CIO Council honors three individuals, one team

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — The Defense Department began its Communities of Interest (COI) effort as a way to better share information among federal agencies. They have been successful in bringing together people from areas as diverse as Maritime Domain Awareness, Global Command and Control, and Blue Force Tracking to agree on standards and share best practices. And earlier this week, the CIO Council recognized DOD’s work in two ways. First, the Maritime Domain Awareness COI — made up of DOD, the Homeland Security and Transportation departments, and the Office of the Director for National Intelligence — received the council’s fourth annual team award at the 46th annual Interagency Resources Management Conference here. Then Michael Todd, DOD’s associate director for information management, received an individual award for his leadership in creating the department’s network-centric data strategy. “Michael directed the stand-up of innovated COIs to address information-sharing problems,” said Dave Wennergren, deputy DOD chief information officer and vice chairman of the CIO Council. COIs “develop capabilities to expose data as a consumable, Web-enabled service to authorized and unanticipated users using community-based agreements defining common data-sharing vocabulary and services.” The council also recognized two other individuals: the General Services Administration’s Mike Butler and Ira Grossman, chief architect for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. “The awards recognize teams and individuals for their dedication and commitment to advancing and substantially improving the way the government does business,” Wennergren said. The council honored Butler for his work in helping the government meet the initial Homeland Security Presidential Directive-12 deadline in October 2006, and Grossman for his leadership in developing the Chief Architects Forum. “Mike displayed a unique facility for translating policy into execution by turning the HSPD-12 standards and guidelines into tangible and measurable implementation plans,” Wennergren said. Grossman tirelessly promoted the forum that has led to agency ownership and support for the federal enterprise architecture, Wennergren said.