Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer presented 19 Department of the Navy (DoN) civilian leaders with fiscal year 2018 Presidential Rank Awards (PRA) during a ceremony at the Pentagon, June 27.

Executives and senior professionals earned the awards for demonstrating significant achievements throughout their careers.

"Your tireless efforts over the past year have restored the foundation of readiness and lethality to our force. I know your contributions to our mission are sometimes unsung, but they are always appreciated and never taken for granted," Spencer said. "Without the executive leaders we honor here today, the Sailors and Marines out in the fleet would not be as ready to take on the challenges of a complex world as they are today."

Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Greg Slavonic administered the awards for the Department of the Navy.

“We are here to recognize and foster success of our civilian workforce throughout the Navy,” Slavonic said. “The contributions and leadership that this group of recipients have made to the national defense are truly transformational.”

Two categories of Presidential Rank Award are available: Distinguished Rank Recipients and Meritorious Rank Recipients. Distinguished Rank Recipients are recognized for sustained extraordinary accomplishment. Each year, only 1% of all senior executives receive the Distinguished Executive Award; only 5% get the Meritorious Executive Award government-wide.

The FY18 recipients were:

Distinguished Executives

•             Mark D. Andress, currently the Chief Information Officer and Director, Information Technology Services Directorate, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and formerly the Assistant Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare. Andress positioned the Navy to combat the increasing threat of cyber warfare in its networks, weapons systems, industrial control systems and shore facilities. His efforts have resulted in over $2.4 billion of growth in offensive and defensive cyber above the traditional information technology and networks investments, funded through savings from the execution of enterprise information technology savings initiatives, with $1.2 billion saved over the last six years and over $1.7 billion projected through 2020. 

•             Thomas P. Dee, Executive Director, Office of Special Projects. While Performing the Duties of the Under Secretary of the Navy, Dee served as the Chief Management Officer of the Department of the Navy charged with leading the Department’s efforts in support of critical change activities surrounding the transition of the Administration, organizational realignment under Management Headquarters Agency reductions, and business reform initiatives in support of Secretary of Defense priorities. 

•             Joseph B. Marshall, Jr., Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Financial Management and Comptroller). Marshall developed and implemented reform to focus on actual expenditures to improve use of resources; this saved $3 billion for Navy and was immediately adopted by Office of the Secretary of Defense and extended to Army, Air Force and all Defense Agencies for implementation in Fiscal Year 2019.

•             Garry R. Newton, Deputy Commander, Naval Air Systems Command. Newton directed a review of Contract Services spend and Management Headquarters Activities reductions that resulted in an annual savings of over $400 million annually. In addition, he directed the development of an Additive Manufacturing Technology strategy that has resulted in dramatic reduction of cycle times for produce critical readiness parts for fleet operations.

•             Allison F. Stiller, Principal Civilian Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development and Acquisition).  Stiller served as the Acting Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development and Acquisition) bridging between administrations, and also serves as Principal Civilian Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development and Acquisition) employing her shipbuilding acquisition expertise to aircraft, ground vehicles, weapon systems, munitions, space systems, business systems, and support services. 

Meritorious Executives

•             Dr. Thomas J. Beutner (transferred to Defense Advances Research Projects Agency), former Department Head of Naval Air Warfare and Weapons Department, Office of Naval Research.  Dr. Beutner established the National Naval Responsibility for Sea-Based Aviation at the Office of Naval Research, identifying the unique and critical technologies requiring development to support Naval Aviation.

•             Dennis Biddick (Retired), former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Reserve Affairs and Total Force Integration). Biddick was instrumental in obtaining additional authorities to access the Reserve forces in non-contingent environments (recent responses to hurricanes recovery) and development of the framework to redefine duty statuses, a major achievement in Reserve Component management.

•             William P. Bray, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development, Test and Evaluation). Bray directed the acquisition and fleet support of the Surface Navy's 124 combat systems, weapons, sensors, and related international and foreign military sales programs. This included responsibility for direct execution of $6 billion annually and over $4 billion in international sales, awarding and management of over 100 contracts annually, and direct leadership of over 500 civilian and military personnel.

•             Rebecca K. Cressy, Counsel, Naval Sea Systems Command. Cressy developed a new legal framework for analyzing costs and coordinated it among stakeholders in the DON Secretariat, to ensure USS FORD (CVN 78), the first of its class aircraft carrier, was delivered within its cost cap, which is a statutory limit on the amount that could be incurred for construction of the carrier. These and other efforts in this area have been in direct support of the national goal to increase substantially the number of ships in our Navy and to improve fleet readiness.

