New Cumberland, PA –
Teresa Smith, who served as chief data officer and director of Strategic Data Services for DLA Information Operations (J6), was named DLA’s Information Technology Person of the Year.
The recognition coincides with Smith’s retirement after 36 years of federal service. She was selected for the honor as part of the agency’s 54th annual employee recognition awards program. The award recognizes an IT professional who demonstrates the highest degree of proficiency, integrity, and dedication to supporting the warfighter.
“DLA Information Operations (J6) has incredibly talented people, and to be recognized as the IT Person of the Year amongst this team is truly humbling,” said Smith on her award. “I feel fortunate to have had such an amazing team around me, including the talented folks I led, my peers and DLA’s leadership. Each values out-of-the-box thinking, recognizes the importance of robust data analytics for sound decision making, and above all, inspired me to never forget the warfighters we serve.”
Smith’s positive attitude enabled her to achieve win/win solutions for both internal and external customers. She consistently achieved high quality results and always went above and beyond to accomplish agency goals. Smith also served as a role model and mentor to many colleagues during her decades-long career. “My goal was to make both the agency and the people I worked with successful; and key to that was not asking anyone to do anything that I wasn’t willing to take on myself,” Smith said.
Her leadership and creative insights led to increased productivity, reduced costs, and maximized resources within DLA and the Department of Defense. Smith and her team supported many enterprise initiatives, lending their expertise in data analytics, governance, and policy development. They also assisted with process streamlining and re-engineering, supply chain analysis, optimization, and information governance and compliance.
As DLA’s first CDO, Smith directed multiple data-focused business lines including advanced analytics, logistics business standards, information governance and privacy protection, print production, data digitization and print-on-demand services to DLA and the DOD. She led the development of DLA’s first data strategy and championed a shift in culture, recognizing data as a strategic corporate asset. The strategy outlined by Smith and her team optimizes decision-making and provides a consistent approach for structuring, describing, providing, and governing data. It minimizes uncontrolled data redundancy, creates accessible databases across the enterprise, improves data quality and assigns ownership to data to enhance agility.
Smith is known throughout the federal data and analytics community for her can-do attitude, strategic vision, and technical prowess. She positioned DLA to be one of the first DOD components to implement an enterprise approach to logistics business standards, data strategy, predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning and data science. Smith was also instrumental in developing the first government-wide data strategy. She joined a team of 57 members from across the federal government, representing 23 agencies, to develop the Federal Data Strategy. The strategy encompasses a 10-year vision for how the federal government will accelerate the use of data to deliver on mission, serve the public, and steward resources while protecting security, privacy, and confidentiality.
Throughout the last year, Smith was directly involved with DLA’s COVID-19 vaccine deployment efforts, which included managing and reporting data that provided end-to-end visibility on vaccine orders and shipments – ensuring DLA met the military’s needs.
“I’ve worked some critical efforts across my 36 years - Operation Desert Storm and the ensuing Global War on Terror, Y2K, implementation of Enterprise Business System and other systems, a tour with the DLA Contingency Support Team in Afghanistan – and this vaccine distribution and data effort was as challenging and personal to me as each of those,” said Smith. “I had friends who had the virus, some who were seriously ill; I was caring for parents with serious health conditions; and like so many, I worried about my family and friends contracting COVID. It was such a relief to have a vaccine available.”
Smith retired in January, leaving DLA on a high note as she received this award.
“It’s certainly bittersweet to retire. I’m excited to step into the next phase of life, and I am mindful that it is the career I’ve had with DLA that has enabled that,” she said.
Smith is also a 2004 recipient of DLA’s Meritorious Civilian Service Award and the 2019 Washington Exec’s Pinnacle Award DOD Government Executive of the Year.