For Immediate Release
Date:   March 24, 2003

ORNL Protégé Company President Named Federal 100 Award Winner

Oak Ridge, TN. Bonnie Carroll, President of Information International Associates, Inc. (IIa), was honored as one of our nation’s leading information technology (IT) professionals at a formal gala last week in Washington, D.C. Carroll’s information management firm, headquartered in Oak Ridge, was named ORNL’s IT protégé in 2003.

The Federal 100 award, presented at the Washington Ritz Carlton on March 16, highlighted Carroll’s long-time leadership in CENDI, the Federal STI Managers Group. “…a driving force in inter-organizational cooperation in federal information management…” That’s how CENDI Chair and Director of the National Library of Medicine, Kent Smith, described Bonnie Carroll when he nominated her for Federal Computer Week’s (FCW) 2003 Federal 100 Award. CENDI is an organization of managers of scientific and technical information from 11 federal agencies. Ms. Carroll has been the group’s executive director since its inception in 1985.

According to FCW, the 100 chosen were those whose efforts strongly supported the current federal focus on “electronic delivery of services, cross-agency collaboration, and results-oriented management.” Through her role with CENDI, Carroll was instrumental in bringing to fruition Science.gov, the science portal of Firstgov that provides access to authoritative government science information, including research results. Science.gov is operated for all agencies by the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) in Oak Ridge.

FCW describes the Federal 100 winners as individuals with “uncommon vision” who play pivotal roles in the federal IT community. They are “the most valuable players,” the ones who make a “lasting impact” on their organizations and their communities.

IIa provides IT infrastructure to DOE OSTI. OSTI Director Walt Warnick seconded Carroll’s nomination, “… she’s an original thinker; she’s a great spark plug. In terms of leadership… she is world class. CENDI, OSTI, and other leaders in information management continue to benefit from Bonnie Carroll’s energy, influence and vision.”

In addition to being Executive Director of CENDI, Carroll is senior technical advisor to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). In that capacity, she has been instrumental in developing the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) and has been the lead in developing SAIN (the Southern Appalachian Information Node) of the NBII, a successful public/private regional cooperative project. Internationally, Ms. Carroll has been influential in the 34-nation Inter-American Biodiversity Information Network (IABIN) and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).

In July 2003, the National Academies chose Carroll to serve as the U.S. National Delegate to the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA), a committee of International Council for Science that serves 22 nations. She has consulted such international organizations as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization); and the International Council for Scientific Information (ICSTI).

Carroll is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a designation she received for her “outstanding contributions to the development and accessibility of federal scientific and technical information resources for research and national security.” She is a Past President of the American Society of Information Science & Technology.