Kelley nominated for director

Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen last week ended more than a month of speculation by nominating Army Maj. Gen. David J. Kelley as the new director of the Defense Information Systems Agency.

If confirmed by Congress Kelley presently DISA's vice director will replace Lt. Gen. Albert Edmonds who retired last month.

Kelley took DISA's No. 2 slot in June 1995. He was reported to be the front-runner for the job since Edmonds announced his retirement earlier this spring. However in recent weeks many Pentagon sources had put him neck and neck for the position with Rear Adm. John Gauss current director of DISA's Joint Interoperability Engineering Organization.

Speculation was fueled two weeks ago by Gauss' promotion to Rear Admiral "upper half " which he would need to take the top DISA post. However Kelley appears to have earned endorsements from Edmonds as well as Emmett Paige Jr. the recently departed assistant secretary of Defense for command control communications and intelligence.

His previous assignments include vice director for command control communications and computers in the Office of the Joint Staff and director of systems management in the Office of the Director of Information Systems for C4 for the secretary of the Army.