PRESS RELEASES

AFCEA International Announces Election of Paul Cofoni and Natalie Givans as Association Leaders

For Immediate Release

July 10, 2008

AFCEA Media Contact                     

Tobey Jackson                              

(703) 631-6189                            

tjackson@afcea.org                          

FAIRFAX, VA - Mr. Paul Cofoni, President and Chief Executive Officer, CACI International, Inc, and Ms. Natalie Givans, Vice President, Booz Allen Hamilton, have been elected to lead AFCEA International. Mr. Cofoni will serve as Chairman of the Board and Ms. Givans will serve as the first Vice Chairman of the Board.

Mr. Cofoni has been a long time member of AFCEA and has served over five years on the Association’s Executive Committee and Board. He succeeds The Honorable Duane Andrews, Chief Executive Officer, QinetiQ North America, in this position. As Chairman of the AFCEA International Board of Directors, Mr. Cofoni will chair the Association’s Executive Committee and Compensation Committee and participate on the AFCEA Educational Foundation Board of Directors. 

As President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Cofoni’s responsibilities include executing CACI’s strategy to align its core competencies, innovative tools, and best-value solutions to help the U.S. government solve its most important problems in protecting our nation and winning the global war on terrorism. Mr. Cofoni has more than 30 years of senior-level executive experience in business development, M&A, strategic planning, and extensive federal market operations. His professional experience includes large-scale integrator contracts in the broad federal market sector; the defense, intelligence, and communications markets; and major commercial outsourcing and systems markets.  

Prior to his current position, Mr. Cofoni served as CACI’s President of U.S. Operations, where he had primary responsibility for all of the company’s domestic, federal and state, and local markets. Before joining CACI, Mr. Cofoni was President, Federal Sector of Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), and prior to joining CSC Mr. Cofoni enjoyed a 17-year career with General Dynamics in a number of assignments from 1974 to 1991, when his business unit was acquired by CSC. At General Dynamics, he served as Vice President of Information Technology services for both east and west coast business units.  

Mr. Cofoni also served as an officer in the U.S. Army from 1970 to 1974. He received a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Rhode Island in 1970 and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School program for senior executives in the fall of 1989.  

Ms. Natalie Givans is a life time member of AFCEA, joining in 1986. She has been active in the AFCEA NOVA chapter, serving on the Programs Committee and participating in the Young AFCEAN events as an invited speaker and mentor in recent years. She served on the Board of Directors for the AFCEA International Building Services Committee and on the Board of Directors for AFCEA International. In the past year, Ms. Givans served on the AFCEA Educational Foundation and has been active on the Diversity and Strategic Development Committees. She has been elected to serve as the first-ever Vice Chairman of AFCEA International, where she will report to the Chairman of the Board and will chair the Budget and Finance Committee. 

Ms. Givans has more than 24 years of experience in system security engineering, information and mission assurance, and communications, information, and transmission security. She began her career at Booz Allen Hamilton providing engineering and analysis for the KG-84A Implementation program and developing signaling plans for the STU-III program. Today, she leads Booz Allen Hamilton’s Department of Defense information and system Assurance and Resilience (A&R) capability team, with over 750 subject matter experts nationwide, providing cyber defense and secure solutions to the Warfighter and the Federal Government. Her personal focus is on enterprise wide security architectures, solutions, and cyber defense. Ms. Givans was an active member of the System Security Engineering Capability Maturity Model (SSE-CMM) project, focused on ensuring that security is integrated into all acquisition and systems development lifecycles from their conception. She is a former member of the Board of Directors and the Author and Outreach Working Groups for the International Systems Security Engineering Association (ISSEA), an organization she co-founded on behalf of Booz Allen. ISSEA developed the SSE-CMM and obtained its approval as ISO Standard 21827.

Ms. Givans received a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University. She remains active at MIT as a member of its Alumni Association Board of Directors, serving on the Finance Committee, and is the Vice President of the Class of 1984.  

“AFCEA is honored to have Mr. Cofoni and Ms. Givans as its leaders,” says AFCEA International President and Chief Executive Officer Mr. Kent Schneider. “Their leadership and expertise in the C4I community is well-known, and their service to AFCEA is beyond measure. The Association’s future is bright with these individuals at the helm.” 

In acknowledging his election, Mr. Cofoni said, “I am deeply honored to accept these new responsibilities on behalf of CACI. AFCEA is one of our nation’s most important forums for exchanging vital information on defense and intelligence. I look forward to serving the association by helping to ensure its 32,000 members and 1,600 corporate members continue this critical collaboration. This is truly an important process by which we can work together to develop the best solutions for national priorities.” 

“AFCEA is a premier professional association that gives back so much to our country, our youth, and our professional C4I communities. The organization is a leader among those who are making vital contributions to a safe and secure future for our nation, ensuring a valuable partnership between government and industry, and providing educational opportunities, including scholarships, to ensure a robust pipeline of C4I professionals for years to come. As the first Vice-Chairman of AFCEA, I look forward to continuing work with Mr. Schneider and his executive leadership team, as well as with Mr. Cofoni and the Board of Directors, to operationalize AFCEA’s strategic vision,” said Ms. Givans. 

AFCEA International, established in 1946, is a non-profit membership association serving the military, government, industry, and academia as an ethical forum for advancing professional knowledge and relationships in the fields of communications, IT, intelligence, and global security. For more information visit www.afcea.org.

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