Federal Computer Week magazine has named its 2006 Federal 100 list. The awards recognize government, industry and academia executives who have played pivotal roles in the federal information technology community. Five of the 100 have an Air Force connection. Those award winners are:

-- Capt. Jeffrey Arsenault, flight commander of base level systems at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla. Within hours of getting the call, he responded to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts in New Orleans with Deployable Initial Communications Equipment. He transformed what had been a slow-moving concept into the first option for communications support.

-- Gen. William T. Hobbins, U.S. Air Forces in Europe commander. The general is known as a mastermind of the Air Force’s contemporary strategy for warfighting with networked weapons systems. He established the service’s first road map for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

-- Col. Earl Matthews, director of communications and information, Air Mobility Command. When he took control of the Global Decision Support System II in 2004, it was six months behind schedule. By early 2005, the Air Force was ready to introduce the system. The military now has a reliable decision support system to coordinate transport aircraft, which moved 600,000 tons of cargo and 1.4 million servicemembers last year.

-- James Neighbors, former technical director and acting deputy commander of the Air Force Communications Agency (now director of the new Air Force Senior Executives Group at the Pentagon). He was responsible for a variety of technical roles including defining information technology efforts and strategies for standardized, fixed-base and deployed communications infrastructure. He developed a leadership assessment summary process to mentor communications and information civilians for increased leadership roles-- it directly impacted 25,000 government civilians.

-- Thomas Stock, network manager at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo. He led a team that upgraded the base network to gigabit ethernet performance. The flawless deployment was completed on time and within its $3 million budget.