Announcing the 2014 Fed 100

Full disclosure: I was a little scared about this year’s Federal 100 awards.

It wasn’t that I didn’t think good work was being done in federal IT — FCW finds evidence of that every day. But most of 2013 was downright dysfunctional, and Federal 100 awards demand more than just doing one’s job in tough times.

When the year begins with a government shutdown barely averted, agencies send employees on unpaid vacations, and HealthCare.gov becomes a poster child for technology projects done wrong...well, I feared that identifying truly exceptional work would prove depressingly difficult.

As the nominations rolled in, however, it became obvious that I had underestimated the IT community. The sheer number of solid nominations was reassuring, and individual accomplishments that wowed our judges make it hard to be anything less than excited for 2014. We have leaders who are driving digitization at the Smithsonian, reinventing analytics at the Securities and Exchange Commission, pushing the Department of Veterans Affairs to virtualize, keeping Congress focused on IT reform and making public/private information sharing a reality — and that’s just in the Bs. Clearly, it would take a lot more than the trials of 2013 to keep these people down.

That said, this year’s list of 100 also shows where there’s more work to be done. Women make up barely 30 percent of the winners, and several major agencies are unrepresented. So either there’s more mentoring to be done or FCW needs to do a better job of calling for nominations. Or, more likely, both.

Overall, though, I’m very impressed by this year’s winners and feel privileged to be learning more about each of them. Come March, you’ll be able to do the same — we’ll honor the winners at the March 20 gala and profile all 100 in the March 30 issue of FCW. For now, though, you’ll have to make do with the list of names, which you can find below:

• Maj. Linus J. Barloon II
  White House Communications Agency
• Charles Bartoldus
  Executive Office of the President
• Gary Bass
  Bauman Foundation
• Martin Beckman
  Smithsonian Institution
• John Bergin
  Booz Allen Hamilton
• Gregg Berman
  Securities and Exchange Commission
• Richard Beutel
  House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
• Horace Blackman
  Department of Veterans Affairs
• Doug Bourgeois
  VMware
• James Brown
  Department of Defense
• Col. Patrick W. Burden
  U.S. Army
• Bryan Burnett
  National Labor Relations Board
• Michael Butler
  Department of Defense
• Jonathan Cantor
  Department of Homeland Security
• David Carroll
  Department of Homeland Security
• Josephine Ann Cecere
  National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
• Alan Chvotkin
  Professional Services Council
• Randy Cieslak
  Department of Defense
• Nani Coloretti
  Department of the Treasury
• Jim Cook
  Mitre
• Marilyn Crouther
  HP Enterprise Services
• Emery Csulak
  Department of Homeland Security
• Michael Daniel
  Executive Office of the President
• Rear Adm. Robert E. Day, Jr.
  U.S. Coast Guard
• Kevin Deeley
  Department of Justice
• Joseph Demarest
  Federal Bureau of Investigation
• James (Jim) P. Derr
  Lockheed Martin
• Norm Dong
  Office of Management and Budget
• Daniel Dougherty
  EMC Corp.
• Judith Douglas
  HP Enterprise Services
• Ivy Estabrooke
  Department of the Navy
• Andrew Fairbanks
  IBM
• Jane Fountain
  University of Massachusetts Amherst
• Marina Fox
  General Services Administration
• Maj. Gen. George J. Franz III
  U.S. Cyber Command
• Randy Fuerst
  Oceus Networks
• Margie Graves
  Department of Homeland Security
• Jennifer Gray
  Department of Health and Human Services
• Martin R. Gross
  Department of Defense
• Victor Hernandez
  Department of the Army
• James Hird
  Department of the Air Force
• Jon Holladay
  Department of Agriculture
• Travis Howerton
  Department of Energy
• Freeman Hrabowski
  University of Maryland, Baltimore County
• Linda Hudson
  BAE Systems
• Adam Hughes
  General Services Administration
• Margaret Hunt
  Internal Revenue Service
• Capt. Trent A. Janda
  U.S. Coast Guard
• Ashwini Jarral
  Integrated Justice Information Systems Institute
• Alissa Johnson
  Executive Office of the President
• Edward Johnson
  Federal Emergency Management Agency
• Kathleen Kaluzienski
  Department of the Navy
• Daniel Kent
  Cisco
• Steven B. Kousen
  Unisys Federal Systems
• Michael Krieger
  Department of the Army
• Naveen Krishnamurthy
  RIVA Solutions, Inc.
• Dawn Leaf
  Department of Labor
• Eric M. Leckey
  Department of Homeland Security
• Naomi Lefkovitz
  Department of Commerce
• Robin Lineberger
  Deloitte
• Tish Long
  National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
• David Lucien
  DCL Associates
• Heather Maloy
  Internal Revenue Service
• Donald Matheson
  Department of Homeland Security
• Maj. Gen. Earl Matthews
  U.S. Air Force
• Bernard Mazer
  Department of the Interior
• Tim McCrosson
  Office of Management and Budget
• Angela Moore
  Department of Homeland Security
• Samara Moore
  National Security Council
• Patty Morris
  Vision Center of Excellence
• Gregory Mundell
  InfoZen
• Ken O'Brien
  Department of the Treasury
• John B. Owens II
  Department of Commerce
• Gina Pearson
  Department of Energy
• David Peters
  General Services Administration
• Karen Pica
  Office of Management and Budget
• Lynda Pierce
  Department of the Navy
• Magalene Powell-Meeks
  NASA
• Denise Ray
  Department of Homeland Security
• Col. Scott Reid
  U.S. Army
• Melinda Rogers
  Department of Justice
• Vice Adm. Michael Rogers
  U.S. Navy
• Pallabi Saboo
  Harmonia Holdings Group
• Matthew Scholl
  Department of Commerce
• Rory Schultz
  Department of Agriculture
• Susan Shuryn
  Department of the Navy
• Michael Simcock
  Department of Homeland Security
• Nick Sinai
  Executive Office of the President
• Thomas Somers
  Department of the Army
• Param Soni
  Environmental Protection Agency
• John Streufert
  Department of Homeland Security
• Dan Tangherlini
  General Services Administration
• Matt Thomlinson
  Microsoft
• Lena Trudeau
  General Services Administration
• Lt. William Walders
  U.S. Navy
• Sen. Mark Warner
  U.S. Senate
• David Williams
  U.S. Postal Service
• Lisa Wolfisch
  Department of Commerce
• Brig. Gen. Kevin Wooton
  U.S. Air Force
• Pamela Wright
  National Archives and Records Administration