SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
His leadership of those efforts was among the reasons he received the award for the Army Acquisition Executive’s Excel- lence in Leadership Science and Technology Professional of the Year in 2016. Lazzaro garnered recognition for CERDEC’s sup- port of the Project Management Office for Network Enablers (PMO Net E) within the Program Executive Office for Com- mand, Control and Communications – Tactical. He was a key player in the Army-Wide Cryptographic Network Standardiza- tion (ACNS) initiative, led by PMO Net E, providing oversight, guidance and assistance to a team of engineers that modernized the entire Army inventory of cryptographic devices by replacing inactive ones with modern versions. He and his team removed nearly 5,400 legacy devices and installed more than 1,800 mod- ern counterparts at 245 military bases worldwide.
Te Army launched ACNS in 2012 to upgrade outmoded cryp- tographic devices and to standardize security capabilities for the Army’s tactical network. Te ACNS team has received several accolades for its work to ensure that U.S. troops have crypto- graphic capabilities that protect data and voice transmission from electronic attack, including CERDEC’s Dr. William A. Novick Award for expediting technology to get it into the hands of Soldiers.
Lazzaro also was instrumental in CERDEC efforts to support the National Security Agency (NSA) Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSFC) Program, which provides a framework to reduce the logistical footprint and boost protection for trans- mitting and exchanging classified information. NSA created the program to facilitate the use of commercial products to protect classified national security systems information, and to bring cryptographic equipment
into compliance with the agency’s
standards for upgraded data networks and cryptographic algo- rithms and keys.
Tanks in part to Lazzaro’s contributions, CERDEC was the first DOD entity to earn the NSA certification of CSFC trusted system integrator. His lab has engineered or evaluated more than a dozen solutions that focus on reducing risk in the area of command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. In late 2015, the team provided a risk-reduction solution based on CSFC virtual private network capabilities for the Project Manager for Warfighter Information Network – Tactical. In just four weeks, it was able to engineer, integrate, test and validate the solution, which the Army suc- cessfully demonstrated at the Network Integration Evaluation 15.2 and has since integrated into future baselines for the project. Receiving the Science and Technology Professional of the
Being in acquisition sort of snuck up on him, but he’s grateful to be part of the community. “As an engineer, I was looking to solve problems and work with new technology, and the posi- tions I have held throughout my acquisition career have allowed me to do that.”
To anyone seeking similar opportunities, Lazzaro had this advice: Get out and work in the field or in the operational envi- ronment. “Nothing helps you learn as fast as trying to solve real-world problems as they are happening and getting your hands dirty. Working in the lab only gets you so far.”
—MS. SUSAN L. FOLLETT
Year award caught Lazzaro off guard. “I sometimes forget that what we do—test and evaluation, integration, getting products into the hands of Soldiers—is considered acquisition,” he said.
“Working at the forefront of protecting our nation’s most critical infrastructure is very satisfying.”
Lazzaro worked in the private sector for several years, in appli- cation engineering, motion-control system design, robotics and vision systems, before joining the Army Acquisition Workforce.
“I worked on a broad range of industrial applications,” he said, including for the U.S. Post Office, Benjamin Moore & Co. and Veeco Instruments Inc.’s semiconductor division. “Before that, I worked in fireplace design for many years.”
He was approached by engineers he knew through college friends to work in the field of information assurance (IA). It
“sounded interesting, and it was a field I had worked in before, indirectly. It was something new and different and, at the time, it was a career track that colleges were not offering.” An oppor- tunity arose to join CERDEC’s IA Division, working in the Cryptographic Modernization Program Management Office.
“In that position, I was able to apply my engineering degree, test- ing and evaluating security equipment used on the government network.”
Te switch from the private sector to the public required a shift in mindset. “Te government has a lot of rules, but a lot more resources,” he said. “In private industry, it was hard to get new technologies: We had to make do with what we had. In gov- ernment, many resources are available, but there are a lot more acquisition and policy rules.”
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