These Rising Stars rock

It was The Who's Pete Townshend who coined the phrase "The kids are alright" when he penned the rock band's 1965 hit of the same name. With all the gnashing of teeth in the federal market about the tidal wave of retirements headed toward us, it is nice to pause and realize that there are talented young people hard at work in the government market.

Not only are the kids all right, but they are already showing their stuff, and it's pretty good stuff.

Among the winners of the 2008 Rising Stars, are several working on what could be the infrastructure for how government operates in the future: service-oriented architecture.

For instance, Dan Ellis of Everware-CBDI helped write the book that agencies are using to meet SOA requirements.

Siddartha Chowdhary, president and chief executive officer of Credence Management Solutions LLC, founded his own company three years ago but has also founded an organization to foster job growth in southwestern Virginia.

Others, such as Elizabeth Casale of PacStar, aren't afraid to drop everything, pack up a tractor-trailer of communications equipment and head into the path of a hurricane.

Carlos Laureano of General Dynamics Corp. doesn't worry about fear, either. He's on his second stint as a reservist in southwest Asia.

To pick the Rising Stars, Washington Technology worked with its sister publications, Federal Computer Week and Government Computer News, to solicit nominations and gather a panel of judges.

A total of 36 winners were identified, and we've divided them according to the separate missions of our publications. You can read about contractor employees in Washington Technology, technologists in GCN (Aug. 18 issue) and policy and management wonks in FCW (Aug. 18 issue).

We have an e-seminar series in the works that will include an interactive forum for learning more lessons from the Rising Stars.