Federal 100: Daniel Risacher

Daniel Risacher
Associate Director, Enterprise Services and Integration
Defense Department

Risacher is known as the expert on open-source software. He brought a passionate belief in its mission-critical importance to a highly skeptical audience at the Defense Department and meticulously researched the confusing laws, regulations and policies on the subject. The result was a detailed memo that shows how existing rules applied to using open-source software.

His approach to showing a technology’s holistic impact on DOD activities has become a template for introducing new policy initiatives at the department.

“Many people in the DOD consider that [memo] the watershed event” that opened the doors for open-source software, said John Shea, director of enterprise services and integration at DOD. “Dan brought the initial awareness of [open-source software], then he championed it and did all of the heavy lifting.”

Read more about the 2010 Federal 100 award winners.