more efficient use of resources.
  • Gene RoweGene Rowe
    Senior technical staff
    Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board

    Gene Rowe created a PC-based system to allow the impact of alternative processing options for wastes from US nuclear power plants to be assessed. He created the Nuclear Waste Assessment System for Technical Evaluation (NUWASTE) with the capability to evaluate the consequences of various nuclear power generation and disposition strategies on the management of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive wastes in the US. Mr. Rowe saw how to develop a PC-based tool to show the generation of spent nuclear fuel at nuclear power plants and extend it so that it could be used to show the impact of different processing options being analyzed by the US Department of Energy on the quantity of different waste forms that would require disposal in a repository. He has proven the usefulness of NUWASTE in early analyses of the impact of varying the capacities and start-up timescales for nuclear fuel processing and disposal facilities. Mr. Rowe's early analyses have already helped the NWTRB understand some fundamental relationships between plant design parameters and operational programs that were not apparent before NUWASTE was available.
  • Vish SankaranVish Sankaran
    Director of the federal health architecture
    Health and Human Services Department

    Vish Sankaran brings together and coordinates health IT activities for more than 20 federal agencies. Federal collaboration achieved through FHA is responsible for progress in a wide variety of health domains, including: improving healthcare for our Wounded Warriors, enhancing public health monitoring, accelerating disability eligibility determinations, advancing research, enhancing tribal health services and supporting many other critical federal health mandates. In 2009, Mr. Sankaran managed the launch of the groundbreaking CONNECT open source software solution which was built by FHA and its federal partners. Federal agencies and organizations soon began piloting CONNECT, and Mr. Sankaran's leadership drove the first production use of NHIN-compliant health information exchange. He is now leading the charge to foster further development and adoption of CONNECT by building an open source community comprised of public and private sector members. The CONNECT program resulted in transparency and collaboration between government and the private sector. Federal agencies, other government organizations and private IT stakeholders worked on the development process to deliver interoperable health IT systems for the entire nation.