James F. X. Payne

Payne received the honor at the Federal Computer Week Fed 100 awards banquet at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. Since his arrival at Qwest, Payne has expanded its government division to become an increasingly significant player in the market, and has scored major contract expansions and wins, including the Department of Energy's ESnet award, extended Treasury contract to modernize the IRS' data infrastructure and additional opportunities within the Department of Defense classified arena. A long-time government marketing executive with Sprint and GTE before joining Qwest in August 1999, Payne's career spans more than 20 years in the communications and information technology marketplace. Payne spent four years at GTE before joining Sprint in 1986 as senior federal sales manager, and becoming assistant vice president for program and strategic marketing in Sprint's government systems division by 1995. He led its team that recently worn its FTS 2001 contract, having also been on the senior executive team managing the predecessor FTS 2000 contract for two years.