The DorobekINSIDER is honored to be honored – Plus the 7 Stories

On GovLoop Insights’ DorobekINSIDER:

• One of the biggest procurement programs underway is happening at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). They are using strategic sourcing to save time, resources and open up the contract to new prospects. So how is it going? We talk to NOAA’s Chief Acquisition Officer.

You can find all of our programs online: DorobekINSIDER.com and GovLoop Insights at http://insights.govloop.com.

But up front: The DorobekINSIDER is honored to be honored

And the winner is… well, us… and we didn’t even know we were up for consideration.

AFFIRM, the Association of Federal Information Resource Managers, recently announced their annual AFFIRM leadership awards… and there were many people who deserved recognition… and somehow I’m on the list.

I’m intensely honored. I have had the pleasure of working with AFFIRM a number of times this year — programs ranging from the role of the CIO in government to the challenges with complex IT projects. As always, my goal is six words: Help government do its job better. And I think that has been AFFIRM’s goal, too.

The full list of winners is below. Thanks again.

Executive Leadership Award in Information Resources Management (Civilian)

Darren Ash, Deputy Executive Director for Corporate Management & Chief Information Officer, Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Executive Leadership Award in Information Resources Management (Defense)

Michael Krieger, Deputy Chief Information Officer, Army G-6, United States Army

Executive Leadership Award in Information Resources Management (Intelligence)

• Kshemendra Paul, Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment, Office of the Director of National Intelligence

• Michael Howell, Deputy Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment, Office of the Director of National Intelligence

• Michael Kennedy, Architecture & Interoperability Executive for the Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment, Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Executive Leadership Award in Government-wide Records Management

Paul Wester, Chief Records Officer for the United States Government, National Archives and Records Administration

Executive Leadership Award for Industry

Teresa Bozzelli, President, Sapient Government Services

Congressional Leadership Award

• Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS), Congress of the United States

• Senator Tom Udall (D-NM), Congress of the United States
  

Leadership Award in Acquisition and Procurement

Dan Milano, Acting Director, Office of Information Technology, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

Leadership Award in Cyber Security

Mark Orndorff, Program Executive Officer for Mission Assurance and NetOps and Chief Information Assurance Executive, DISA

Leadership Award in Enterprise IT Business Management

Carlene C. Ileto, Executive Director, Enterprise Business Management Office, Department of Homeland Security

Leadership Award for Innovative Applications

Brian Abrahamson, Chief Information Officer, Pacific Northwest National Lab

Leadership Award in IT Transformation

Sylvia Burns, Acting Chief Information Officer, Department of the Interior

Leadership Award in the Management of Information Technology

Dr. Alissa Johnson, Deputy Chief Information Officer, Executive Office of the President

Leadership Award in Service Excellence

Dawn Leaf, Deputy Chief Information Officer, Department of Labor

Leadership Award for Service to the Citizen

Steven Schliesman, Director, Benefits Product Division, Department of Veterans Affairs

Leadership Award for Service to the Country

Jenny Stack and Monica Grusche, COR/COTR WebOPSS IT Program Manager and WebOPSS Program Manager, Federal Aviation Administration

Leadership Award in Service to the Government IT Community

Kirit Amin, Deputy Chief Information Officer and Chief Technology Officer, Department of Commerce

Leadership Award in Small Business (Individual)

Jackie Robinson-Burnette, Associate Director, Office of Small Business Programs, Army Corps of Engineers

Leadership Award in Small Business (Team)

Mariana Pardo, Director, and the SBA HUBZone Program Team, Small Business Administration

Career Leadership Award

David L. McClure, Associate Administrator for Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, General Services Administration

President’s Award for Media

Francis Rose, Host, In Depth with Francis Rose, Federal News Radio 1500 AM

President’s Award for Media

Christopher J. Dorobek, Founder, Editor and Publisher, GovLoop’s DorobekINSIDER

Special Executive Recognition for CIO-CFO Community Leadership

Relmond Van Daniker, DBA CPA, Executive Director, Association of Government Accountants

The SEVEN stories that impact your life

1. USA Today: Federal agents knock down Zeus Botnet, CryptoLocker- “The United States seized a global network of computer servers known as Gameover Zeus Botnet used by cybercriminals to spread malware viruses and steal millions of dollars from businesses and consumers, the Justice Department announced Monday.”

2. Defense News: Turkey Wants DoD Ombudsman To Facilitate Tech Transfer With US- “Turkey wants the US Defense Department to appoint a special ombudsman who could oversee technology transfer between Washington and Ankara, a senior Turkish defense official said Monday.”

3. Federal News Radio: NGA head Letitia Long to retire; Robert Cardillo named to lead GEOINT agency- “The director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Letitia Long, announced she’s retiring after 35 years of government service, the last four of which were spent leading NGA. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced Monday he has selected Robert Cardillo, currently deputy director of national intelligence for intelligence integration, to succeed Long at the agency responsible for collecting and creating geospatial intelligence, or GEOINT.”

4. NExtgov: Feds Free Thousands of Computers from Hacker-“The United States and other governments have cracked down on the group behind two of the world’s worst computer viruses, officials announced Monday. Both schemes—the “Gameover Zeus Botnet” and the “Cryptolocker” virus—infected hundreds of thousands of computers and stole millions of dollars from victims around the world, the officials said.”

5. FCW: FDA launches data platform- “The Food and Drug Administration is opening up information on adverse drug events for developers who want to build applications using the data. It’s a big step in a larger effort, dubbed openFDA, to create an open-source platform for information on the medications and devices the agency regulates.”

6. Federal News Radio: 77,000 foreign banks to share tax info with IRS- “It will soon get a lot harder to use overseas accounts to hide income and assets from the Internal Revenue Service. More than 77,000 foreign banks, investment funds and other financial institutions have agreed to share information about U.S. account holders with the IRS as part of a crackdown on offshore tax evasion, the Treasury Department announced Monday.”

7. Nextgov: FCC may Redefine What it Means to Have ‘Broadband’ Internet- “The Federal Communications Commission is all up in your interwebs lately. First, they’re debating net neutrality, then they considered making broadband Internet a public utility, after that they’re allowing paid prioritization, and now they’re looking to redefine what “broadband” actually means.

DorobekINSIDER water-cooler fodder… yes, we’re trying to help you make your water-cooler time better too…

• The Search for Computers That Can Spot Their Own Security Flaws [The New York Times]: If only computers were smart enough to defend themselves against malevolent hackers. Such is the premise of an ambitious two-year contest with a $2 million first prize, posed to the world’s computer programmers by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known by the acronym Darpa. It is the blue-sky, big-think organization within the Defense Department that created a precursor of the Internet in the late 1960s and more recently held a contest that spurred development of self-driving cars, Kenneth Chang reports. Michael Walker, the DARPA cybersecurity program manager who is running the contest, imagines a future in which sensors on computer networks could detect intruders, identify the flaws that let them in, and automatically make the necessary repairs, all without a human computer expert lifting a finger. No such system exists today. The network security flaw called Heartbleed, for example, persisted for years in Web servers around the world before experts found it in April; hackers who knew about it could have used it to steal passwords and personal information. (Whether anyone did is unknown, but there were attacks after the bug was disclosed.) “Not a single automation tool has stepped forward and said it could find that flaw unassisted,” Mr. Walker said. With numerous flaws in complex software, large data thefts have become commonplace. The credit card numbers of millions of Target shoppers were stolen last year. Last month, eBay told its users to change their passwords after its servers were breached.