FHS Graduate Wins National Intelligence Industry Award

Zalenda Cyrille. Photo: Intelligence and National Security Alliance.

A 1997 Franklin High School graduate will be honored next month by a national organization for her work in the intelligence community.

Zalenda Cyrille has won the 2016 Edwin H. Land Industry Award from the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, a “a non-profit, non-partisan, public-private organization that works to promote and recognize the highest standards within the national security and intelligence communities,” according to its Web site.

Cyrille, a senior program manager at Chantilly, Va.-based Vencore, is the first woman and the first African-American to win the Land Award in its six-year history, according to the INSA Web site.

The Land Award was established to recognize young professionals who “deserve recognition for exemplary support to the intelligence and national security communities,” according to the INSA Web site.

At Vencore, Cyrille manages more than 30 engineers and a multi-million dollar contract portfolio, according to the citation for her award. She “adapts, teaches, and implements industry best practices for software development across the Intelligence Community (IC).”

“As a certified program consultant in Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Ms. Cyrille is instrumental in educating both government and industry development teams and leaders on the principles behind improving development efforts under this agile methodology,” the citation states. “In 2015 alone, Ms. Cyrille has instructed over 200 people across multiple offices and organizations to become certified practitioners, helping to revolutionize the way software development is performed at the government level. In addition to teaching the certification courses, Ms. Cyrille works closely with the development teams to stand up and instill tailored processes to meet specific team needs.”

Cyrille and the five other INSA award winners will be honored at a ceremony and reception Feb. 9 at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington D.C. The keynote speaker will be James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence.

“INSA is proud to recognize this class of Achievement Award recipients,” INSA President Chuck Alsup said in a press release about the awards. “They have demonstrated leadership and mentorship qualities that distinguish them as future leaders of the intelligence and national security workforce. It says a lot about them individually and about the type of young men and women working to keep our country safe.”

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