Ralph W. Adams, Jr.
Ralph W. Adams, Jr., a graduate of the University of Nebraska, served in the Army Security Agency in Vietnam as a linguist in 1961, and came to NSA in 1965. Widely recognized for his near-native language skills, he served multiple tours in Vietnam as a language analyst for NSA. Mr. Adams served in Vietnam also as a senior language advisor to both the U.S. Army and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). He was one of the final NSAers to escape before the fall of Saigon in 1975.
Over the next 20 years, Mr. Adams held positions of increasing responsibility at ...
Lillie Berry
Ms. Lillie Berry began her career at Arlington Hall in 1956 as a clerk typist in the signals analysis unit. She quickly learned the terminology and pressed analysts to explain to her the concepts. After attending a signals analysis course and mastering a basic understanding of the subject, she was requested, in the early 1960s, to teach portions of the introductory material. She, thus, became the first African American woman in the Agency to give instruction in that discipline. In 1968, she marked another first when she became the first African American woman assigned ...
Lt. Gen Gordon A. Blake (USAF – Ret)
Gordon A. Blake was born in 1910. Upon graduation he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Coast Artillery Corps and detailed as a student officer to pilot training. After completion of the primary and Advanced Flying School, he was transferred to the Air Corps and was assigned with a pursuit squadron at Barksdale Field L.A. (1933). Following the completion of the Communications Officer's Course he was assigned as communications instructor at the Air Corps Technical School (1934). He served as communication officer of the 18th Composite Wing, Hawaii (1939); ...
Dr. Sarah “Sally” Botsai
Sarah “Sally” Botsai started work at NSA in 1957 shortly after her college graduation. She continued her education eventually earning her Ph.D. in International Relations in 1972.
Dr. Botsai spent twelve years in Operations before she was selected as the first woman to serve as the NSA representative in the White House Situation Room. After her two-year tour in this position, she was asked to return as the Deputy Director of the White House Situation Room. She held this position until 1976. She was also the first NSA woman to attend the National War College from which she ...
Calvin Brown
Calvin Brown started in the National Security Agency in 1951 as a tabulating machine operator, but since he had completed drafting school, he soon transferred to a facilities management position. After Fort Meade was identified as the new Agency location, two people, Mr. Brown and his supervisor, developed the floor plan and move schedule for all the printers, sorters, collators, and card punch machines used by the machine processing unit. Mr. Brown managed the transportation of equipment, its proper placement in the new building, and later assisted in the design of ...
Eileen Buckholtz
Eileen Buckholtz was one of the first people hired as a computer scientist by the National Security Agency. Known as one of the Agency’s Queens of Code – she helped bring graphical user interface systems (early word processors) to life. Eileen passed her passion along to new generations of computer scientists, working on the programming behind the first eReader. She is now penning STEM-themed children’s books.
Ann Caracristi
Ann Caracristi came to work as a cryptanalyst with the Army Signal Intelligence Service in 1942. She helped pioneer the application of early computers in cryptanalysis and established a laboratory for studying new communications phenomena.
Her expertise and professionalism responding to tough intelligence problems brought her rapid advancement at NSA. In 1959, she was promoted to supergrade, and in 1975, she became the first woman at NSA to be promoted to GS-18. She was the first woman to be named NSA Deputy Director in 1980. Also in 1980, she ...
Native American Code Talkers
The Native American Code Talkers served in multiple theaters of war in both world wars. They served for love of country, adventure, economic, and other reasons. They were soldiers, marines, and sailors. They were patriots. They served as Code Talkers, saving thousands of lives by creating unique codes and baffling the enemy with secure voice communications. They served as infantryman and sailors, many earning the nation’s highest award for bravery, the Medal of Honor.
In November 2013, the Native American Code Talkers were the first group to be inducted (as a whole entity) into ...
World War I – The Original Code Talkers
When US military codes kept being broken by the Germans in WW1 a Native American tribe came to the rescue. They just spoke their own language - which baffled the enemy - and paved the way for other Native American "code talkers" in WW2.
It's an irony that probably didn't go unnoticed by Choctaw soldiers fighting in World War One. While the tribe's children were being whipped for speaking in their native tongue at schools back home in Oklahoma, on the battlefields of France the Native American language was the much-needed answer to a very big problem.
In the autumn of ...
William D. Coffee
In April 1946, William D. Coffee was awarded the Commendation for Meritorious Civilian service for his wartime leadership in exploiting critical enciphered messages. During a time of harsh racial discrimination, he excelled and became the acting supervisor of a segregated office that made impressive contributions to the nation's cryptologic achievements.
Mr. Coffee was born in 1917 in Abington, Virginia. He studied English at Knoxville College in Tennessee. During the years of the Great Depression, from 1937-1940, he worked in the Civilian Conservation Corps. ...
Wilma Davis
With a degree in mathematics and a Navy correspondence course on cryptology, Wilma Davis was hired to work in the Army's Signal Intelligence Service in the late 1930s. Her first assignment was with the Italian diplomatic codes, which she exploited until 1942 when she transferred to the Japanese problem. Within two years, she was the head of the department that solved and processed intercepted Japanese Army code messages. At the end of the war, she moved on to the Chinese team and then to the Venona Project trying to break Soviet messages.
Ms. Davis left the cryptologic field a ...
Agnes Meyer Driscoll
Agnes Meyer Driscoll held degrees in mathematics and physics, as well as proficiencies in English, French, German, Latin, and Japanese. She was a pioneer cryptologist and a Navy code breaker. One Navy admiral described her as "without peer as a cryptanalyst." From solving codes and breaking Japanese naval systems, to developing new cipher machines and encouraging the use of tabulating machines for cryptanaysis, her accomplishments are inspirational.
Ms. Driscoll's work as a navy cryptanalyst who broke a multitude of Japanese naval systems, as well as a ...