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May 8 2024

Meet Slawomir Hejka, CSU Commander in Bydgoszcz, Poland


Slawomir Hejka, Commander of the NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA) CIS Support Unit (CSU) in Bydgoszcz, Poland, has been awarded the NATO Meritorious Service Medal as a recognition of his important leadership skills and positive attitude.


For more than 30 years, Commander Hejka's career has been intrinsically connected with information technology (IT). He joined the Military University of Technology in Warsaw in 1992, where he studied Computer Science at the Faculty of Cybernetics. He then served at the Polish Navy Computer Centre as a software engineer for more than 12 years, and as an IT systems administrator responsible for troubleshooting technological problems of various computer systems.

Meet Slawomir Hejka, CSU Commander in Bydgoszcz, Poland

Commander Hejka's first experience with NATO was in 2013 when he took on the role of a service level manager at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium. In 2018 he took his current position as Commander of the CSU Bydgoszcz. Commander Hejka finds that his daily responsibilities at CSU Bydgoszcz supporting NATO-wide and local projects are very valuable and rewarding.

We sat down with Commander Slawomir Hejka to find out what makes him passionate about his job and his team.

What is your role at NCIA?

As the Commander of CSU Bydgoszcz, I am responsible for the unit and the workforce that provides CIS services to our customers: the Joint Force Training Centre, the NATO Communications and Information Systems Group's third NATO Signal Battalion and the Military Police Centre of Excellence, all based locally.

I ensure that the CIS support team meets their operational needs during training events, exercises, workshops, conferences, as well as in their daily work. For this reason, it is crucial to develop a local relationship with partners and provide comprehensive CIS technical advice to be recognized as a trustworthy partner. This support could not be achieved without great collaboration with NCIA's service owners and service matter experts.

What is the most rewarding and most challenging aspect about your job?

It is difficult to pick only one. I would say that the most rewarding element of my job is consistently sustaining customers' high satisfaction rates. The CSU Bydgoszcz team receives many kind words of appreciation from our partners and customers, demonstrating the great job the team does in every field of CIS services support, beginning from logistical tasks through to CIS support planning and execution.

I am of the opinion that the NATO Meritorious Service Medal I received is not an individual merit, but the merit of the entire, extremely smart CSU team. As the Commander, I am more than satisfied that I have an opportunity to lead a team who shares similar values, a team I can trust and rely on. If you always remember to take care of the morale and wellbeing of your staff, motivating people to pursue even the most difficult and demanding tasks comes easy.

How is the work of CSU Bydgoszcz crucial to NCIA and NATO?

CSU Bydgoszcz is not an independent entity, but a cog in the wheel of NCIA and NATO. Our staff's support is predominantly determined by our biggest customer, the Joint Force Training Centre, who require support with a variety of training events, exercises, conferences and workshops.

The CSU Bydgoszcz team has supported significant NATO-wide exercises, such as Loyal Leda, Citadel Bonus and Griffin Lightning. NCIA experts also participate annually in NATO's biggest interoperability exercise, Coalition Warrior Interoperability Exercise (CWIX), carried out in Bydgoszcz. The main support to CWIX is provided by CSU Bydgoszcz, including several months of planning and exercise setup activities.

Furthermore, the successful implementation of the IT Modernization (ITM) project is a rewarding task. It focuses on infrastructure replacement and migration of CIS services to the cutting-edge IT solutions and it has a significant impact on the efficient execution of our customers' work. It should be noted that the scope of the mitigation work stream in Bydgoszcz has been the largest one across all NATO locations and exceeded 50% of the entire work stream. CSU Bydgoszcz staff put in great efforts to implement the ITM project without any contractors' support.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that before the implementation of the ITM project, our partners could have experienced a degradation of CIS services due to the aging and obsolete infrastructure. However, thanks to my team's anticipation and resourcefulness, we were always able to patch and upgrade critical systems in an efficient and effective manner.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

With such a wealth of experience now, I would suggest to my younger self to put faith and trust in people, work diligently, but at the same time, do not forget about yourself and your loved ones. I would add that we should not be afraid of challenges, and if the opportunity to join NATO or NCIA arises, do not hesitate to grab it.

I also want to emphasize that 2024 is a very momentous year for Poland, as it marks 25 years since my country's accession to NATO. When I joined the Polish Armed Forces more than 30 years ago, Poland was not a NATO member yet and my understanding of the Alliance was very vague. That is why, at the beginning of my military career I could not even imagine that I would end up working in this international community, let alone be recognized with an award for my work.