DISA names spectrum office director

The Defense Information Systems Agency has hired Paige Atkins to be director of its new Defense Spectrum Organization (DSO). Atkins currently serves as director of advanced network systems at Cisco Systems and will move to DISA after Labor Day.

Atkins worked at the Defense Department’s Joint Spectrum Center as chief of the Aerospace Systems Division from 1988 to 1997.

DISA said she will oversee completion of the merging of DOD spectrum offices, which were consolidated under DSO earlier this year. The organization will serve as a center for excellence in electromagnetic spectrum analysis, planning and support, DISA said.

Earlier this year, DISA Director Lt. Gen. Charles Croom said he viewed spectrum management as essential to helping jam the radio-controlled mechanisms that insurgents use to detonate improvised explosive devices in Iraq, without interfering with the radio systems American troops use.

DOD’s spectrum management offices have been major participants in U.S. delegations to the World Radiocommunication Conferences held every two to three years by the International Telecommunication Union to allocate spectrum on an international basis. A DISA spokesman said he assumed Atkins would play a role in the 2007 conference.

Atkins received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and a master’s degree in engineering administration from George Washington University.