Defense CIO honors effective IT

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence

Members of the Army's recruiting and intelligence commands have received the Defense Department chief information officer's first-ever awards recognizing groups and individuals that have contributed to DOD's effectiveness.

The Army Recruiting Command Information Support Activity and Robert Fecteau, the Army Intelligence and Security Command's CIO, were honored for designing and implementing systems that are saving millions of dollars.

The Army Recruiting Command rolled out a virtual private network, a Web-based recruiting data management system, a national pooled-minutes cell phone contract and a software development model certification that is viewed as an example across government. The DOD CIO's office estimates that those efforts save the command nearly $42 million each year.

Fecteau is credited with integrating 14 organizations into a contracted information technology operation involving BAE Systems, Mitre Corp. and Microsoft Corp. This integration increased "our ability to identify and understand the scope and breadth of [information management and IT] costs needed to run the command from an enterprise view and to ensure they are executed," Fecteau said.

That effort saved the Army about $10 million in the first year and should save another $8 million through the command's acceleration of contractor security clearances.

The awards are the first of their kind. They originally were to be handed out at the DOD CIO's worldwide conference at the end of September, but that conference was postponed as a result of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"Everywhere in DOD are individuals and teams who have put a lot of time and energy developing better tools, weapons and methods for us," DOD CIO John Stenbit said in a statement.

Acting DOD deputy CIO Margaret Myers said that the winners were selected by the full CIO executive board, which is composed of all IT executives from the armed services and DOD component organizations.

"There are people doing good stuff, but we don't take time to recognize them," she said.

Other finalists included the Air Force for its portal, the Navy for business process re-engineering and Cmdr. Wyatt Smith for his information management of the military health system.