Veronica Lipscombe, director of Technical Services in the Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO), was selected October 31 for the Annual Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation Award for Distinguished District of Columbia (DC) Government Employees.
Lipscombe was one of five exceptional DC government employees recognized for exemplary public service who will receive a $7,500 cash prize and trophy at a reception and awards ceremony December 1. She will be the first OCTO employee to receive the award, which is sponsored by the largest independent grant-making foundation focused exclusively in the Washington Metropolitan area and managed by the Center for Excellence in Public Leadership at George Washington University.
Chief Technology Officer Suzanne Peck nominated Lipscombe as one of the District’s true IT pioneers. A native Washingtonian and African-American woman in a male-dominated industry, Lipscombe broke ground by building one of the country’s most sophisticated government Wide Area Networks (WANs). Today, the DC WAN is the DC government’s technological backbone, connecting 30,000 users and 660 remote locations.
“The DC WAN is now one of the best, if not the best, government WANs in the nation,” said Peck. “It’s made all of our other IT achievements possible.”