Paige R. Atkins is Director for Strategic Planning and Information, Defense Information Systems Agency. She is responsible for supporting the DISA Director in formulating and executing the Agency’s vision, strategy, and policy. Ms. Atkins establishes and maintains working relationships with customers, industry, and foreign partners to enable DISA mission success. Ms. Atkins ensures that DISA’s program execution is aligned to successfully plan, develop, deliver and operate joint interoperable command and control capabilities and a global enterprise infrastructure in direct support to the President, Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Combatant Commanders, DoD Components and other mission partners.

Ms. Atkins joined DISA in September 2006 as the Director of the Defense Spectrum Organization (DSO). In that role, she provided executive leadership to DoD’s center of excellence for electromagnetic spectrum engineering and management, to include planning, policy development and implementation, electromagnetic environmental effects (E3), information systems, modeling and simulation, acquisition and operations support.

Ms. Atkins graduated in 1984 from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering. In 1989, she earned a Master of Science Degree in Engineering Administration from George Washington University. 

Her professional career began in 1984 as a test engineer at Gould Inc., supporting multiple passive towed array sonar programs. In October 1988, she joined government service as an electronics engineer at the Electromagnetic Compatibility Analysis Center, later known as the Joint Spectrum Center (JSC), and was responsible for numerous programs supporting the Air Force, DARPA, NASA, NOAA, and classified agencies. Ms. Atkins became the Chief, Aerospace Systems Division in 1991, leading diverse electromagnetic compatibility and spectrum management efforts, to include managing all of the JSC’s space-related activities.

In January 1997, Ms. Atkins joined Scitor Corporation, leading a team that provided information assurance, command and control, satellite communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and spectrum management expertise to the Air Force, DISA, and the Army. In April 2000, she was selected by the Defense Science Board Task Force to provide subject matter expertise on DoD frequency spectrum issues.

In October 2000, Ms. Atkins joined Cisco Systems Inc. as a customer advocate and strategic advisor to DISA. She led a team of customer liaisons across Cisco’s most strategic DoD, intelligence community, and federal civilian customers. In 2005, she became the Director, Advanced Network Systems, leading a senior design and advanced technology engineering team responsible for the successful adoption of intelligent network solutions across the Federal government. Ms. Atkins also led the vision, strategy, and alignment of multiple cross-functional efforts within Cisco’s Global Government Solutions Group.