Defense News: NAVWAR Knowledge Manager is Named AFCEA Rising Star of the Year

Source: United States Navy

The award recognizes individuals for their innovative and noteworthy achievements in the modernization and/or advancement of information technology, positively impacting the Navy’s mission for years to come.

Plante received the award for her superior leadership and significant contributions to NAVWAR’s migration to a single Microsoft Office 365 (M365) collaboration and productivity environment known as Flank Speed that will improve security and, over time, deliver additional tools to support a more productive Navy workforce.

NAVWAR Executive Director John Pope commended Plante for her success. 

“Amanda fearlessly stepped up to the plate, leading the command in the transition to Flank Speed, providing increased data security in a new cloud environment, improving user experience, and providing modern collaboration capabilities to support the distributed workforce of One NAVWAR.”

Under Plante’s lead the team successfully migrated nearly 10 years of data off six collaboration tools by the end of fiscal year 2021. To ensure a seamless transition, Plante established FS migration training, facilitating training for over 3,600 employees across the command, reducing adoption resistance in the workforce.

“This award came as quite the surprise,” said Plante. “It is an honor to be recognized by AFCEA for all my efforts leading our command through a major technology transition.”

Plante continues to support the FS migration and adoption efforts, leading a M365 Power Automate and Power Applications community which furthers NAVWAR’s adoption of the M365 Power Platform by automating manual processes such as the purchase card process. With a robust and engaging education campaign, Plante overcomes user apprehension by clearly communicating benefits of M365, presenting solutions in practical terms that resonated with users. 

About AFCEA:

AFCEA is a professional association that connects people, ideas and solutions globally by developing networking and educational opportunities and providing them in an ethical forum, enabling military, government, industry and academia to align technology and strategy to meet the needs of those who serve.

About NAVWAR:

NAVWAR identifies, develops, delivers and sustains information warfighting capabilities and services that enable naval, joint, coalition and other national missions operating in warfighting domains from seabed to space and through cyberspace. NAVWAR consists of more than 11,000 civilian, active duty and reserve professionals located around the world.