Multiple Agencies Work to secure Presidential Communications

WASHINGTON -- Everyone has seen the movies: the president boards Air Force One or enters the Situation Room in the White House or other location, and begins directing the actions of the armed forces and other agencies to combat the problem du jour.

While that may be mostly Hollywood, in point of fact, some dedicated and razor-sharp military and civilian technicians do have the job of ensuring that National Command Authority can be transmitted, in the literal and figurative sense, to action-takers around the globe.

The joint team which answers the call to modernize, unify and secure the Presidential Information Technology (IT) infrastructure is formally known as the 18A (for the 18 acres that make up the White House compound) Tiger Team, composed of active-duty Air Force and Army, DOD Civilians, Air National Guard Airmen, and contractors across 13 units, 11 states and the District of Columbia.

The 18A Tiger Team mission is to provide the Presidential Information Technology Community (PITC) with a modernized IT infrastructure that will support information services to the president, vice president, national security staff, United States Secret Service and others, ensuring the ability of each to communicate anywhere, anytime, and by any means to anyone in the world.

A key part of the Tiger Team group comes from the Information Systems Engineering Command (ISEC), and other subordinate units of the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM).

"ISEC is providing telecommunications, wireless and systems engineering support," said Maj. Eric Stangle, project team lead for ISEC and Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems. "Internally we are subdivided into four joint engineering teams with an ISEC engineer leading each team. Working with them are engineers as well as installation technicians from the U.S. Air Force and [CECOM's] Tobyhanna Army Depot. It is truly a joint effort, and each agency is vital to the success of the project."

Illustrating the numerous agencies that contribute to the project's success, just within CECOM, Tobyhanna provides electrical engineering support, installation services and logistical support, and the Integrated Logistics Support Center (ILSC) provides the logistics management expertise that enables internal management of the supply chain.

Additionally, the 406th Army Field Support Brigade's Logistics Readiness Center at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, furnishes the warehouse space and multiple other services that enable the team to sustain the logistical needs of the project.

"Of the many challenges, perhaps the most constant is that the end users who occupy these offices directly support the president and vice president of the United States on a daily basis, and of course the president and vice president themselves," Stangle said. "There can be absolutely no service interruption to the end users as we work to modernize the IT infrastructure and assist in providing new or expanded IT capabilities. To achieve this takes extremely close coordination within the project team and with all stakeholders across the White House campus, as well as detailed contingency planning to ensure back-up solutions can be immediately implemented."

Having to remain vigilant of the historical heritage of their workplace adds to the technical challenges faced in unifying the IT infrastructure on the White House grounds.

"For example, moving a 250-year-old bookshelf to install a new conduit or work area outlet is not a simple matter," Stangle said. "We work very closely with the General Services Administration preservationists and other historians to ensure our designs and installation strategy coincide with maintaining the unique heritage of the facilities. Our teams take extreme care not to disturb historical artifacts or the historical façade of these buildings."

The project team not only engineers the solution, but implements and installs those solutions using only government resources.

"It is an amazing and rewarding experience to be able to engineer a solution, procure the necessary items, implement that solution and have users in the White House using that solution within days, not months or years," said Jeremy Mohr, lead ISEC engineer for the 18A Team. "The team understands the criticality of our mission and is proud to be given the opportunity to support the president and his staff."

The 18A IT Modernization Project delivers critical support to the president's IT vision and comprehensive approach -- survey, design, procure and install -- to provide presidential quality IT across the enterprise.

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The U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM), headquartered at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, is a major subordinate command of U.S. Army Materiel Command. CECOM provides, integrates and sustains Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) readiness to enable unified land operations.