For Immediate Release
February 23, 2007
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Washington D.C.
FBI National Press Office
(202) 324-3691
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FBI RECOGNIZES PRESIDENTIAL RANK AWARD RECIPIENTS
Washington, D.C. – In
a ceremony today at FBI Headquarters, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales,
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, and FBI Executive Assistant
Director Donald Packham of the Human Resources Branch recognized
t he recipients of the 2006 Presidential Rank Awards. These
awards are given to a very select group of career civil
service employees each year and are conferred by the President
of the United States and are divided into two categories:
the Distinguished Rank Award, awarded for extraordinary
results, and the Meritorious Rank Award, given for sustained
accomplishment.
“The FBI is proud to recognize 11
FBI employees whose integrity, strength, leadership, and
sustained performance have earned them one of the most
prestigious honors in government,” said Director
Mueller. “Winning
the prestigious Presidential Rank Award is an honor not
only for these men and women, but for the FBI as a whole,
and we are deeply proud of each of them.”
The Presidential Rank of Distinguished Executive was awarded
to:
- T.J. Harrington, Deputy Assistant Director, Counterterrorism
Division
- Jonathan I. Solomon, Special Agent in Charge of the
Miami Field Office
The Presidential Meritorious Rank Executive was awarded
to:
- James Bernazzani, Special Agent in Charge of the
New Orleans Field Office
- Sanjeev “Sonny” Bhagowalia, Program
Management Executive, Office of Information Technology
Planning and Policy
- Kevin R. Brock, Principal Deputy Director of the
National Counterterrorism Center
- Robert E. Casey, Jr., Special Agent in Charge of
the Dallas Field Office
- Arthur M. Cummings II, Deputy Assistant Director,
Counterterrorism Division
- Daniel R. Dzwilewski, Special Agent in Charge of
the San Diego Field Office
- Anne Gulyassy, Deputy General Counsel for the Litigation
Branch, in the Office of the General Counsel
- Kerry E. Haynes, Executive Assistant Director for
the Science and Technology Branch.
- Leslie G. Wiser, Jr., Special Agent in Charge of
the Newark Field Office
****
Recipients of the Presidential Rank of Distinguished
Executive Award:
T.J. Harrington, Deputy
Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism Division, has
overseen some of the FBI’s most critical counterterrorism
programs, including the Counterterrorism Watch Center,
the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, the Fly Team, and the
Rapid Deployment Teams.
Jonathan I. Solomon, currently the Special
Agent in Charge of the Miami Field Office, served in a
number of critical roles in the Director’s office
over the past three years, including as Executive Assistant
Director (EAD) for Administration. As EAD, Mr. Solomon
oversaw all of the Bureau’s administrative functions,
from budget to hiring to information technology. In his
capacity as EAD, he oversaw the development of two critical
organizational changes: first, the creation of a separate
facility for the FBI’s Records Management Division,
and second, the creation of the Facilities and Logistics
Services Division.
Recipients of the Presidential Meritorious Rank
Executive Award:
James Bernazzani, has served as the Special
Agent in Charge of the New Orleans Field Office since April
2005, and has played a critical role in helping the city
recover from Hurricane Katrina. His first priority was
to locate and provide for FBI employees and their families.
He then focused on the safety of the citizens affected
by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and set up command centers
to coordinate law enforcement’s response. Mr. Bernazzani
also foresaw possible crime problems in the aftermath of
the hurricane, and helped establish the multi-agency Katrina
Fraud Command Center and the multi-agency Violent Crime
Intelligence Center. He has provided countless hours of
training to local law enforcement and public safety workers
dealing with criminal threats.
Sanjeev “Sonny” Bhagowalia,
who joined the FBI in 1999, currently heads the Office
of Information Technology (IT) Planning and Policy. Mr.
Bhagowalia co-founded the Trilogy IT Infrastructure Upgrade
Program, which brought new computers, software, and secure
networks to all FBI employees. He developed a comprehensive
IT Governance framework to track every single project,
from its cost, to its schedule, to its risk information.
Kevin R. Brock, recently retired from
the FBI after serving as Principal Deputy Director of the
National Counterterrorism Center. Prior to his current
job at the NCTC, Mr. Brock served as the Assistant Director
for Intelligence in the FBI. Under his leadership, the
Directorate of Intelligence grew exponentially and attracted
a high-level cadre of intelligence professionals. Mr. Brock
also directed a re-engineering of the FBI’s informant
and asset programs that has strengthened the Bureau’s
practices with regard to human intelligence.
