Gauss to leave DISA after 3-year duty tour
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Air Force Brig. Gen. Gary Salisbury will replace Gauss. Salisbury last worked at the U.S. Transportation Command at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., as director of the Joint Transportation Corporate Information Management Center. Before that, Salisbury was commander of the 38th Engineering Installation Wing at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla. "I feel very good about my successor, and I'm not saying that because it's the politically correct thing to say," Gauss said.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Gary Salisbury will replace Gauss. Salisbury last worked at the
U.S. Transportation Command at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., as director of the Joint
Transportation Corporate Information Management Center.
Before that, Salisbury was commander of the 38th Engineering Installation Wing at
Tinker Air Force Base, Okla.
"I feel very good about my successor, and I'm not saying that because it's the
politically correct thing to say," Gauss said.
"I think he really does understand the fundamental tenets and principles of the
Common Operating Environment, and those he does not plan to change," he said.
DISA established the Defense Information Infrastructure COE on Gauss' watch.
Its goal is to ensure Defense Department systems can work across all DOD organizations.
Gauss will take a temporary duty assignment in the Navy's Office of the Director of
Space and Electronic Warfare, headed by Vice Adm. Arthur Cebrowski, pending a permanent
posting.
"I did not go to the Navy and say I want to leave DISA," Gauss said.
"It's the service who said three years is enough. Given that the Navy's
Information Technology-21 program has various infrastructure commands to support it,"
he said, "I suspect that I'm going to be thrown in the fray to help pull that
together. That's why the Navy is pulling me back."
Gauss has been with DISA since August 1994 when he became commander of DISA's Joint
Interoperability and Engineering Organization.
Last month he was promoted from the rank of rear admiral lower half to rear admiral
upper half in recognition of his work on the Global Command and Control System and DII
COE.
DISA created GCCS in less than three years compared to the 12 years it took to build
its predecessor, the Worldwide Military Command and Control System.
DOD shut down WWMCCS in August and replaced it with GCCS at 500 sites worldwide.
In related DISA news, the Senate late last month confirmed Army Lt. Gen. David Kelly to
succeed Lt. Gen. Albert Edmonds as DISA director.
Kelly, who was Edmonds' deputy director, received his third star at a promotion
ceremony the first day of this month.
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