OSAC Awards

The annual OSAC Achievement Awards are a much-anticipated part of the ISF Dinner. The awards honor to U.S. Department of State employees or groups and private-sector individuals. These peer-nominated awards recognize significant contributions to enhancing the ability of American organizations to protect their personnel, assets, information, intellectual property or business operations overseas.

OSAC Distinguished Achievement Award CO-HONOREES

The Distinguished Achievement Award is presented to U.S. Department of State representatives who have made a significant, direct contribution to the safety and security of American organizations abroad. The 2020 Public Sector Winner: Rebecca Gomez, OSAC Program Manager; 2020 Private Sector Winner: Dinesh Elangovan, Chennai Site Manager, Fidelity Investments; Secretary, OSAC India-Chennai Chapter.

Rebecca Gomez’s tireless contributions, resourcefulness and can-do spirit to OSAC’s Women in Security (WiS) program have helped the WiS grow since its founding in 2017 into a thriving group with membership approaching almost 1,000 women and allies. Rebecca guided the WiS Steering Committee through the creation of its foundational documents, defining its mission and objectives and developing its organizational structure. Her steadfast resourcefulness and technical skills were instrumental in developing the group’s communication strategy and platform, including a clearly defined, collegial Google Group that has expanded the WiS community. A true collaborator, she helps WiS work in tandem across the Common Interest Committees. When the pandemic necessitated a pivot to digital programming, Rebecca worked with the Steering Committee to develop eight webinars over six months and three facilitated WiS events and discussions. She has been vital to WiS’s benchmarking surveys, nascent speaker bank and WiS’s most ambitious undertaking to date: a mentor/protégé program.

 

 

Reliable, knowledgeable and efficient, Dinesh Elangovan is the “go-to” person for the OSAC India-Chennai Chapter. He coordinates and leads webinars and chapter meetings and has improved member communications, networking opportunities and chapter visibility significantly. His revision of the Chapter’s WhatsApp communication policy included updating communications standards and expectations. Dinesh created a common language requirement (English) for any local government directives on WhatsApp, a strategy that proved essential to coordinate COVID-19 responses in a country with approximately 27 official languages. When the Indian government locked down the country, Dinesh created webinars with business and emergency preparedness experts and conducted quarterly validation studies to update members. Dinesh fosters better networking by continually improving member communications and by creating innovative partnerships, including the recent collaboration between the Chapter and Chennai police. Educating Chapter members is also an area where Dinesh excels. This year, after extensive research of statutory information required by Indian law, he developed and disseminated best-practice requirements.

 

Previous Winners:
2019: Richard Barta and William Gannon
2018: Shari-Ann Peart
2017: Rebecca Spingarn
2016: Anton Kort, Kat Plitsyna and Kirby Rosenbluth
2015: Arie van Veelen
2014: Lindsay Harrison and Seth Green
2013: Sarah Kessler and Timothy Haley

COuntry CHAPTER Achievement Award

The OSAC Country Chapter Achievement Award highlights exceptional performance by an OSAC Country Chapter. 2020 Winner: OSAC Ireland-Dublin Chapter. 

The Dublin Chapter’s leadership consistently and competently rose to the many challenges presented in 2020. The January in-person event and two subsequent virtual events focused on the use of intelligence in corporate security, working with law enforcement during cyber incidents and rising political risks in Europe and Eurasia. Due to COVID-19, the Dublin Chapter shifted seamlessly to an online joint event with the Chapter Steering Committee and the Irish ASIS chapter committee, which included three members of the OSAC China, Shanghai Chapter and Shanghai RSO Ed Swoyer. Open to all European OSAC members, this event, and a second virtual event on “Travel and Security Considerations in a COVID-19 Environment,” were well attended — setting the bar for other OSAC Chapters to open their virtual events to the wider OSAC community. The Dublin Chapter’s leadership of RSO Kevin Gonzalez and Co-Chairs Brian Kirkpatrick and John Murphy are committed to ensuring that all sectors interests are represented. Annual charter reviews and regular surveys and communication of the Chapter’s quarterly events ensure that it is meeting the evolving areas of interest of the membership and responding thoroughly and thoughtfully to the unprecedented challenges of 2020.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Previous Winners:

2017: International Development Sector Committee
2016: Hotels and Lodging Sector Committee
Previous Winners: 2019: OSAC Afghanistan-Kabul
2018: OSAC Venezuela-Caracas
2017: OSAC Ukraine-Kyiv
2016: OSAC Turkey-Istanbul
2015: OSAC Afghanistan-Kabul
2014: OSAC Kenya-Nairobi and OSAC Libya-Tripoli
2013: OSAC Nigeria-Lagos

Common Interest Committee ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

The OSAC Common Interest Committee Achievement Award highlights exceptional performance by an OSAC Common Interest Committee (Regional Committee or Sector Committee). 2020 Common Interest Committee Achievement Winner: Women in Security; accepted by Margaret Levine, Chair, VP Corporate Security, Bridgestone Americas, Inc.

Created following the resounding success of OSAC’s initial Women in Security (WiS) 2017 networking event, WiS has become a cornerstone of the OSAC program. Today, WiS’s membership of women and allies has grown to nearly 1,000 and is focused on the critical need to address the successes and challenges of women in security and to develop impactful networking and essential resources needed to thrive in the industry. Early in the pandemic, WiS’s Google Group quickly responded with information sharing and benchmarking, hosting eight webinars and three virtual discussions on duty of care and other relevant topics. This year, WiS made impressive strides in fulfilling its mission to encourage female perspectives and participation in OSAC initiatives, enhance diversity and inclusion industry wide and enable members to ascend to leadership positions. The newly established subcommittees – Benchmarking, Mentorship, Speaker Diversity, Webinars and Events – launched several exciting  initiatives. Of note, the Mentorship Subcommittee’s new mentor/mentee program has 50 matched participants to date. The Benchmarking Subcommittee’s February survey developed needed demographics to create future programs, and the Speaker Diversity Subcommittee created a directory prototype for Common Interest Committees and OSAC to use to expand speaker panel diversity. In addition, the WiS new job posting process is helping the security industry attract diverse candidates.

 

Previous Winners:
2018: Aviation Sector Committee
2017: International Development Sector Committee
2016: Hotels and Lodging Sector Committee