New director sworn in at Defense information agency
By
Bob Brewin
Spot had been empty since DISA's last director retired in June.
Army Lt. Gen. Carroll F. Pollett officially took command of the Defense Information Systems Agency on Wednesday during a ceremony at Fort Myer, Va.
The position had been vacant since June, when Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Croom retired and the Senate rejected the nomination of Navy Rear Adm. Elizabeth A. Hight to replace him.
Pollett -- nominated by President Bush in September -- also assumed the role of commander of the Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations, which defends Defense Department networks under the U.S. Strategic Command. He has experience with STRATCOM, as he was the command's chief of staff in Omaha, Neb., in his most recent assignment before taking DISA's top job.
A career signal officer, Pollett served as operations chief for DISA in 2003 and as commander of global operations with the agency's Global Information Grid Operations Directorate from August 2001 to February 2003. He also was commanding general of the Network Enterprise Technology Command's 9th Signal Command at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., and headed the Army's 5th Signal Command in Germany. Both of those posts are viewed as steppingstones to DISA's top job.
The new DISA chief is a master parachutist and a combat veteran of Operation Just Cause in Panama in 1989 and Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait and Iraq in 1990.
Hight, who led DISA on a temporary basis after Croom retired, will continue as its vice director. Her nomination to become the agency's permanent leader was blocked due to potential conflicts of interest with her husband, who is an executive for a systems integrator.