Col. Victor Eilenfield leads the Defense Department’s $1 billion electronic health records system program. The Army is introducing the long anticipated system, referred to as AHLTA, which stands for the Armed Forces Health Longitudinal Technology Application, worldwide.

Believed to be the largest single EHR system in the world, AHLTA will eventually manage the records of 9.2 million people.

Eilenfield’s efforts represent significant advances on a road that many observers hope will lead to a national health care network, said Col. Anthony O’Koren, a former deputy program manager and director of development for AHLTA.

Matthew Foosaner coordinated Sprint Nextel’s rapid provision of wireless service and land mobile radio to local police and fire departments in the Gulf Coast region after Hurricane Katrina hit.

At the Louisiana State Fairgrounds in Baton Rouge, Sprint Nextel employees created a village, which quickly became known as Sprint City. The company brought in Cell-on-Wheels trucks to expand cellular service in areas where Katrina had disabled cellular towers.

Tony D’Agata, vice president of Sprint Nextel’s federal government business, said Foosaner led by example, working in close coordination with local authorities. Foosaner is adept at “providing those around him with the attitude and commitment to excellence and teamwork so necessary to succeed in the fast-paced, high demand emergency response environment,” D’Agata said.

Dagne Fulcher wants to take some of the guesswork out of hiring. She collaborated with the CIO Council’s Information Technology Workforce and Human Capital Committee to help managers assess workforce capabilities and identify skill gaps, and she served as project manager of the council’s governmentwide IT Workforce Capability Assessment.

Ira Hobbs, the Treasury Department’s chief information officer and co-chairman of the IT Workforce and Human Capital Committee, said Fulcher possesses an unusual combination of technical expertise and knowledge of strategic workforce planning. “Fulcher has been instrumental in developing key automated tools that support this critical initiative,” Hobbs said.

Federal agencies will use those workforce assessment tools to advance the President’s Management Agenda by eliminating critical government deficits in project management, cybersecurity and enterprise architecture skills, Hobbs said.

You’d think that Adrian Gardner’s day job would keep him busy enough. Yet, he led a team of more than 200 federal and contractor employees who developed a technical and business strategy for awarding a departmentwide contract for information technology services.

That was in addition to his normal duties of directing the Energy Department’s cybersecurity management program for unclassified and national security information systems.

Tom Pyke, the department’s chief information officer, said he finds it difficult to focus on a single achievement. “He does so many things that it’s hard to just praise him for one thing.”

Michael Gardner converted 800 workstations for emergency use after receiving an emergency order from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

FEMA needed the workstations for several of its call centers after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. In two hours, Gardner developed written procedures for the conversion. He trained specialists at the Internal Revenue Service’s Atlanta call center, reviewed the conversion process and fixed problems.

Later, Gardner wrote instructions for returning the IRS workstations to their original use. “He often draws the most difficult problems because of his knack for always delivering,” said Jared Johnson, manager of Desktop Support Group A at the Atlanta office of the IRS’ Modernization and Information Technology Services.

During normal times, Charles Gephart has a demanding job maintaining information technology operations and infrastructure to ensure health care delivery to veterans and others.

But within a week after Hurricane Katrina took out communications along the Gulf Coast, Gephart orchestrated several clever workarounds. He established a secure Web site so that health care providers nationwide could access electronic records for evacuees from New Orleans and Biloxi, Miss. He worked with telecommunications carriers to restore service in other areas.

“There’s a lot going on in this, but believe me, it was happening very quickly,” said Dr. Robert Lynch, director of the Veterans Integrated Service Network, which provides services to the south central United States. “Charlie was the lead who oversaw restoring all of these.”

Rear Adm. Cecil Haney gave the Navy an affordable and time-saving way to collaborate across organizational and geographical boundaries by creating an enterprise knowledge management Web site for more than 150 commands and 10,000 users worldwide.

In addition to being chief knowledge officer, Haney is deputy chief of staff for plans, policies and requirements at the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Haney’s “forward thinking and proven ability to focus personnel and have them hone their collective skills to achieve a higher objective” is what led to his appointment as the fleet’s first chief knowledge officer, said Dave Wennergren, the Navy’s chief information officer.

Under Haney’s leadership, knowledge management grew from a simple fleet-sponsored project into a tool the entire Navy can use, Wennergren said.

The U.S. Agency for International Development has had a dispiriting record of its Federal Information Security Management Act report cards. In 2003, the agency received a C-minus, although that was better than the F it received in 2002.

But Philip Heneghan made FISMA and the risk-based approach it defines a top priority. He deployed new technologies in USAID offices in more than 70 countries and established new processes to meet FISMA requirements.

His engineering and process improvements “resulted in the highest IT security grade from Congress — [an A-plus] — for any federal organization” in fiscal 2004, said John Streufert, USAID’s acting chief information officer.

Dennis Heretick created a comprehensive security management program for the Justice Department.

By tracking performance metrics weekly, Justice is more nimble in responding to security incidents. Other federal agencies are now using the approach as a model.

In presentations to government and industry, Heretick promoted the use of automated tools for compliance with the President’s Management Agenda and the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002. He helped Justice raise its FISMA grade from an F in fiscal 2003 to a B-minus in fiscal 2004.

Heretick “made compliance feasible and relatively painless and significantly improved the security of Justice’s systems in the process,” said Alan Paller, research director at the SANS Institute.

Robert Holder, delivered the goods after Hurricane Katrina. He dispatched his staff to the Gulf Coast region with a recreational vehicle that served as a mobile office for EDS and its customer, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

With the areas’ hotels ravaged by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, several EDS staff members drove the RV from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to Baton Rouge, La., to ensure that ATF employees had special operations support during relief efforts.

Holder’s leadership makes emergency projects such as this one successful, said Kathy Howe, EDS communications manager.

Gen. William “Tom” Hobbins is a mastermind of the Air Force’s contemporary strategy for warfighting with networked weapons systems. Hobbins established the service’s first road map for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

That C4ISR strategy calls for a high-speed IP network that links air, space and ground networks so Air Force personnel can target and attack enemy forces more quickly.

“It enables time-sensitive targeting and collaboration to a degree of speed and precision never before seen in modern militaries,” said Lt. Gen. Michael Peterson, the Air Force’s new chief of warfighting integration and chief information officer.

The success of government information technology projects often depends on someone stepping forward and putting their own stamp on plans. For several major Army IT programs, that someone has been Col. Luwanda Jones.

Jones developed, staffed and published the Army’s IT Governance Memorandum, helped establish a process to ensure that Army IT programs comply with the 2005 Defense Authorization Act and oversaw the production of the Army’s portion of the Defense Department’s Business Transformation Plan.

“It all came out looking as spectacular as it did because of her,” said Dennis Lucey, vice president of TKC Integration Services. Her ability to bring everything together in an organized way has made Jones the Army’s go-to officer for similar IT and business modernization projects, he added.