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The Defense Department's top leaders in information systems, yesterday, recognized more than a dozen individuals and teams who in 2024 have contributed in exceptional ways to the advancement of the department's information technology goals.
The department's acting chief information officer, Leslie A. Beavers, along with Army Lt. Gen. Paul T. Stanton, who serves as the director of the Defense Information Systems Agency as well as the commander of the Joint Force Headquarters-DOD Information Network, presided over the 2024 DOD Chief Information Officer Annual Awards Ceremony at the Pentagon.
The world today is an uncertain place, said Stanton, and defense of the nation relies on the secure, stable transmission of data and communications — something all the award winners are responsible for ensuring.
"The world is uncertain," Stanton said. "What is certain is that operations today and into the future require data. You can't war fight, you can't fight and win, if you don't have data. Our responsibilities within the DOD CIO are all about getting data to the right place at the right time to make a better and faster decision than our enemies."
Stanton said the most basic lessons in warfighting involve developing a position of advantage to enable commanders to make better and faster decisions than the enemy, and the DOD's cyber professionals are involved every day in making that happen.
"We can speed up our decision cycle, we can slow down the enemy's decision cycle," Stanton said. "But ultimately, we have to empower our commanders with that position of advantage. That's what you do on a daily basis. You do it through cyber security, you do it through managing the electromagnetic spectrum, through developing engineering, operating our information technology, through thinking about the future executing today, the policies and the resources to make it all happen."
America's enemies, Stanton said, have many resources at their disposal and can bring "scale" to the war fight. But the United States, he said, has an even better tool.
"What we have is talent," he said. "What we have is the freedom to execute through disciplined initiative. You don't get that in other war fighting communities. The United States of America has a monopoly on disciplined initiative, where we can give you a left and a right limit and unleash your talent. For those that are being recognized today: thank you. Thank you for exceeding the standard. Thank you for driving the innovation. Thank you for thinking about hard problems in unique ways and developing meaningful solutions."
Beavers congratulated the award winners and also noted that this year's awards ceremony featured the largest roster of award recipients in the program's history.
The DOD CIO Annual Awards Ceremony honors exceptional individuals and teams who further department goals in areas such as cybersecurity; cyber hygiene; command, control and communications; information enterprise and cloud technology; network and data center optimization; the advancement of 5G technology; and electromagnetic spectrum and public communications.
As part of the 2024 DOD CIO Annual Awards Ceremony, both teams and individuals were either named recipients of awards or for honorable mentions. Those honored include:
Individual Awards
- Audra Brandt, National Air and Space Intelligence Center, Air Force.
- Army Lt. Col. Christopher Braunstein, U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command.
- Air Force Maj. Terrance Dixon, U.S. Central Command.
- Shawn Achziger, Army National Guard.
Individual Honorable Mentions
- Air Force Master Sgt. David Herrera.
- Air Force Capt. Dylan Zimmer, Joint Staff Support Center, Defense Information Systems Agency.
- Eric Gay, Marine Corps.
- Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Dieter Wiesner, U.S. Special Operation Command.
Team Awards
- Japan Dark Horizon, Army.
- Recruiter Services Network Workstation Management Team, Army.
- Air Force Materiel Command, Advanced Academic Degree, Next Generation Air Dominance aircraft Software Factory, Air Force.
- DISA Europe Defense Cyber Operations, DISA.
- U.S. Transportation Command, J6-NA Audit and Analysis, Transcom.
Team Honorable Mentions
- Enterprise Business System Multi-Functional Capabilities Team, Business Process Reengineering Team, Army.
- U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command, J6 Team, Army.
- U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, J6 Team, Army.
- Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, Cybersecurity Inspection Program Team, Defense Intelligence Agency.
- Missile Defense Agency, Cybersecurity Service Provider, CSSP-Computer Emergency Response Team, MDA.
- DISA, J-9, Outside the Continental U.S. Cloud Team, DISA.
- Defense Department - Government Publishing Office, Online Uniformed Services Identification Card Renewal Team, Defense Manpower Data Center.
- Cyber and Infrastructure Team, DMDC.
- J6 Task Force 37-78 Team, Joint Chiefs of Staff.
- Red Lightning Team, Marine Corps.
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