BLACK ENGINEER OF THE YEAR AWARD WINNERS LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT General
Dennis L. Via Commanding General U.S. Army Materiel Command United States Army
H
ard work and perseverance are the hallmarks of General
Dennis Via’s career―from branch Signal officer to four-star general. He is only the second African American to command the U.S.
Army Materiel Command and the seventh to rise to general, in August 2012. He is the Army’s most senior logistician, respon- sible for the development and supply of everything a soldier shoots, drives, flies, communicates with, eats and wears. Gen. Via’s service began with little fanfare 30 years ago. The first in his family to go to college, he happened to run into soldiers enrolling for the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) at Vir- ginia State University. Via signed up when he learned that he could earn money for attending the Army Basic Camp, a summer program which served as substitute for almost two years of ROTC. Two years later, he was commissioned into the Signal Corps. Some of Via’s assignments include his first with XVIII Airborne Corps. Rising above his peers, he served as platoon leader, battalion maintenance supervisor officer, detachment and company commander in the 35th Signal Brigade. He also served as an operations officer for the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee from 1988 to 1989 and then as- signment officer for operations research and systems analysis at the Army Personnel Command.
Upon graduating from the Command and General Staff Col- lege in 1991, he was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division as assistant division signals officer and then 82nd Signal Battalion, which he later commanded from 1996 to1998. He graduated from the Army War College in 1999 and became deputy assistant chief of staff, Third Corps. In 2000, he assumed command of the 3rd Signal Brigade. From there he served as the director of Global Information Grid Operations; commander, at the Defense Information Sys- tems Agency; and as deputy commander, Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations, U.S. Strategic Command. He was promoted brigadier general in that position in 2005. In August the same year, he was assigned as commander of 5th Signal and deputy chief of the United States Army Europe and 7th Army.
During his assignment as commanding general of the Com- munications-Electronics Life Cycle Management Command, he was promoted major general in June 2008 and lieutenant general in August 2009, when he became the director for command, control, communications, and computer systems, the principal advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In May 2011, he took up assignment as deputy commanding general/chief of staff, Army Materiel Command before breaking new ground as a general in 2012. He is the first basic branch signal officer to be promoted to four-star rank. In his previous position, he was involved in the transition of all vehicles, equipment and personnel out of Iraq in 2011. Now, he will also be responsible for the eventual draw down of vehicles and equipment from Afghanistan. Via’s span of control in- cludes eleven subordinate commands, a workforce that exceeds 70,000 military and civilian personnel, and he manages a $70 billion budget responsible for the Army’s technology, logistics and acquisition.
24 USBE&IT I WINTER 2013 MOST PROMISING ENGINEER-GOVERNMENT
Tonya Bazemore Architect
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
D
uring Tonya Y. Bazemore’s six years with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, including four with the Japan Engineer District I, she has been a critical leader on projects worth more than $20 million. Project engineers are responsible for daily field administration of large construction programs for the U.S. Department of Defense. Bazemore was recently the project manager for a $4.3 million Battle Command Train- ing Center, in Japan, and used knowledge gleaned from her Tuskegee University bachelor of architecture degree to complete the project, with mostly Japanese contractors. It was the first mili- tary construction job to meet Leadership in Energy and Environ- mental Design (LEED) standards, and became the first LEED Accred- ited Professional, and subject matter expert, in
the Japan Engineer District Construction Branch. While continuing her Corps job, Bazemore is also enrolled in the 18-Month U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Leadership Development Program, and completing her requirements for professional certification, Level 2, in facilities engineering. She is also working toward her professional architecture certification. In 2007, Bazemore received her master’s degree in management from Colorado Technical University, and project management professional (PMP) certification a year later. Prior to the Corps, the Washington, D.C. native, who was in
Army ROTC at Tuskegee, served as an active duty U.S. Army Engineer officer. She was posted initially in Alaska, and then as an engineer platoon leader in Iraq. There she became the as- sistant civil engineer of a 900-soldier Combat Heavy Engineer Battalion, and received praise for her “meticulous organizational skills” and how she takes “the abstract and makes it real for soldiers.” In 2006, after leaving the military she joined the Corps as a civilian working on projects in Georgia and North Carolina, before her current assignment in Japan. Bazemore, who was introduced to the Army Corps during a high school pre-engineer- ing program, is an active math, science, and architecture mentor of middle and high school students, and to engineer interns and military cadets. On several occasions, students told their teach- ers that after working with Bazemore they wanted to become architects. She has also been a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recruiter at the 2009 and 2011 BEYA STEM conferences.
www.blackengineer.com
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