As Army Cyber Command (ARCYBER) Deputy to the Commanding General Ronald Pontius retires, hundreds of family members, friends and colleagues gathered in person and virtually to join in a ceremony saluting his 44 years of dedicated service to the U.S. Army and ARCYBER.
That four-decade-plus career included 27 years as an Army Signal Corps officer and 17 years as a federal civilian, the last eight-plus years with ARCYBER as a member of the federal Senior Executive Service. In a recent interview with Signal Magazine, he called those ARCYBER years the high point of his service. During his tenure with the command, he planned, coordinated, integrated, synchronized and supervised efforts supporting full-spectrum cyberspace operations; served as a senior advisor providing authoritative expertise on all aspects of Army Cyber operations, force structure and organizational concepts; and oversaw strategic planning and resourcing to enable Army cyber capabilities.
Pontius began his Army service when he attended Carnegie-Mellon University on an ROTC scholarship. In his remarks at his retirement ceremony, he said that earned him a four-year active-duty Army obligation, but he obviously stayed much longer. He didn't want to recount all the organizations he served with in his long career that followed, but he would say that he has been fortunate to have served with "so many great people in so many places helping organizations achieve meaningful results."
He did highlight three people he credited with shaping him as a person and a leader.
He said his father, Robert Pontius, was a man of few words who spoke with actions and deeds. He said the elder Pontius grew up as a poor farmer during the Great Depression, volunteered as a medic and ambulance driver during World War II, and then returned home to raise four children on a tenant farm, raising cattle in western Pennsylvania.
“My father taught me to embrace hard work and to be accountable for your actions - - whatever you did or did not do,” he said.
The senior non-commissioned officer for his ROTC unit at Carnegie-Mellon, Sgt. Maj. Tyrone Adderly, earned the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions in an attempt to rescue U.S. prisoners from a North Vietnamese camp in 1970.
“From Sgt. Maj. Adderly I learned inspirational leadership, as he had an amazing way of positively influencing people,” Pontius said.
And 1st Sgt. T.J. Smith was the detachment first sergeant during Pontius’s first Army assignment in Germany. Smith, drafted for the Korean conflict (which ended while he was still in initial Army training) earned a commission from sergeant to second lieutenant in Vietnam, but later reverted to sergeant during a reduction in force. Although Smith was more than twice his age, Pontius said, it took months for him to keep up with the first sergeant on the unit’s weekly 5-mile runs. Later he and Smith convinced leadership to let their detachment conduct airborne training and did it so well they were tasked us to do it again a year later, with German federal police participating alongside U.S. Soldiers.
“First Sergeant Smith taught me how to be an officer and how to lead Soldiers,” he said.
In her remarks at the ceremony ARCYBER Commanding General Lt. Gen. Maria B. Barrett said Pontius’s legacy will be about the lives he has touched.
“To a person, they always say he cares about people,” Barrett said. “He teaches everyone – even me – through his example.”
“His battle call has always been, ‘Let’s keep the synchronization and the collaboration going,” she added. “He is a leader for everyone to follow.”
Pontius told Signal Magazine he will be “retiring retiring” rather than taking a new position elsewhere, and that he is satisfied in knowing that he is “leaving Army Cyber Command in the incredibly capable hands of the leaders of the workforce that we have today.”
At his ceremony he added that he has much to be grateful for.
“As I thought about my remarks this afternoon,” he said, “I drew upon something I learned from watching (Gen. Paul Nakasone, former ARCYBER commander and commander of U.S. Cyber Command, Director of the National Security Agency, and Chief of the Central Security Service): have an overarching theme and make three points. Not two; not four; always three. So, my theme today is gratitude. Gratitude to my wife and family. Gratitude to the nation. And finally, gratitude to Army Cyber Command.”
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ABOUT US: United States Army Cyber Command directs and conducts integrated electronic warfare, information and cyberspace operations as authorized, or directed, to ensure freedom of action in and through cyberspace and the information environment, and to deny the same to our adversaries.
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Interested in the challenge of joining the Army Cyber team? Check out military and civilian cyber career and employment opportunities by clicking on the "Careers" tab at www.arcyber.army.mil
Members of the Army Reserve and Army National Guard in the Signal, Cyber, Military Intelligence, Information Operations, Electronic Warfare, Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations fields interested in tours with Army Cyber Command can get more information at https://www.arcyber.army.mil/Careers/Reserve-Component-Tours-with-Army-Cyber/
The Army Cyber Direct Commissioning Program allows qualified service members and civilians with cyber-related qualifications and/or experience to join the Army’s Cyber Corps with a direct appointment as a commissioned officer? To learn more, check out our fact sheet at https://go.usa.gov/xJwXx
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