Rising Star: Kimberly Allred

Kimberly Rose Allred

Age: 36

Organization: Office of eDiplomacy, State Department

Title: Program Analyst

Nominated for: Overseeing development of key knowledge management platforms, including Communities@State, which has 70 communities of practice, and Corridor, a professional networking platform that has nearly 10,000 users.

First IT mentor: Jeff Griener, former IT director at Clyde Companies. He hired me right after I arrived home from a nine-month deployment with the U.S. Marine Corps and quietly encouraged me to grow in whatever areas I expressed interest in.

What you're most proud of accomplishing: Every project I have accomplished in my career has enabled me to learn, grow and expand my knowledge in the IT field.

Career highlight: Being selected for a civil service position in the Office of eDiplomacy.

Your advice for a government IT wannabe: Do not worry about what others think, keep your ideas fresh, and never hesitate to throw them out there for consideration.

What you enjoy most about working in government IT: The work I do has the potential to benefit people around the world. That thought keeps me motivated and always considering innovative ways to ensure that the applications I have a hand in developing are useful and simple for the end user.

Favorite job-related bookmarks/apps: Dropbox, Zite, Any.DO

Meet the rest of the 2012 Rising Star winners.