The chapter's 20th Annual Army IT Day kicked off 2021 with this year's theme of Enterprise to the Edge: Cloud and Data Enabling MDO was held virtually in January. Both days offered a variety of Army Senior Leadership as well as a variety of panelists from U.S. Defense Department, industry and academia that provided insight and opportunity for industry.
Steven Buck, chapter event chairperson, kicked off the two-day event with an introduction to Maj. Gen. Maria Barrett, USA, commanding general, U.S. Army Network Technology Command (NETCOM), as the first day morning keynote speaker. Gen. Barrett provided her perspective on mission success for NETCOM and challenges ahead to support the warfighter. Following Gen. Barrett's presentation was a panel discussion from the Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C5ISR) with Maj. Gen. Peter Gallagher, USA, Brig. Gen. Robert Collins, USA, and Michael Monteleone, Senior Executive Servoce . Lt. Gen. John Morrison, USA, deputy chief of staff, G-6, was the afternoon keynote speaker, and he provided a lengthy interaction with industry in answering over 25 questions to help industry with the G-6 mission. The afternoon also featured a Program Executive Office (PEO) Soldier panel and closing speaker Rebecca Weirick, deputy assistant secretary of the Army (Procurement).
Day two kicked off with Buck introducing Raj Iyer, new chief information officer for technology reform, Office of the Secretary of the Army. This was Iyer's first public address since he ascended to the position in 2020. Iyer provided industry his new vision and plan for the office with a recommendation for industry to "have a soldier-first focus for solutions." Following Iyer was a panel discussion about Army Data Environments with Robin Swan, director, Office of Business Transformation; Ross Guckert, PEO-Enterprise Information Systems; Dovarious L. Peoples, director, Corporate Information, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; and David Markowitz, chief data officer, U.S. Army chief information officer. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) then followed with a panel hosted by Maj. Gen. Garrett Yee, USA, assistant to the director of DISA; Gen. Barrett; and CW5 Taylor Wells Sr., technical advisor, DISA. The program continued with an Electronic Warfare Panel discussion that qualified as a continuing education event with Col. Laurie Buckhout, USA (Ret.); Todd Boudreau, deputy commandant, Army Cyber School; George Lewis, CACI, and CW3 James Gill, USA. Closing out the two-day event was Army Installations of the Future update panel and presentation.
In all, over 550 people registered for this event, and the chapter raised funds and awareness for the chapter's STEM and scholarship programs for continuing the education of students in Northern Virginia. Lloyd McCoy, current chapter president, remarked on the day, "In these times, we are looking for ways to connect, and the chapter membership and government have responded. We are grateful to our sponsors, attendees and panelists for their time and commitment to the chapter and to the government's mission success to start 2021." |
