Barbara McNamara
Barbara McNamara demonstrated extraordinary leadership qualities in advancing NSA’s mission, enhancing cooperation with other US agencies, and developing foreign partner relations. She began her career as a Chinese Linguist and served in several analytic, operational, and managerial positions at the National Security Agency (NSA).
In 1994, she became the first woman to be Deputy Director of Operations, and in 1997, she reached the highest civilian position at NSA when she was named the Agency’s Deputy Director. In 2000, she became the first woman to hold the ...
Juanita Moody
In early 1943, Juanita Morris, at a small college in North Carolina, wished to contribute to the war effort and volunteered at the nearest recruiting office. By April, she was at the Army cryptologic headquarters at Arlington Hall Station. While awaiting her security clearance, the Signal Security Agency (SSA) put her into unclassified training in cryptanalysis; she became fascinated with the subject.
At the end of the war, her supervisor asked her to stay on, rather than be demobilized, and she agreed. In 1948, she married Warren Moody, a non-cryptologic ...
Maj. Gen. John E. Morrison, Jr. USAF (Ret)
John E. Morrison Jr.was born on April 20, 1918 in Baltimore and graduated from the University of Baltimore in 1939 with a Juris Doctor degree. He graduated from the Air Command and Staff College in 1949 and from the Air War College in 1959.
Maj Gen Morrison was a member of the Board of Directors of the National Historical Intelligence Museum; founder, past president, and Chairman of the Board of the National Cryptologic Museum Foundation; and a member of the Joint Military Intelligence College Foundation Board. He was also a Phoenix Society Distinguished ...
Chester Nez – Code Talker
In 2012, we first wrote about Chester Nez.
"Code Talker," by Chester Nez with Judith Schiess Avila became the first and only memoir by one of the original 29 Navajo code talkers of WWII. The book was dedicated to the 420 World War II Navajo Marine code talkers -- men who developed and implemented an unbreakable communications system that helped ensure the American defeat of the Japanese in the South Pacific. You can read an excerpt of Code Talker on Judith Avila's ...
Dr. Loyce Pailen
Dr. Loyce Pailen, a doctor of management and senior director of the Center for Security Studies at University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC), has more than 35 years of experience in information technology, including work in cybersecurity, software development, project management, telecommunications, risk management, and network and systems security and administration. She has held director-level information technology positions at the Washington Post, Graham Holdings, UMGC, and as a contractor at Computer Sciences Corporation for the Defense Cyber Investigations Training Academy ...
Debora Plunkett
Debora Plunkett is a leader with more than 30 years of experience leading large, complex organizations. Culminating a career of U.S. federal service in 2016, she currently is Principal of Plunkett Associates LLC, a consulting business. She is a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and Technology and an Adjunct Professor of Cybersecurity in the University of Maryland’s Graduate School. She serves on the corporate boards of JCPenney, CACI International, and Nationwide Insurance. She is also a founding member and Chairman of the Board of Defending Digital ...
James W. Pryde, Sr.
Mr. James W. Pryde Sr. joined the Army Air Corps and in 1944 entered aviation school. Instead of becoming a pilot, Mr. Pryde became a radio operator with WWII's famous Tuskegee Airmen. He then joined the Armed Forces Security Agency in 1950 as a communications clerk and was assigned to the mailroom. When it was discovered he could read automatic Morse tape, he was transferred to a signals analysis section, where he became a telemetry analyst.
Mr. Pryde then spent two years on detail to the staff of the Assistant Secretary of Defense. He served as the Director ...
Bernard Pryor
Bernard W. Pryor is believed to be the first African-American hired by the Army’s Signal Intelligence Service. He had been a motorcycle messenger with the Navy Department when he began his career in 1939 as a messenger with Signal Intelligence Service. By mid-1943, Mr. Pryor was the senior messenger of 15 people. In 1944, he moved to the personnel department most likely to assist the African American employees who were being hired in increasing numbers. He remained in personnel until he retired in 1965.
Brigadier General (USAF-Ret) Neal T. Robinson
Brig Gen Neal T. Robinson was an academic and civic leader in his youth, which led to an appointment to the USAF Academy in 1970. Following graduation, he became an intelligence officer serving in the toughest assignments in hot spots around the world: South Korea, Iran (where he was taken hostage during the 1979 crisis), Panama, Italy, and Germany. He did multiple tours in the Pentagon, Texas, and Maryland.
Neal was head of intelligence for European Command during the Kosovo War. He approached every job with total dedication and always produced effective ...
Carroll Robinson
Mr. Carroll Robinson was the National Security Agency’s first black engineer and first African American Senior Executive. He was hired by the NSA’s Research and Development organization to assist in building the Agency’s first in-house developed computer, ABNER 1. At the time, R&D was one of the few areas of the Agency where African Americans and their white coworkers worked side by side to further the NSA mission. He retired from the Agency as an office chief.
Dr. Julia Ward
As the founder of Central Reference, Dr. Julia Ward significantly affected the future of a key function across a wide variety of targets and problems. Her pioneering efforts to build a library of classified and unclassified resources to aid analysis greatly advanced the American cryptologic effort.
Dr. Ward was born in December 1900. She attended Bryn Mawr College, earning an Associate Bachelor's degree in 1923 and a Ph.D. in 1940. She was employed by Bryn Mawr from 1923 until she joined the cryptologic service during World War II. She held a variety of positions of increasing ...
Wilhelmena Ware
Ms. Wilhelmena Ware began her career at the Agency in 1949 as a cardpunch operator. In 1952, she was promoted to a supervisory position and in that capacity taught a comprehensive keypunch course to the Agency’s first hearing impaired employees. Later, Ms. Ware became a computer science instructor in the National Cryptologic School and taught Introduction to Computer Systems Operations. Ms. Ware was promoted to Chief of the Learning Center where she was instrumental in instituting a number of programs, including the implementation of the sign language course. In 1980, ...