Anthony "Tony" Montemarano

PEO for Information Assurance/NetOps

Anthony (Tony) Montemarano is the Program Executive Officer for Information Assurance/ NetOps at the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA).  Prior to assuming this position, he was the Program Director for the Global Information Grid Bandwidth Expansion (GIG-BE) program.  He was responsible for the engineering, implementation and overall program management of the single largest expansion in the Department of Defense global communications infrastructure.  GIG-BE now provides a diversely routed, secure, optically meshed network delivering ultra high speed classified and unclassified Internet Protocol services to approximately 90 key command control intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (C2ISR) operating locations worldwide.

Montemarano graduated from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in 1970 and was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering.  In 1986, he received a Master of Science degree in Systems Management from the University of Southern California.  Additionally, he is a graduate of both the Armed Forces Staff College (1982) and the National War College (1986).

He is a retired naval aviator with 21 years of naval service that included numerous operational deployments conducting anti-submarine warfare and utility helicopter operations aboard destroyers and fast frigates.  He culminated his aviation career as an instructor pilot and finally as the Navy’s senior standardization pilot for the H-2 type aircraft.  During his assignment to the Joint Staff in the mid 1980s, he was the current operation briefer for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
 
In 1989, he was assigned to the Defense Communications Agency and worked in the Defense Data Network (DDN) Program Management Office.  He had already completed several architectural and security assignments when, in February 1991, he was assigned as one of the sector leaders of the DoD Data Task Force that formulated the concept now known as the Defense Information System Network (DISN).
 
Upon retirement from the Navy, Montemarano joined the federal service in the DISN Program Management Office.  Since 1992, he has been closely involved with the development, deployment and sustainment of the DISN sub-networks.  He has served in leadership positions with every DISA-sponsored global communications network.  In 1993, he co-wrote the DISN Near Term Security Architecture that was ultimately approved by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (C3I).  

He has been a key player in the initial deployment and evolution of the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet); the complete upgrade and expansion of the Unclassified, but sensitive Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNet); the final phase out of the four sub-networks of the Defense Data Network; the deployment of the DISN Video Services and the deployment of DISA’s unclassified DISN Asynchronous Transfer Mode Network. 

In calendar years 2000 and 2003, he was selected to be among Federal Computer Week’s annual “Federal 100.”  Prior to assuming his duties as Program Director, he served as the Principal Director for Network Services where he was responsible for the service management of all DISA-sponsored worldwide voice, data, video and transport networks, their associated integrated network management system and the President to foreign heads of state communications links. 
(Current as of January 2006)

To Jan 9, 2007 Monthly Luncheon Page