Robert E. Casey, Jr. is currently the
Special Agent in Charge of the Dallas Field Office. Mr.
Casey has distinguished himself as one of the FBI’s
most influential executives in the development of the FBI’s
intelligence capability over the past several years. After
September 11 th, the FBI was given the mandate to build
a world-class intelligence cadre. Mr. Casey was on the
ground from the beginning, helping to build the Directorate
of Intelligence from just a few employees to more than
400 today. Under his leadership, the number of raw intelligence
reports disseminated to our partners increased from under
2 thousand to over 8 thousand reports annually. The FBI’s
participation in multi-agency fusion centers rose from
just a few offices to over 22 offices today.
Arthur M. Cummings II, Deputy Assistant
Director of the Counterterrorism Division, previously served
as the Special Agent in Charge of both the Counterterrorism
Division and the Intelligence Branch of the Washington
Field Office. In the past five years, Mr. Cummings has
played a central role in restructuring the FBI’s
counterterrorism strategy. While at FBI Headquarters, he
created a management structure with teams of agents and
analysts, to provide oversight for more than 4,000 counterterrorism
investigations. Together, they ensure that each individual
investigation is part of the FBI’s “big picture” analysis.
Mr. Cummings was also instrumental in creating the Directorate
of Strategic Operational Planning at the National Counterterrorism
Center (NCTC). As the Principal Deputy Director of the
NCTC, he integrated terrorism information and coordinated
counterterrorism activities throughout the federal government.
Daniel R. Dzwilewski, is
the Special Agent in Charge of the San Diego Field Office.
In the past three years, Mr. Dzwilewski has promoted information
sharing and cooperation and has increased participation
on the San Diego Joint Terrorism Task Force by more than
300 percent. He led the FBI’s efforts to increase communication
between U.S. and Mexican officials, in order to stop terrorist
groups and criminal enterprises from entering the United
States. Together, we have identified and dismantled several
human trafficking and drug smuggling organizations operating
along the Mexican border. In another effort to improve
information sharing, Mr. Dzwilewski helped to create the
San Diego Regional Intelligence Network – an “alert
network” that collects and shares information related
to terrorist and criminal activities with law enforcement,
other government agencies, and the private sector.
Anne Gulyassy is the Deputy General Counsel
for the Litigation Branch, in the Office of the General
Counsel. Ms. Gulyassy supervises more than 100 employees
in the Litigation Branch. She and her staff represent the
interests of the Director, other FBI employees, and the
FBI itself in civil lawsuits challenging our investigative
and intelligence activities. After 9/11, Ann created a
new unit to handle the spike in the number of Freedom of
Information cases. She also found and put into place an
automated system for redacting all documents produced in
civil litigation cases, to ease the burden on her paralegal
staff.
Kerry E. Haynes is currently
the Executive Assistant Director for the Science and Technology
Branch. Three years ago, Director Mueller appointed Mr.
Haynes as the Assistant Director for the Operational Technology
Division. At that time, Kerry was detailed to the FBI from
the CIA, where he had worked for nearly 25 years. In August
2005, Mr. Haynes retired from the CIA, and immediately
joined the FBI. He reinvented the Operational Technology
Division to meet the challenges of the FBI’s new
intelligence mission. He has cultivated key alliances with
many of our partners in both the intelligence and high-tech
communities, to the benefit of the Bureau. Mr. Haynes also
expanded the Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory, or
RCFL, program. RCFLs provide one-stop shopping for the
examination of digital forensic evidence in terrorism,
child pornography, and financial crimes cases, among others.
During his tenure, the FBI has doubled the number of RCFLs
from 5 to 10, in less than three years.
Leslie G. Wiser, Jr. recently retired
from the FBI after serving as the Special Agent in Charge
of the Newark Field Office. Mr. Wiser greatly increased
state and local participation on the New Jersey Joint Terrorism
Task Force; he emphasized the importance of sharing information
and intelligence among agencies and investigators. Today,
New Jersey law enforcement and intelligence officials share
information and work cases together, thanks in large part
to Mr. Wiser’s diligence and dedication. He has made
great inroads with the Newark community. He has worked with
other government agencies to create and open dialogue with
Egyptian-American and Muslim community leaders and Muslim
youth, to create a greater understanding between their communities
and the work of the FBI. In Newark, Mr. Wiser and his staff
have established well-deserved reputations as the “go
to” people for high-profile investigations involving
public corruption, transnational organized crime, and corporate
fraud.
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