Program executive office, enterprise information systems (PEO EIS) press release (Oct. 24, 2004): Col. Lee Price is Army's Project Manager of the Year.

Army Col. Lee Price, the project manager for Defense Communications and Army Transmission Systems (PM DCATS) was named the Army's Project Manager of the Year for 2004 at the U.S. Army Acquisition Corps annual awards ceremony in Arlington, Va., on Oct. 24.

Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Claude M. Bolton Jr., presented the award to Price before an audience filled with the Army's Acquisition Corps leadership, including Gen. Paul Kern, commanding general, U.S. Army Materiel Command; Lt. Gen. Steven Boutelle, the Army chief information officer (CIO/G-6); Lt. Gen. Joseph Yakovac Jr., military deputy to the ASA(ALT); and Kevin Carroll, the program executive officer, enterprise information systems (PEO EIS).

Price, as the Department of the Army's (DA) board-select PM DCATS, manages 121 projects with an annual budget of more than $800 million. She oversees the projects of two DA board-select product managers, five assistant project managers, and a Special Projects Office totaling nearly 600 military, civilian, and contractor personnel in 14 global offices, many of them in Iraq and Kuwait.

"I'm honored by this award," said Price, "and I view it as validation of all the hard work that the PM DCATS team--including our soldiers, civilians, matrix employees, and contractors--has done to support joint warfighters. Being a project manager is the ultimate team sport, and I am constantly humbled by our team's ability to execute its many exciting projects."

Price has responsibility for executing programs supporting the president, combatant commanders, joint warfighters, and North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other allies. Projects include strategic Reachback communications for deployed forces; worldwide satellite ground systems; terrestrial microwave communications systems; radio systems for first responders; combat vehicle intercom systems; upgrading technical control facilities; relocation and upgrade of command center information systems; and providing a commercial information infrastructure to relieve tactical assets for U.S. and Coalition forces in Iraq and Kuwait, and U.S. Embassy personnel in Baghdad.

"I think there is no other PM shop that touches the global war on terrorism in more ways than PM DCATS," said Price.

PM DCATS is also responsible for communications at the highest level, installing and managing the Direct Communications Link--otherwise known as the Moscow Hotline--between President Bush and President Putin.

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"We are also responsible for a similar link used for arms control, disarmament, and treaty verification purposes between the United States and the former Soviet Union countries of Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan," said Price.

Selection as the Army's Project Manager of the Year completes a trifecta of sorts for Price, who in July 2004 was selected as one of the best program managers in the Federal Government by Federal Computer Week magazine, and in October 2004 was the first colonel to be featured on the cover of Military Information Technology magazine.

Contact Stephen Larsen [phone] [e-mail].

(Larsen is the Public Affairs Officer, for the Army's Project Manager, Defense Communications & Army Transmission Systems, at Fort Belvoir, Va.)