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(U) Sydney Jaffe Career Language Award Winners
FROM: SIGINT Communications
Unknown
Run Date: 06/04/2003
(U//FOUO) Recently, the Crypto-Linguistic Association (CLA) announced the winners of the
career language awards for 2003 . This is the first year that four recipients have been chosen for
the awards- two each receiving the Dr. Sydney Jaffe Award (for civilians) and the CAPT Joseph
Rochefort Award (for military). For each award, a category was added to recognize mid-career
accomplishments. In this first of two articles, we'll focus on the recipients of the Jaffe Award.
(S//REL) The winner of the Sydney Jaffe Award, Mid-Career , was
the France and Belgium Branch (S2C41).
was recognized for
a language teacher, multi-linguist, and advocate for the linguist workforce.
of
contributions as
(S//SI)
is widely known around NSA as one of the Agency's premier Dutch
linguists and, since his arrival has helped 15 other Dutch linguists achieve professionalization. In
1998,
created a Dutch transcription course from scratch, saving the Agency an
estimated $5,000 per student in fees to language contractors--and produced better results.
Later, in 2000-2001,
developed and taught a formal language class in beginning
Dutch to three students; after 12 weeks of instruction, all passed the level two proficiency exams
with flying colors. Most recently,
is overseeing a new web-based intermediate
transcription course.
(S//SI) In addition to being a native speaker of Dutch,
is professionalized in
German and is proficient in French. He is a highly productive transcriber and has provided Dutch
language assistance to many Analysis & Production shops, and to other Intelligence Community
agencies. He has also made significant contributions to signals research and target development
(SRTD) efforts in SID. As a Master in the Language and Linguistic Technical Track,
has served on Technical Track panels and has chaired the Dutch voice PQE committee
since 1994.
(S//REL) The winner of the Sydney Jaffe Award, Long-Term , is
of the
Other Balkan Entities Branch (S2A54).
was recognized for his superlative
accomplishments at NSA, consistently producing work of outstanding quality and quantity in
multiple languages, while still making time to serve as a mentor for others.
(TS//SI)
has achieved certification in approximately a dozen languages (including
level-4 competency in some), and level-2 competency in several more. Remarkably, he is selftaught in most of them! In his career, he has produced literally thousands of reports, working at
various times with Bulgarian, Czech, Hungarian, Macedonian, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian,
and Slovene.
reporting has supported high-level policy makers, the fight against
terrorism, and combat and stabilization operations. He played a key role in the Agency's
diplomatic reporting on the Balkans crisis throughout the 1990's.
(TS//SI)
also has a long history of serving the language community. He has chaired
or served on multiple Professional Qualification Examination (PQE) committees, and oversaw
PQE testing in Eastern European languages (up to 9 languages simultaneously). Furthermore,
he played a crucial role in shaping the guidelines for the PQE system. Additionally, he has fused
his strong software skills with his language and operational expertise to develop new tools to
expedite language work. For example, he developed a scanning tool that tripled processing
efficiency for a special project.
(U) These are just some of the accomplishments of the Jaffe Award winners. We think you will
agree that their contributions have been truly exceptional. Warmest congratulations to the
honorees!
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108