Sigaba forms fed advisory board

Sigaba Corp., a provider of secure e-mail solutions, announced that a pair of former federal-level chief information officers and other industry heavyweights have agreed to be founding members of its federal advisory board.

The board is set up to aid the adoption of Sigaba's secure e-mail products in government agencies by providing policy, product enhancement, and business development guidance to the company's federal operations, said Robert Cook, chief executive officer and chairman of the company.

Tom Hewitt, founder and CEO of Global Governments, Inc., is chairman of Sigaba's federal board and a member of the company's overall board of directors. Hewitt, who was co-founder and president of Federal Sources, Inc., has more than 30 years of public-sector business development experience. Joining Hewitt on the board are two former federal-level CIOs: Roger Baker and Alan Balutis. Baker, formerly CIO at the Commerce Department, is now executive vice president and manager of the network and telecommunications business group at CACI International, Inc.

Balutis is currently executive director and chief operating officer for the Federation of Government Information Processing Councils and its Industry Advisory Council. Before joining that nonprofit organization, Balutis was director of the Advanced Technology Program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and a deputy chief information officer at the Commerce Department.

The other members of the Sigaba federal advisory board are:

* Lloyd Griffiths, dean of the School of Information Technology and Engineering at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

* Ed Hart, a former National Security Agency official and current president of an information technology consulting firm serving government, high technology companies, venture capital firms, and Fortune 100 clients.

* Lynn McNulty, president of McNulty and Associates, which provides information security and program management consulting services to private and public sector clients.

Sigaba's Cook said that in the U.S. economy the government market is "the most difficult to navigate, but federal and state government agencies stand to gain the most from the company's enterprise e-mail security products." And that, Cook said, is why "we have recruited six of the top minds in government IT to serve on our federal advisory board. The value of their insight and guidance moving forward will be immeasurable."