The chapter recently welcomed Alfred Rivera, director for computing services, U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), as its guest speaker. Rivera is responsible for the operations and sustainment of DISA's 14 Systems Management centers and processing centers located worldwide. Prior to assuming this position in October 2003, Rivera was the DISA computing services chief technology officer. His combined experiences with the Army as a systems engineer, satellite engineer and senior systems engineer and his recent positions in DISA give him an educated and in-depth understanding of critical command and control systems supporting combatant commanders as well as mission critical logistics, financial, personnel readiness and medical health systems supporting the department's services and agencies. Rivera discussed DISA's Enterprise Services and Computing and Network Defense (Net Defense) initiatives. He explained how data services ride on the Global Information Grid and how the Global Contact Delivery System provides prepositioned data such as National Geospatial Intelligence Agency maps and weather. He discussed computing technology and the Defense Enterprise Computing Centers' evolutions. Rivera addressed how the consolidation and transformation of provisioning enterprise services and applications is a cost effective solution. He also stressed to the audience that network operations and net defense is required for all capabilities. The luncheon concluded with the chapter awarding Service Member of the Quarter to Sgt. Zachery Parr, USMC, Marine Forces Europe. |
