Seven Army civilians were honored at a Dec. 13 leadership summit in Washington, D.C., for their accomplishments in the 2018 Presidential Rank Awards.

Three Army civilians are Distinguished Executive Recipients. They are:

• Edward Belk, who led a partnership with Harvard University to produce a national water infrastructure report and developed an alternative infrastructure financing program that increased public-private partnerships, reduced project delivery time by over 50 percent and decreased the federal share of costs by $400 million. He also developed a 20-year national marine transportation lock and dam capital investment strategy.
• Daniel Bradford, who led the Army’s move to a joint network design with the Defense Information Systems Agency and Office of the Secretary of Defense as well as toward a global service contract model to conduct enterprise security and management, performing the acquisition and engineering tasks in one-twelfth the usual time and saving over $50 million annually. He also provided the first-ever real-time behavioral defensive cyber capability and the first-ever commercially managed service for a contractor-owned and -operated data center, allowing the Army to meet Office of Management and Budget metrics after six years.
• Douglas Lamont, who guided the Army’s civil works through the presidential transition and also led development of the past three budget and allocation of funds. He also played a key role in shaping and securing supplemental appropriations to address damage caused by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria.

One Army civilian is a Distinguished Professional Recipient.

He is Mark Tischler, who has made major advances in aircraft flight control technology, working with private-sector and international partners and creating novel methods of technology transfer to the private sector. This includes making the operational use of unmanned aircraft and creating designs for the next generation of high-speed rotorcraft to replace the aging military fleet.

Three Army civilians are Meritorious Executive Recipients. They are:

• Michael Hutchison, who has overseen efforts to streamline the acquisition process, reduce excess equipment on hand and better integrate contracting groups that are housed in a sister command, generating $50.4 million of savings in 2017 and reducing on-hand equipment stores by 70 percent. He also oversaw a change to the acquisition strategy for the National Training Center, which eliminated $22 million in costs and a 12-month procurement timeline.
• Christopher Lowman, who established relationships that resulted in a series of comprehensive reviews that produced $315 million in operational tempo cost avoidance over five years. He also performed analysis in support of right-sizing the number of special tools bought in support of tactical wheel vehicles, which will save $1.1 billion over 10 years, and created the first Army Organic Industrial Base Strategic Plan for depots and arsenals. Additionally, he improved property accountability within the acquisitions community and transitioned all major organizations to one system of record.
• David Thiede, whose efficient management of resources has allowed the Army to obligate tens of millions of uncommitted funds on top priority efforts, ended a nine-month delay in standing up a joint cyber center, and consolidate contracts to save over $12 million annually. All this was accomplished despite a hiring freeze and 50 percent manning of his organization in 2017.