Four personnel under Program Executive Office Intelligence, Electronic Warfare & Sensors (PEO IEW&S) are among the 10 recently selected Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C5ISR) awardees of 2023.
Maj. Dominic Adams, Bharat Patel, Justine Ruggio, and Alison Cheung represent different areas of the PEO IEW&S team and were acknowledged for their professionalism and unwavering commitment to the mission, which made them this year’s nominees. Through their varied achievements, they represent the best of what the PEO IEW&S organization stands for.
Program Executive Officer, Brig. Gen. Ed Barker, believes this year’s awardees made a tremendous impact and are well deserving. “I’m very proud every year of our participation in the C5ISR award and the quality personnel that get nominated from our organization. The unwavering support they afforded to the Army mission ensured that programs of record and quick reaction capabilities utilized by Soldiers throughout the world, empower our forces with the ability to engage in all facets of multi-domain operations...”
Adams, Assistant Product Manager, selflessly volunteered and was selected to serve as the PEO IEW&S’ senior deployed military representative supporting Operations Inherent Resolve and Spartan Shield. While deployed to Camp Arifa, Kuwait, he managed the largest deployed PEO footprint within the Army, representing eight PM offices that comprised of more than 10,000 pieces of equipment. In addition, Adams oversaw the daily reporting of nearly 400 deployed contractors and Department of the Army Civilians. Through his efforts, Adams was able to greatly enhance the ability for the United States Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology to provide and sustain combat multiplying equipment to Soldiers across the U.S. Central Command and U.S. Africa Command areas of responsibility.
Through his leadership, Adams led his team to complete the obsolescence field modification effort on the Enhanced Medium Altitude, Reconnaissance and Surveillance System (EMARSS)-Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) (EMARSS-S) ahead of the scheduled completion date. The field modification effort resolved several critical obsolescence issues, improved cabin ergonomics, and improved hardware commonality between the EMARSS-S aircraft and the other EMARSS variants (Multiple Intelligence, Vehicle and Dismount Exploitation Radar, and Geospatial Intelligence). The aircraft was deployed immediately following the completion of this modification to support missions outside the continental United States.
During the award period, Patel, engineer, and Linchpin Product Lead was responsible for conceptualizing and initiating Project Linchpin, one of the first programs across the DoD to identify a disciplined and innovative approach to the training and deployment of Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning technologies.
His technical acumen and inspirational leadership are defining how the Army trains and delivers artificial intelligence capabilities needed to maintain and grow technological advantage over adversaries. He helped shape the model for how the entire Army plans to acquire and deliver these capabilities in the future.
Patel led his team in identifying the concept for Project Linchpin, maturing it through numerous iterations of market research, cross-Army, service and DoD agency collaboration, industry engagements, and senior leader engagements, and carried it across the line to become an official program of record with the Army Acquisition Executive’s (AAE) approval of Project Linchpin to enter the Software Acquisition Pathway. In one year from the first touchpoint on the concept with the AAE, Project Linchpin went from concept to a formal acquisition program.
As Strategic Communications Director, Ruggio leads a multi-disciplined team responsible with supporting strategic communications initiatives for the Program Executive Officer, two Senior Executive Service members and eight project managers. She led the execution of the PEOs expansion of the organization’s public affairs programs, congressional activities, senior leader engagements, video production and industry affairs.
Ruggio’s contributions in branding, communications leadership and workforce development showcased a proactive and innovative approach. Her leadership and expertise have not only enhanced PEO IEW&S and C5ISR visibility, but also contributed to a positive and inclusive culture aligning to the PEO’s overall organizational goals.
Cheung, Senior Test and Evaluation Officer, spearheaded the development of the Dismounted Assured Position, Navigation, and Timing System (DAPS) test approach, which included the development of new instrumentation to leverage ground truth information from various factors like location, elevation, and system transmit range. The test instrumentation was configured into a portable test kit that data collectors would wear while following the dismounted Soldier conducting operationally relevant mission tasks while wearing the DAPS in an operationally realistic configuration. The separation of the DAPS and test equipment allowed the soldier to provide actionable system feedback while still being able to collect detailed technical data to analyze the system performance.
Using Agile principles in the methodology of Test-Fix-Test implementation, Cheung quickly and iteratively addressed test findings. She captured these findings using cloud-based Agile software tools, thereby generating a repository of system issues. This cloud-based software produced Trouble Incident Report-related metrics which could be shared more easily with stakeholders. As a direct result of her performance, the product completed a successful Initial Operational Test and Evaluation in 1QFY24.
As a group, these four are indicative of the quality workforce within PEO IEW&S which is a good indicator that next year a new group will be ready to take their place and highlight another year’s success.
Social Sharing