JSU Alum Army Maj. Gen. James David Bryan
to Head ManTech Defense Group

David Hubler
Washington Technology
01-15-2008

Reprinted here in its entirety.

ManTech International Corp. has hired retired Army Maj. Gen. James David Bryan as the new president at its Defense Systems Group.

Bryan succeeds retired Army Maj. Gen. Eugene Renzi, who will now have broader unspecified duties as the company’s senior executive vice president.

Upon his retirement from the Army in 2004, Bryan served as vice president of defense transformation and deputy of the Defense Enterprise Solutions Group at Northrop Grumman Information Technology. He was appointed a sector vice president at Northrop Grumman in 2007. Bryan is a graduate of Jacksonville State University and has a master’s degree from North Carolina State University. He also is a graduate of the Army Command and General Staff College and the Army War College.

ManTech ranks No. 31 on Washington Technology’s 2007 Top 100 list of the largest federal government prime contractors.

See story at Washington Technology's website: www.washingtontechnology.com .

Bryan began his army career in 1970 as a signal officer in the 82nd Airborne Division, followed by various command and staff assignments with the airborne and special operations communities before becoming vice director of the Defense Information Systems Agency and commander of the joint Task Force for Computer Network Operations in 2000.

The significance of Bryan's role in heading up the joint task force for Computer Network Operations is evidenced in the Washington Post article "Bush Orders Guidelines for Cyber-Warfare" - February 7, 2003:   

President Bush has signed a secret directive ordering the government to develop, for the first time, national-level guidance for determining when and how the United States would launch cyber-attacks against enemy computer networks, according to administration officials.

Similar to strategic doctrine that has guided the use of nuclear weapons since World War II, the cyber-warfare guidance would establish the rules under which the United States would penetrate and disrupt foreign computer systems.

The United States has never conducted a large-scale, strategic cyber-attack, according to several senior officials. But the Pentagon has stepped up development of cyber-weapons, envisioning a day when electrons might substitute for bombs and allow for more rapid and less bloody attacks on enemy targets. Instead of risking planes or troops, military planners imagine soldiers at computer terminals silently invading foreign networks to shut down radars, disable electrical facilities and disrupt phone services.

Bush's action highlights the administration's keen interest in pursuing a new form of weaponry that many specialists say has great potential for altering the means of waging war, but that until now has lacked presidential rules for deciding the circumstances under which such attacks would be launched, who should authorize and conduct them and what targets would be considered legitimate.

A sign of the Pentagon's commitment to developing cyber-weapons was its decision in 1999 to assign responsibility in this area to a command under a four-star general -- at the time, Space Command, which last year merged into Strategic Command. In addition, a special task force headed by a two-star general has been established to consolidate military planning for offensive as well as defensive computer operations.

Maj. Gen. James David Bryan, who heads the Joint Task Force on Computer Network Operations, said his group has three main missions: to experiment with cyber-weapons in order to better understand their effects; to "normalize" the use of such weapons, treating them "not as a separate entity" but as an integral part of the U.S. arsenal; and to train a professional cadre of military cyber-warriors.

Bryan authored and spearheaded the "C41 for the Warrior" program that revamped the Department of Defense's approach to information system interoperability before retiring in 2001. Prior to becoming the new president of ManTech International Corporation, he served as vice president of defense transformation at Northrop Grumman Information Technology.

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