ROCK OF THE YEAR
ROCK OF THE YEAR
FOR 2001
Colonel Tommy T. Osborne
U.S. Army, Retired
COL Tommy T. Osborne is a co-recipient of the Rock of the Year Award. He completed a successful 30-year career in the Army and is now repeating that success in the private sector. A graduate of Prairie View A&M University with a B.S. in Chemistry & Mathematics and a M.S. in Chemistry. He has command and management experience in some of the Army's most complex and technical area, which favorably impacted the Army's information technology infrastructure.
An experienced project manager whose work supported the Air Force, Marines, Navy and NATO Forces. While assigned to the Defense Information Systems Agency, he was a member of the program management tam for information system engineering that integrated the efforts of seven firms and the Carnegie Mellon Research Institute.
His military and civil training and education are too numerous to list here in their totality, but here are a few: Distinguished Graduate Signal Officers Advance Course, Honor Graduate Command and General Staff college and Army Fellow National War college. While Communications Electronics Staff Planner for the US Representative, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Military Committee, Office of the Chairman, Joint chiefs of Staff, 1986-1988, successfully negotiated telecommunications, information, and information security long-range planning and immediate action issues with NATO counterparts. As a member NATO's communications and information systems (CIS) policy committee, also coordinated US positions on military, consultation, scientific, and civil agency CIS.
As Army Material Command (AMC) Corporate Information Officer, 1991-1994, provided vision, staff guidance and cross-organizational leadership for information resource management for a $5 billion worldwide logistics, research, development, testing and acquisition enterprise.
He is currently director of enterprise management and directs the provision of information technology service for Information Support Activity (ITSA) in support of designated Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC) headquarters and activities. Services include Local and Wide Area Network Support of a Novell based system at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, MD, Alexandria, VA and Ft. Hood, TX; Analysis and Programming Support for ATEC applications as well as data management and collection for test events; Command -wide Web Master Support; Database and System Administration; Customer Assistance and Training; Internet/Intranet Support; Government Furnished Property.
A tireless worker, Tommy has orchestrated the successful West Hamilton Dinner for the last 7 years. Tommy is married to the former Emma Elmore and they have 2 sons- Tommy Osborne, II, M.D. and Sean D. Stang Osborne, P.E., and three grandchildren.
ROCK OF THE YEAR
FOR 2001
Major General Robert C. Gaskill
U.S. Army, Retired
MG Robert C. Gaskill is co-recipient of the Rock of the Year Award for the new millennium. His command and managerial experience spans over three decades. He has served in a wide variety of demanding positions. He commanded one of the Army's largest industrial complexes, Letterkenny Army Depot, in Pennsylvania. He later commanded the Army's largest brigade, the 1st Support Brigade, in Europe. He was the Deputy Commander of the 21st Support command. These latter two assignments included responsibility for quality-of-life support and community relations in ten dispersed communities in Germany, Belgium and Great Britain.
General Gaskill served as Deputy Commandant, U.S. Army War College during 1977-78. This college is the Army's senior educational institution. When he retired from active military service in 1981, he was the Deputy Director, Defense Logistics Agency.. This agency at that time employed more than 47,000 persons and had an annual budget in excess of $11 billion.
Since military retirement, he has been an adjunct faculty member at the Northern Virginia community College and counselor for the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), under the auspices of the U.S. Small Business Administration and the Prince William County (VA) Chamber of Commerce.
General Gaskill was born in Younkers, New York, on April 12, 1931. He has a B.A. in accounting and business administration from Howard University and an M.B.A. from George Washington University. He has completed additional graduate-level studies at several institutions. He is a graduate of the Army War college: Army Command and General Staff College; Armed Forces Staff College; Army Quartermaster, Finance and Signal Schools; Army Logistics Management Center; Army Institute for Military Assistance and the Naval Postgraduate School.
He has authored professional articles and book reviews in his field of interest. His essay, "The Military city Manager: The Management Challenge to the Installation commander," was included in U.S. Army War College Selected Reading: Command and Management (Academic Year 1975). He has lectured extensively in the USA and abroad at military and civilian institutions and civic and professional functions. General Gaskill is an honorary faculty member of several military schools.
General Gaskill chaired the committee that researched and published the history of the Rocks in 1996. He has also served as Rocks liaison to the Howard University ROTC. He is married to the former Erotida M. Ponce, and they have four children: Robert, Jr., Vivienne R. Porter, Juli A. Henderson and Cheryl L. Foster.
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