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Judy Kassakatis has always been ahead of her time in advancing electronic government at the Federal Communications Commission. But what sets her apart is a continuing focus on the customer, said Kimberly Hancher, the FCC’s deputy chief information officer for e-government. Kassakatis transformed the Universal Licensing System (ULS), which has been processing wireless service applications since 1998, to make it more efficient, Hancher said.

“She has the ability to take a concept, create a vision, bring that vision into reality and then continuously improve on it,” Hancher said. “You don’t just stop once you deploy a system. In the past year, ULS has had notable enhancements to make it more customer-centric and more constituent-friendly.”

As vice president of federal operations at Cisco Systems, Bruce Klein was on the front lines when Hurricane Katrina disabled 3 million telephone lines, along with cellular sites and radio stations.

Klein foresaw a need to deploy Cisco teams to restore communications for first responders as the storm ravaged the Gulf Coast, said Robert Lloyd, senior vice president of U.S. and Canada sales and marketing at Cisco.

Klein’s strength is his ability to work with various organizations, especially during crisis situations, Lloyd said. Coordinating nongovernment organizations and the National Guard, for example, requires rare fluidity in a leader. “That’s what it takes to be successful,” he said. “You need to be able to understand the various ways that these groups respond.”

Ron Kurjanowicz oversaw the successful design and execution of the 2005 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Grand Challenge race held in the Mojave Desert. The race tests the viability of unmanned ground vehicles powered by robotics and embedded computer hardware and software.

The Army expects the technologies can help it build the Future Combat Systems and comply with legislation requiring that one-third of all operational ground combat vehicles be unmanned by 2015.

Five teams successfully negotiated the 131.6- mile desert course without any drivers. “By all measures, the race was a huge success [because] Ron really managed the whole race from February, when it was announced, to October,” when the Grand Challenge was held, said Alfred Toussaint, manager of federal initiatives at Intel Americas.

To assist Navy cleanup efforts after the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes, Deborah Kutzleb created a real-time database to catalog the thousands of wrecks and casualties along the lower Mississippi River and Gulf Coast.

Capt. James Wilkins, director of the Navy’s Supervisor of Salvage and Diving organizations, said the database identified 3,500 casualties and wrecks, their location coordinates, technical reports and fiscal documentation. As technical lead on the project, Kutzleb and her team made the database as flexible and adaptable as Navy officials needed it to be, he said.

“It was her personal work ethic and integrity — just making sure that everything was always taken care of right way,” Wilkins said. “She put in hours and hours and hours to make sure that whatever we needed we got done.”

J. Neal Latta led an initiative to expand the sharing of criminal fingerprint data across agency and international boundaries, a project with political, technical and budgetary challenges.

Von Jennings, Lockheed Martin’s chief biometrics architect, said Latta’s technical savvy and good humor were major factors that enabled the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program to deliver what law enforcement and immigration officers needed.

“Neal used his in-depth understanding of operational needs and technical complexities, combined with his indefatigable persistence and dedication, to guide and cajole the team to a successful, on-time and on-budget conclusion,” Jennings said.

Mike Leavitt used the bully pulpit of his office to urge the creation of a nationwide electronic health records system, and he made hurricane battered Louisiana a test bed for developing such a system.

Scott Wallace, president and chief executive officer of the National Alliance for Health Information Technology, said the fact that Leavitt has “taken a personal interest in health information technology helps define the national agenda.”

Leavitt also spearheaded federal, state and local efforts to prepare for a possible pandemic flu outbreak. He took his cues from a doctor in his hometown of Cedar City, Utah, who battled the 1918 influenza outbreak. A local newspaper described that pandemic as worse than bullets.

John Lee used his technical knowledge and political savvy to develop a policy that will guide federal agencies’ transition to IPv6 by June 2008.

He also devised a process for applying the policy in ways that will help create a market for IPv6 products and services and make optimal use of the protocol’s capabilities.

Glenn Schlarman, information policy branch chief of information and regulatory affairs at the Office of Management and Budget, said he was impressed with Lee’s important policy contributions and his methods for accomplishing them.

“He is just a terrific guy to work with,” Schlarman said. “He knew how to solve the problem and get people to recognize that there is a problem that needed solving.”

Bruce Leinster’s business cards identify him as a consultant for IBM. But he often speaks on behalf of the information technology industry as a whole.

In 2005, he focused on getting policy-makers to understand the value of time-and-materials contracting for the federal government.

“When it comes to understanding how the government can move its way into a commercial marketplace and acquire products and solutions in a commercial way, he’s about as articulate and knowledgeable as anyone out there,” said Stan Soloway, president of the Professional Services Council.

Time-and-materials contracting is a complex topic. “It requires somebody with a detailed understanding of the regulations and also who can translate them into layman’s terms,” said Trey Hodgkins, director of defense programs at the IT Association of America.

Ray Letteer has been instrumental in moving the Marine Corps and Navy closer to implementing new information assurance training standards outlined by the Defense Department.

Letteer organized the purchase of a Web-based tool that will revolutionize the preparation, submission and maintenance of security certification documents throughout the Marine Corps.

He also validated the enterprise configuration and security status of applications and systems in the Marine Corps infrastructure.

“Ray has been a dynamic leader in the information assurance workforce transformation, guiding the Navy and Marine Corps to set high training standards,” said Sandra Smith, the Navy’s information management/information technology workforce manager.

When Attorney General Alberto Gonzales heard the idea to create a National Sex Offender Public Registry, which would be a federal system to link states’ public registries of sex offenders, he asked David Lewis for a working prototype in five days. Lewis delivered it in four.

Next, Gonzales wanted a publicly accessible online registry connecting 20 states to be delivered in 60 days. Sixty days later, he got 21 states, plus the District of Columbia, all for less than $1 million.

By the end of 2005, the sex offender registry had received more than 200 million hits, said Paul Wormeli, executive director of the Integrate Justice Information Systems Institute. “The system was clearly important to the people of America,” he said.

More than 500,000 federal workers can thank Jerry Lohfink for not letting Hurricane Katrina wipe out their paychecks.

When Katrina was barreling toward New Orleans Aug. 26, Lohfink moved the National Finance Center’s operations to Philadelphia. He worked nonstop for two days overseeing an emergency relocation plan and safely moved all his employees.

Lohfink’s quick thinking saved the center’s data and kept the government operating after the storm. Not a single paycheck was delayed. While rebuilding the center after the storm, Lohfink never forgot that his employees had lost homes and relatives, said Gil Hawk, its chief information officer.