During its 2024 Annual Meeting and Exposition, the Association of the U.S. Army presented for the third year its National Partner awards, recognizing organizations that provide outstanding support to the association.

“AUSA’s extensive network of National Partners is critical to the success of our mission to educate, inform and connect America with her Army,” said retired Brig. Gen. Jack Haley, AUSA’s vice president for Membership and Meetings. “They truly are partners in our collective national defense, and the National Partner awards are just one small way AUSA can recognize the importance of this program, the new and innovative technology our industry partners provide and their impact on the Army and our soldiers.”

AUSA National Partners are large and small businesses, nonprofit organizations, educational institutions and professional organizations interested in personalized engagement with the Army at the local and national levels. The association currently has 648 National Partners.

The National Partner awards are presented across five categories.

In the “Best in Show” category, based on the overall design, presentation and creativity of the exhibit experience, the top honor went to BlueHalo, which specializes in cutting-edge solutions and technologies for space and ground systems.

Shift5’s GPS Integrity Module won the award for “Best New Product/Service,” and HII Mission Technologies took the win in the “Top Participation (Non-Exhibitor)” category.

Shift5, created by the founding members of Army Cyber Command, is a cybersecurity company that provides hardware and software solutions to defense operational technology platforms, while HII Mission Technologies is global, all-domain defense provider that delivers ships and technologies that safeguard the seas, sky, land, space and cyber.

Govini, a defense software company, won the “Rising Star” award for new National Partner participation.

Finally, the award for “Top National Partner Feature,” recognizing the most activity on AUSA’s National Partner of the Month web profile, went to ServiceNow, which helps organizations put artificial intelligence to work for people.

The National Partner awards were created after AUSA’s 2020 Annual Meeting, which was conducted virtually because of restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

That year was “a rough year for many organizations, including our industry partners,” said Lynette Nichols, AUSA’s deputy director of Industry Development. “In 2021, AUSA returned to an in-person Annual Meeting, and our National Partners rallied behind us to put on a great show. I wanted to create a way to show them our appreciation of their work and salute their amazing contributions to AUSA.”