Leadership changed hands during a Change of Charter ceremony June 25 at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD for the Distributed Common Ground System – Army (DCGS-A), the Army’s cornerstone system for intelligence processing, analysis and dissemination.

Col. Charles Wells, Program Manager DCGS-A transferred authority to Col. Robert Collins during a ceremony hosted by Stephen Kreider, Program Executive Officer – Intelligence, Electronic Warfare & Sensors (PEO IEW&S).

DCGS-A is the Army’s intelligence system that gathers, analyzes and shares significant amounts of information pulled into a common environment, enhances Soldier situational awareness and improves commander’s ability to protect the force. It is currently deployed supporting the Army’s intelligence mission across the world.

Wells began leading the team in July 2010, when the program faced the challenge to provide greater access to shared intelligence data while also needing to balance the priority of increasing user understanding and simultaneously working through federally-mandated acquisition milestones within schedule and budget constraints.

As a result of Wells’ leadership, the program successfully achieved major acquisition milestones and balanced immediate operational requirements of an ongoing war. Over the past few years under Wells leadership the program has developed a new acquisition strategy that better aligns with an agile information technology program, fielded multiple software and hardware updates to the program and increased public understanding of what DCGS-A provides to warfighters. He leveraged a diverse team of government and industry partnerships to ensure positive momentum towards the program’s vision and direct support to the program’s users.

DCGS-A also successfully deployed worldwide to support the intelligence mission in multiple highly visibility missions across the Army protecting U.S. interests.

“We’ve worked extremely hard over the past few years to support Soldiers and the Army’s intelligence mission. Due to a lot of determination and perseverance from our government and industry team, we’ve been able to make great strides in technology, policy, procedures and education. As I move to my next responsibilities to support the Army, I leave with confidence in the future and a huge amount of pride in the constant focus we’ve had on what is in the best interests of our intelligence analysts and the mission,” explained Wells.

Wells’ previous assignments provided him with the technical understanding and familiarity necessary for managing large data. He was the first project officer for Army Knowledge Online (AKO), assistant Product Manager for Blue Force tracking systems and Product Manager for Defense Communications Systems – Europe/Southwest Asia. He was responsible for the modernization of the U.S. Army voice and data networks in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan.

Wells and his team have focused on integrating agile software, expanded data storage, and rapid information processing to align with intelligence analyst requirements. Under his guidance, DCGS-A augmented the program to be an impressive tool for analysts while incorporating ease of use requests from end users. The merging of program functionality with powerful results was due to strong industry partnership collaboration and has increased commander visibility and Warfighter mission planning.

He will continue to support the warfighter working for the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology as the Director of Resource Integration Division in the Pentagon, with oversight for budget planning of Army Acquisition Programs and Army Research and Development investments. As he hands over the charter to Collins, he does so with confidence in the future of the program.

“I am honored to take on the responsibilities leading this spectacular DCGS-A team. It is clear from the remarkable accomplishments of this program that the amount of integrity, hard work, and dedication to our Soldiers is going to enable us to continue the positive momentum toward our goals and objectives,” explained Collins.

Collins recently graduated from Senior Service College at the Eisenhower School of Strategic Studies at Fort McNair and previously was the Product Manager for the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) Increment 2 and 3, the Army’s backbone tactical network and communications programs.