It is wonderful that someone took the time to have him recognized. So many times people don't take the time to do things like this.
Regarding contracting out:
I was a boom operator in the Air Force (inflight refueling specialist). In my free time, I wrote an aircraft weight and balance calculation application in basic that ran on desktop PCs (which were brand spanking new at the time). We had been filling a form out (called a Form-F) by hand using numbers looked up in charts. It took about 20 minutes to fill this form out. The Air Force had contracted out the creation of an app that ran in an HP programmable calculator to do this same task. It took about 5 minutes to fill the form out using the calculator. My program could generate this form in about 2 minutes. And my program was also more accurate (and it printed on a full page instead of 2" wide thermal paper). After I wrote my app, nobody used the calculator to generate the Form-F unless they filling it out on the airplane.
I was already out of the Air Force at the time. But a buddy of mine who took on maintaining the program I wrote said it was used to 'load plan' every KC-135 flight in the first gulf war. Not bad for a program that I could not even get certified (if you used it on a check ride you would have actually failed the check ride, even though the result was actually more accurate).
I certainly never got a medal for my app. It did get me Airman of the Quarter at our base. But, the real reward was that it worked and that people loved it. The fact that it worked better than the contracted solution was icing on the cake. I think this guy's story is great.