Bradley’s outreach earns international acclaim from AFCEA

  • Published
  • By Benjamin Newell
  • 66th Air Base Group Public Affairs

HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. – A professional group announced April 12 that one of Hanscom’s senior leaders will receive an Excellence in Engineering award, citing him as a positive force for developing military capabilities.

Joe Bradley, director of the Cyber Resiliency Office for Weapons Systems and associate director of Engineering and Technical Management at Hanscom, built a career bridging government service and industry work prior to his current position as part of the Senior Executive Service. AFCEA International awards Excellence in Engineering to technical communications experts who innovate and network between ‘siloed’ communities. Bradley will formally accept the award in May at the Baltimore Convention Center.

“Joe is very focused on getting new technology into government, and into the hands of warfighters,” said Joyce Sidopoulos, co-founder of the MassRobotics organization and an AFCEA member who helped write Bradley’s nomination. “I think when I first started getting into government, working for the Navy in the 1980s and 90s, the government was considered the cutting edge. Over the last 20 years, that’s started to flip, and industry has taken the lead. People like Joe are making sure that the government does not miss out on what is out there. When Joe asks you to help, because of his charisma, you want to help.”

Previous AFCEA Excellence in Engineering recipients included academics, industry leaders and military engineers and technicians. Over the past several years, winners have hailed from the MITRE Corp., Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, U.S. Pacific Command, and also include one other senior Hanscom leader, Steven Wert, program executive officer for Digital.

The local chapter of AFCEA, the Lexington and Concord chapter, provides a forum for military, government and industry communities to collaborate and bring technology that aligns with national strategy to the military services. It is a non-profit organization with a focus on advancing the science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines. The chapter was chartered in 1960 and has approximately 900 military, civilian and industry members.

“Joe Bradley was selected for this award because he has an extraordinary track record of accomplishments in the engineering discipline spanning a 35-year career, initially in industry supporting the government, and later as a federal employee, most notably as the director of Engineering for the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center,” said Patrick Marr, senior site functional for the program management career field at Hanscom and AFCEA’s local chapter president. “Because Mr. Bradley has a distinguished record leading large engineering workforces, he was the ideal candidate to champion and lead CROWS, which is the Air Force-wide effort to identify and resolve cyber vulnerabilities of major weapon systems. Our chapter is honored by this recognition for one of our most senior members.”