On October 25th, the San Diego Business Journal announced TRG Senior Advisor Pat Sullivan as the recipient of its Cyber Executive of the Year Award!

Pat works closely with the entirety of the TRG team to help craft strategic business plans, engagements, and messaging on cybersecurity and modernization within the Department of Defense. Our Advanced Technologies clients in particular benefit from his wide-ranging experience that allows for a truly unique and valuable perspective to those aiming to work with DoD.

Excerpt below from award announcement by Brad Graves

Pat Sullivan recently finished a nearly 30-year career with the U.S. Navy’s information technology command, NAVWAR, which counts cybersecurity as one of its major areas of emphasis. As Executive Director, Pat was the highest ranking civilian in the 11,000 person, global organization. Pat is the Executive of the Year in the inaugural Cybersecurity Stewardship Awards, presented by the San Diego Business Journal in association with the Cyber Center of Excellence.

“I’m almost speechless,” he said. “I’m not usually speechless. I usually have a lot to say.”

Pat’s Impact on Cybersecurity

Pat’s career highlights include recognition by the president for his accomplishments, including work mitigating the effects of a major cyber intrusion into Navy networks, thought to have come from a nation state. Sullivan led the Navy’s technical and programmatic response to the cyber issue, called Operation Rolling Tide. During initial response actions, he led NAVWAR’s top cyber engineering team to identify actions required to contain, isolate and eradicate the intrusion, which were then executed over a two month window. Once the initial response actions were complete, he identified required architectural changes, secured funding and then executed the plan over the following two years in order to make the Navy’s networks more secure and resilient. He did this with minimal disruption to fleet operations.

Pat also developed and executed a digital transformation vision for the Navy’s IT portfolio. The effort provides software for fighting ships in a manner that Sullivan compared to the ecosystem that supports app development for Apple’s App Store. His prior positions included executive director for the Navy’s Program Executive Office for Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence, as well as the director for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance at the Naval Information Warfare Center, Pacific.

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