Eagle awards go to Baird, Brinkley
At the star-studded Federal 100 gala Monday, FCW Media Group gave Eagle awards to Zoe Baird, president of the Markle Foundation, and Paul Brinkley, the Defense Department's undersecretary of defense for business transformation.
The Eagle awards are the highest accolades among FCW's Federal 100 awards. They are given to two Federal 100 winners ? one from government and one from industry ? who made extraordinary contributions within the information technology community.
After Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Baird led a collaborative effort to quickly organize KatrinaHealth.org, a nationwide online service that lets health professionals access electronic health records of people displaced by the hurricane.
In her acceptance speech, she said a common vision and the commitment of many companies built the health records database. Prescription drug information was available in many different places, but the magic was pulling it into one place.
KatrinaHealth.org formed through the collaborative efforts of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, the American Medical Association and companies such as SureScripts, a provider of electronic pharmacy services, and RxHub, which collects and delivers patient-specific medication histories.
Brinkley has pushed the Defense Department in modernizing its business processes and systems. He brings that practical approach to his position. Under his leadership, the department is progressing on modernizing its business processes and systems.
"He made the program focus on what can be achieved based on where DOD is today, rather than some yet to be achieved technological ideal down the road," said Gil Guarino, executive vice president of transformation solutions at CACI International.
Many of the Federal 100 winners' efforts centered on hurricane-related feats. In place of the Monticello award, the judges tapped 18 of the 100 awardees to become Masters of Disaster.
About the Author
Matthew Weigelt is Procurement Editor for Federal Computer Week.