On this monthly column, Defense Each day highlights individuals from across the federal government, industry and academia whose efforts contribute every day to national defense, from this system managers to the human resource leaders, to the engineers and logistics officers.
Jonas Lazo is Vice President of Digital Engineering at Sev1Tech. A cleared IT/Software Engineer and registered Agile Coach, he was formerly the Navy Technical Warrant Holder for Cloud Computing as a Navy civilian, where he authored the Naval Cloud Playbook and Cloud Reference Architecture engineering/cybersecurity standards for cloud migration. Lazo has also deployed enterprise-level applications for Navy and Marine Corps operations and led DevSecOps design-thinking workshops with the Navy, USMC, Army and USCG.
How did you get entangled within the defense industry or community?
My first duty station as lively duty was the Navy Fighter Weapons School, which is popularly generally known as “TOPGUN,” also generally known as Navy Fighter Weapons School. I didn’t fly, but I used to be their Supply Contracting Officer and worked to modernize their IT infrastructure. That have opened my eyes to your complete ecosystem of the provision chain supporting the warfighting units on the elite levels with high visibility, premium budgets and the newest modern industry technology.
Since then, I even have spent 23 exciting and professionally fulfilling years developing Cloud DevSecOps strategy and promoting digital agility for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. My journey has led me to the role of Vice President of Digital Engineering at Sev1Tech, an IT modernization, cybersecurity and advanced engineering services provider.
What are some challenges you faced working through your profession?
Unsurprisingly, bureaucracy has been a continuing challenge, whether regarding profession advancements, inter-service communications or capability deployment to the fleet. There was lots of red tape that I’ve needed to endure throughout my profession, but learning to navigate this has made me more adaptable in my current position.
How do you’re employed to be a mentor yourself to younger counterparts?
I even have been fortunate enough to have mentors and leaders guide me throughout my profession. These individuals varied by way of their strengths as role models, but each good and bad leaders have taught me to acknowledge and appreciate the qualities that do make leader.
I personally work to pursue leadership programs that I consider in and utilize opportunities I even have to usher in younger technicians to offer them with priceless experience. I’m a registered coach and mentor with the Office of Naval Research’s HBCU/MI Internship Program, where I helped scholars — in collaboration with Reservists — to develop the U.S. Navy’s Revolutionary Cloud Playbook. This program highlights the importance of mentorship and variety in the sphere of IT, pairing up-and-coming scholars with industry leaders to achieve real-world experience and hands-on training. Today, I proceed to mentor each current and former students of this system, preparing them to unravel the long run challenges of the defense industry with modern solutions.
Moreover, I initiated the NavalX Innovation mentor pilot program, which set the precedent for bringing in HBCU/MI and STEM scholars as interns in the pc science, cybersecurity and engineering disciplines. Initially, I mentored seven interns through this program. To this point, I’ve mentored over 20 interns. As a component of this program, I taught them Agile Scrum practice in an actual real-life DoD Software application project, through a full software development lifecycle (SDLC) pushed and accredited for production deployment. This not only provided additional support for the project but provided the interns with real-life, priceless experience they may learn from.
What does it mean to achieve success in your profession field?
My role and my work at Sev1Tech are in service of the U.S. Department of Defense. As such, success means having the ability to effectively support the warfighter, in probably the most efficient and modern way. We wish to make sure mission success and tap the perfect technology available in a secure and secure way.
Given the ever-evolving nature of technology and the adversary landscape, success also means having the ability to repeat that success and improve on it as needed — whether which means creating more efficiencies, incorporating emerging technologies or increasing security.
To realize success on the battlefront, agile design is vital. Agility is the inspiration of IT modernization and digital transformation. In my experience, the challenges of IT modernization aren’t necessarily related to the talent of developers, the scope of the service to be provided or the complexity of the product to be deployed — as a substitute, they’re driven by an absence of effective collaboration, which nearly all the time ends in waste, inefficiency and delay. An agile mindset, each inside an organization and amongst customers, encourages a culture of collaboration to be certain that warfighters have the correct resources and data to be as successful as possible.
How can the industry improve in promoting these individuals and constructing them up?
Among the most under-appreciated defense positions are the logisticians and the contracting and financial management personnel, who work largely behind the scenes. These individuals are crucial links in the entire supply chain effort by bringing in capability to the fleet and supporting the warfighters. As a consequence of the character of their roles, they don’t receive the identical recognition or prominence that they deserve. Nevertheless, their jobs are only as critical to mission success.
It will be useful to bring the warfighters into the contracting means of acquisition, finance, engineering and logistics. Full immersion of the operational warfighters would help to streamline the bureaucratic process through agile process improvement and design considering workshops. Also, bringing the non-warfighting units to the sphere to know the warfighter’s perspective in operating in theater could be equally useful. By placing each in the opposite’s environment, each will improve end-to-end awareness and recognize one another’s perspectives and subsequently one another.
How has the culture modified around diversity inside your profession?
I feel considered one of the larger changes I’ve seen in my profession is around the variety of ideas — that’s, when a company transcends beyond race, rank, or creed into the open and unbiased exchange of ideas, voices and perspectives toward achieving modern solutions. I even have seen this occur several times within the design considering workshops I run for the Navy and DoD. In these workshops, there’s an open exchange between executives and entry-level employees, in addition to high rating officials and officers, to develop the perfect solutions possible for our warfighters.
What’s your advice for brand spanking new entrants to the defense/military community?
Be agile and modern. Allow yourself to fail to help in learning from others and from your individual mistakes. Team members must feel that it’s okay to fail and know that those failures help progress toward achieving project goals. This builds trust, which inspires collaboration and, in turn, promotes innovation. There’s great power in cooperation and knowledge-sharing. Remember, you’re a component of a bigger community — mentor others when you may, result in the perfect of your ability, and be a servant to support others in your team.
What do you see as the long run of your sector in national defense?
For the long run of the defense sector, I consider modern leaders will seek one another out and collaborate for a standard cause — a warfighter-centered solution that ought to function a path for others. Latest entrants will hopefully resonate with this after which move the trail forward with increased innovation to evolve and proceed supporting the national defense mission.
As a committed practitioner and licensed coach of Agile design, I do know agility is important to effective IT modernization. It is going to take the adoption of agile mindset to enable scalable and resilient IT modernization so customers can successfully address emerging digital demands and overcome ever-changing threats.
Who’re the Force Multipliers in your community? Tell us at [email protected].