Army Lt. Gen. Carroll Pollett transferred directorship of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronnie Hawkins, Jr., during a ceremony at the agency’s Fort Meade headquarters on Jan. 11.
Pollett has served as DISA director since December 2008 and retired immediately following the ceremony, having served in the Department of Defense (DoD) for more than 37 years.
According to a statement provided by DISA, the agency accomplished numerous operational and logistical milestones under Pollett’s leadership, including supporting critical defense operations in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, responding to natural disasters in Haiti and Japan, and providing communications to DoD warfighters around the world.
Pollett was also recognized for leading the agency’s partnership with the U.S. Army to develop and implement enterprise services and for overseeing consolidation of several DISA headquarters locations from the Northern Virginia area to the new campus on Fort Meade.
“Every part of DISA has an essential role in the accomplishments and support we have provided the warfighters over the past three years,” Pollett said. “Our partners throughout the department, elsewhere in the government — foreign and domestic — and in industry have had critical roles as well. I want to thank them for their continued service to their country and for the hard work they do every day.”
Hawkins returns to DISA from Washington, D.C., where he was the Deputy Director Command, Control, Communications and Computer Systems (C4), Joint Staff, the Pentagon. He previously served as vice director of DISA from September 2009 to July 2011.
DISA’s Global Impact
During the change of directorship ceremony, DoD Chief Information Officer Teresa Takai credited Pollett with transforming the DoD’s defense enterprise computing centers and adding cloud computing capabilities.
“This is going to be an essential component as we move forward to meet the challenges of the DoD in the future,” Takai said, noting that DISA was able to restore critical circuits in the Pacific Rim within 24 hours of Japan’s 2011 earthquake and ensuing tsunami, and restored 100% of the area’s bandwidth in only six days.
“Under Gen. Pollett’s command, DISA has impacted the entire globe,” she said. “Fortunately, [he] is leaving DISA at the top of its game and in very capable hands.”
According to Takai, Hawkins’s accomplishments include building the Air Force’s first Network Operations and Security Center at Langley Air Force Base, which became a template for the rest of the Air Force.
“I am honored to assume the directorship … and to continue our critical support to joint warfighters, national level leadership, and mission and coalition partners, providing joint and combined warfighting information technology capabilities,” Hawkins said.
Growing Pains
Hawkins begins his tenure during a time when the cyber community is experiencing growing pains.
Chief among the topics being discussed at length and in depth by cyber planners, warriors and defenders are questions of cloud computing and mobility. Cyber strategists ultimately envision an operating cyber environment that allows not only seamless wireless transportability for secure devices, but also the introduction of personal computing and communications devices with no adverse security risks.
Hawkins said he expects to deal with the advancement of some of these issues during his tenure.
“I would hope there would be some changes by the time I hand over directorship,” Hawkins said. “I mean that from the positive. The men and women within DISA are constantly looking at the technology … but more importantly, looking at effectiveness and efficiency. We will do both of those things in tandem as we look at mobile computing, both in the cloud and where we go into the future.”
New technology will play a large role in that effort.
“We’re not going to be producing the technology, but we will exploit the technology, definitely,” Hawkins said. “We’ve got to look at processes and procedures and work those together.”
That may be a tall order in light of the Obama administration’s call for leaner defense budgets and the refocusing of defense spending in the coming decade, but Hawkins feels up to the task.
“There’s no doubt that everybody is looked at from a fiscal perspective, and we will be no different,” he said. “The important piece is we’ve got to look at the mission effectiveness and not lose mission effectiveness while we do it.”
Overall, Hawkins said, he’s excited to be back at DISA again. “I never wanted to leave to begin with. So, this is a good thing.”
