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Rising Star Jeremy Hiers

Hiers worked with government and contractor employees to develop a five-year road map for improving the performance of enterprise IT systems in the Transportation Information Systems program. He voluntarily traveled to a combat zone to further his experience with using TIS products.

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Rising Star Goldy Kamali

Kamali developed executive-level networking programs and events in the Washington, D.C., area. She also developed FedScoop.com, which aggregates news from publications across the federal IT community.

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Rising Star Marwan Jamal

Jamal led the creation of the Crisis Management Center, a high-tech facility that can simulate crisis scenarios used to teach leadership and management competencies. He also manages the private-sector initiative for the IRM College, through which more than 30 IT companies loan equipment to the college for use in training.

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Rising Star Christina Bapst

Bapst manages the Enterprise Data Management Office, which coordinates the data collected, managed and shared across DHS’ 22 components. Bapst, who also oversees the budget for the Office of Applied Technology, tightened OAT’s acquisition process, with 98 percent of projects now completed on schedule.

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Rising Star Steven Posnack

Posnack played a wide range of roles behind the scenes — drafting policies and guidelines, advising top officials on privacy and security matters, and coordinating work with health IT stakeholders across the country.

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Rising Star Emily Scott

Scott quarterbacked an initiative to provide Iraq with a nationwide retail payment infrastructure, supporting the use of debit cards, credit cards, point-of-sale devices and other modern financial conveniences.

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Rising Star Joseph Kattar

Kattar worked with GSA officials to develop and manage requirements for IT contracts that support the Joint Strike Fighter program. He made a good impression from the start, implementing processes that resolved contract problems that had lingered for more than two years.

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Rising Star Ryan P. McCullough

McCullough created a procurement methodology, known as the Performance-Based Approach, that closely aligns a contractor’s measures of success with an agency’s objectives.

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Rising Star Louis Carrion

Carrion fielded the Army’s Medical Communications for Combat Casualty Care program to all 13 Air Force facilities throughout the war zone in Iraq. He coordinated the network installation command infrastructure, trained providers on MC4 best practices and cleared any hurdles to deployment.

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Rising Star Harold Schliesske

Schliesske stepped into a variety of roles to support the deployment and management of biometric systems in Iraq and other tactical environments. He updated systems at 10 installations in Iraq, and the reduced demand for staff and equipment is expected to save $700,000 a year.

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Rising Star Zhenia Klevitsky

Klevistsky contributed her time and expertise to numerous organizations in the federal IT community, including ACT-IAC, AFCEA and the Association of Proposal Management Professionals.

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Rising Star Robert Lech

Lech developed a grant-reporting system to help the Housing and Urban Development Department meet the requirements of the recovery act.

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How NHIN will change health care communications

If the retail catalog industry has kept the U.S. Postal Service on life support during the past decade or so, then doctors, hospitals and pharmacies certainly must be given credit for sustaining the dying — but not yet dead — prospects of landline phone companies.

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Loonsk: More organizations should join health network

Dr. John Loonsk, chief medical officer at CGI Federal, served as director for interoperability and standards within the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the Department of Health and Human Services from 2005 to earlier this year. While there, he played a key role in the early development of the Nationwide Health Information Network strategy.

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Dr. Blumenthal: NHIN architecture a 'work in progress'

Dr. David Blumenthal, HHS' Naitonal Coordinator for Health IT, gives an exclusive interview to FCW on NHIN, health IT and health care reform.

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Is the nation's health network healthy?

Although Congress is pumping billions of dollars into development of health IT, the nation's health information-sharing infrastructure is not yet ready for prime time. Some say it needs a total overhaul, while others argue for pressing on.

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Survey: Acquisition employees say they've improved

According to a workforce survey, nine of 17 contracting competencies increased when compared with the same survey done in 2007.

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Procurement reforms are tough in lean times

Agencies can always hire more people, Congress permitting. But good contracting officers, like fine wines, need time to develop their full potential.

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CIO: CDC preparing for contract worth up to $2 billion

The CDC's CIO outlines plans for the agency's largest IT contract, which is also the first Multiple Award Contract.

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SSA to award contracts for NHIN links

The SSA is on track to award $24 million in contracts to help health care providers link to the Nationwide Health Information Network.