•             Mark E. Kosnik, Director, Fleet Capabilities and Force Development. Kosnik led two of largest Navy organizational realignments in the past 50 years to establish the service's two newest Type Commanders; first Navy Expeditionary Combat Command and then Naval Information Forces. His efforts ensured Navy’s capability to complete critical missions across the globe by being more ready to counter the emerging terrorist and cyber security threats.

•             William R. O’Donnell, Assistant for Administration, Department of the Navy. Mr. O’Donnell established cross-component working groups that involved the Navy, Marine Corps, and civilian leadership of the Department of the Navy in developing materials used to inform the incoming administration across the full range and scope of Navy and Marine Corps issues including major acquisition programs, force readiness, global posture and force employment, as well as manning, training and resourcing challenges.

•             Thomas G. Rudowsky, Assistant Commander for Logistics & Industrial Operations, Naval Air Systems Command. Conceived history-making engineering challenge to fly an additive manufactured, flight-critical component and provided the technical authority approval for the design, printing, qualification, and installation culminating in a highly successful flight onboard a Marine Corps MV-22 flight test aircraft years ahead of initial estimates.

•             Frederick J. Stefany III, Executive Director, Program Executive Office Ships. Mr. Stefany assessed surface shipbuilding industrial base and crafted an innovative acquisition strategy that combined three different procurements in a “combined solicitation” that stabilized the surface ship industrial base while providing a competitive environment to achieve affordability targets for each program.    

•             Samuel G. Worth (Retired), former Deputy Director, Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Worth leveraged U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) funding and re-directed Naval Criminal Investigative Service resources to increase law enforcement interoperability training with foreign counterpart agencies in Southeast Asia by more than 200%, in direct support of PACOM theater security cooperation and force protection priorities.

Distinguished Senior Professionals

•             Dr. George Akst, Director, Operations Analysis Directorate, Combat Development and Integration. Dr. Akst organized and led the largest analysis in the history of the Directorate to support the transition to a fully integrated Marine force that is inclusive of women in all job specialties while maintaining standards and safeguarding the health and welfare of all Marines.

Meritorious Senior Professionals

•             Frank Putzu, Counsel, Naval Reactors. Putzu was selected as senior staff member and counsel to the Secretary of the Navy’s Strategic Readiness Review to examine stresses on the force and culture of operational risk management, training, departmental organization, accountability, deficiencies, and lessons-learned in light of recent ship collisions. 

•             Earl G. Williams, Senior Scientist for Structural Acoustics, Naval Research Laboratory, Acoustics Division. Williams developed the theory for Nearfield Electromagnetic Holography, as a major new tool to diagnose electromagnetic signatures that provides three-dimension reconstruction of the electric and magnetic radiated signatures.

Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service and Defense Intelligence Senior Level members are also eligible to receive PRAs.

Defense Intelligence Meritorious Executives

•             Michael Waschull, (Joint Duty Assignment - current position - Strategic Advisor for the Deputy Intelligence Community Chief Information Officer at Office of the Director of National Intelligence), former Deputy Commander, Office of Naval Intelligence. As the Senior Advisor for the Deputy IC CIO, Waschull drives the development and implementation of the Unified Intelligence Strategy and programs to enhance intelligence collection, analysis, improved tradecraft and integration across the IC. Oversees and manages the conduct of foreign intelligence relationships, and serve as principle interface with external entities.

Defense Intelligence Meritorious Senior Professionals

•             Mark Assur (Retired), former Senior Intelligence Advisor for Human Intelligence. Assur created a career path for Navy’s most highly-trained clandestine collectors, optimizing return on investment through multiple tours in the field and in staff positions up to the rank of captain (O6). Driving force behind the establishment in 2015 of an overt tactical Foreign Military Intelligence Collection Activity training curriculum now certified as a joint course. Over 575 new collateral duty collectors are now aboard ships, in squadrons and with ground forces capitalizing on Navy’s global presence to produce vital intelligence.

The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 established the Presidential Rank Awards Program to recognize a select group of career members of the SES for exceptional performance over an extended period of time. Later, the Rank Award statute was amended to extend eligibility to senior career employees with a sustained record of exceptional professional, technical and/or scientific achievement recognized on a national or international level.

The ceremony can be viewed at https://www.dvidshub.net/webcast/20506.

For more news, visit www.navy.mil.