Elizabeth Cumming Hight '74

Alumni Achievement Award, 2011

Pictured left to right: Elizabeth Cumming Hight '74, National Alumni Board President Mary K. McGuffey '94, and J. Cameron West, president of the College.

Alumni Achievement Award winner Navy Rear Admiral (Ret.) Elizabeth Cumming Hight serves as vice president of Hewlett Packard’s Cybersecurity Practice, where she leads a team of cybersecurity experts to help HP clients anticipate, overcome and reduce security threats. She joined HP in January 2010 as the director of the U.S. Defense Command and Control Infrastructure Practice.

Previously, Rear Admiral Hight served as the vice director of the Defense Information Systems Agency, where she helped lead an organization of more than 6,600 military and civilian personnel responsible for planning, developing, and providing interoperable, global net-centric solutions that serve the needs of the President, Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, the combatant commanders, and other Department of Defense components. Prior to that assignment, she worked as the Defense Information Systems Agency Principal Director for Operations and Deputy Commander of the Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations, where she was responsible for providing command, control, communications, computer and intelligence support to the nation’s warfighters. 

Rear Admiral Hight graduated magna cum laude from Huntingdon College in 1974 and joined the U.S. Navy in March 1977. Her first duty station was the Naval Communications Area Master Station in Western Pacific, Guam, where she was the High-Frequency Receiver Site Division Officer. In July 1997, she transferred to the Joint Staff/J6 where she served as the chief of the Current Operations Division and then as the executive assistant to the director of C4 Systems. In June 2000, Rear Admiral Hight reported as the U.S. Space Command Liaison Officer to the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany. In 2001, she reported as the Commanding Officer at the Navy Computer and Telecommunications Master Station, Atlantic, and the Program Manager for all IT in the mid-Atlantic region. She was transferred to the CNO Staff and served as the Director of Net-Centric Warfare from June 2003 until September 2005.

Rear Admiral Hight’s awards include the Defense Superior Service Medal (with Oak Leaf Cluster), Legion of Merit (with Gold Star in lieu of second award), Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal (with Gold Star in lieu of third award), Navy Commendation Medal, Navy Achievement Medal and Air Force Master Space Badge. She is a graduate of the Defense Systems Management College, the Naval post-graduate school, with a master’s degree in telecommunications systems, and George Washington University, with a master’s degree in information systems.