On this episode of A Deeper Look, Joe Paiva speaks with Tony Brannum, associate chief information officer for the Agriculture Department’s Client Experience Center.

The post A Deeper Look at the Agriculture Department first appeared on Federal News Network.

This week, Joe Paiva speaks with Javier Inclan, Assistant Inspector General for Management/CIO for the National Science Foundation Office of Inspector General. Inclan has held many roles within the organization including acting division director for Human Resource Management, senior advisor to the Office of the Director, acting division director in the Division of Administrative Services, and deputy division director for the Division of Administrative Services.

The post A Deeper Look at the National Science Foundation OIG first appeared on Federal News Network.

If there is one civilian agency in the United States whose mission is as important to our national defense — and possibly more difficult — as the Defense Department, it is the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The brevity and clarity of CISA’s mission statement, “reduce risk to the nation’s cyber and physical infrastructure,” does an injustice to the breadth and complexity of the actual task. So I invited CISA’s Deputy Director Nitin Natarajan to the studio recently to tell folks how his agency is dealing with those challenges.

During the first part of the interview we discussed CISA’s mission and priorities (and I joked about how much easier it would be if they had the same type of enforcement powers as their Chinese counterpart, the Cyber Administration of China). During the second half, Nitin explained some of the things CISA is doing to attract and retain some of the most in-demand talent in the world to serve in critical positions at CISA.

While the term “critical infrastructure” may be somewhat self-explanatory, any discussion of how to defend it must start with a discussion of who actually controls critical infrastructure in the United States. A small (very critical) portion of that infrastructure is owned by the DoD, and an even smaller (less critical) portion is owned and operated by federal civilian agencies. However, unlike most of our potential adversaries, the overwhelming majority of the United States’ critical infrastructure is owned and controlled by private enterprise.

With notably few exceptions, the information systems relied upon by U.S. electrical generation plants and distribution networks, medical facilities, telecommunication networks, financial services, etc. are all selected, purchased, operated and maintained by corporations that are in no way bound to follow any federal guidance with respect to which systems they do or don’t buy, how they maintain them, or when they replace them. Additionally, even critical infrastructure that is subject to some minor level of oversight is generally part of a complex web of legal entities with multiagency oversight schemas that make anything other than levying fines after the fact almost impossible. Compared with the authority vested in the Cybersecurity Agency of China, who simply make a proclamation like “nobody will use memory chips from U.S. chip manufacturer Micron” and most of Micron’s Chinese based business evaporates overnight, CISA’s lack of direct regulatory authority places them at a huge disadvantage.

Nitin explained how CISA deals with the challenge of lacking direct control by creating strong partnerships with industry and other federal agencies, as well as state and local governments.
CISA’s primary tactic for overcoming its lack of direct control mimics the Pentagon’s approach to maintaining stability in challenging regions of the world. It relies on what I would call “economically incentivized coalitions and capacity building programs.” More specifically, CISA provides both commercial companies and state and local governments access to cybersecurity information, education and expertise they could either not afford or would be otherwise unwilling to invest in themselves. At its core, CISA’s efforts enable partners to buy, implement, operate and maintain systems in a secure manner at a much lower cost and in a far more effective manner than they could otherwise afford without CISA’s assistance. Like water buffalo circling the herd to defend their calves against lions, local governments and companies working with CISA are able to build a shared defense model that is stronger than any one of them could ever do alone.

Another key element of CISA’s strategy is a focus on developing a cybersecurity workforce not just for itself, but for the entire federal government, which in turn has positive impacts on both state and local governments as well as private industry. During the show, Nitin spoke at length about job opportunities within CISA and programs available for both college and high school students to develop not only fulfilling, but quite lucrative careers in cybersecurity.

CISA didn’t exist back when I wrote Cybernomic Warfare, but what I said then still applies: The most meaningful conflict of our time will not be fought by soldiers, sailors and Marines driving tanks, ships and airplanes off in some foreign land. It will be a cyber-enabled, economic battle fought by everyday Americans on the streets of every town in America. The work of CISA employees and support contractors plays a critical role in preparing our nation for that fight. They need, and we need them to have, the best and the brightest our country has to offer to ensure we win that war.

To learn more about what people at CISA do every day, why they find their jobs so rewarding, and how you can join their team, please listen to my interview with Nitin as we take A Deeper Look at CISA and visit the CISA Career Page.

The post A Deeper Look at CISA first appeared on Federal News Network.

For our May 24 show, I interviewed the Press Secretary for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Jeremy Edwards, and FEMA talent acquisition specialist Leemar Thorpe.

With the increasing frequency and intensity of both natural and human caused disasters over the past several years, it seems like FEMA is in the news every week responding to wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes and a myriad of other events. However, like almost every federal agency I have interviewed, it turns out that while coordinating the federal government’s direct response to disasters that overwhelm local capabilities is at the core of their mission, FEMA does more than most folks realize.

With more than 20,000 employees distributed across the country via ten regional offices, the agency not only responds directly at the time of disasters, but plays a major role in helping individuals and communities plan for and mitigate the impact of potential disasters. That portion of their business has become increasingly critical as the COVID accelerated transition to remote work has resulted in a massive migration of people from more populated cities and suburbs to more hazard prone (and less prepared/capable) rural parts of the country. Wildfires that once only threatened empty land or a handful of residents who had grown up understanding how to recognize, mitigate and react to wildfires now frequently threaten new or newly expanded housing developments with thousands of residents who were not raised in an environment in which those types of skills were necessary or taught. The same goes for areas prone to tornadoes, hurricanes and other natural and human-caused events.

FEMA has reacted by greatly expanding their efforts to inform and educate people in these areas how to remain aware and prepared, take proactive steps to mitigate their danger and losses should an event occur, and how to react when one does. The increased frequency and geographic dispersion of these events has also forced FEMA to expand these efforts beyond areas we traditionally think of as hazard-prone. With wildfires now impacting the mid-Atlantic, tornadoes frequently touching ground well outside of “tornado alley” and “freak storms” with more snow or flooding than local governments are able to manage becoming the norm across the country, FEMA is helping people in literally every part of the country.

Providing significantly more assistance on a much more frequent basis without any significant increase in headcount has driven FEMA to both leverage technology and continuously evolve its workforce to meet the growing challenge. This has created incredible opportunities for both full time work within the agency and part time effort as a FEMA reservist. The latter provides an incredible way for people to help their communities in a fashion very similar to the National Guard.

To learn more about the amazing work being done at FEMA, please listen to my interview with Jeremy and Leemar available as a podcast on Federal News Network or wherever you get your podcasts.

The post A Deeper Look at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) first appeared on Federal News Network.

For our May 10 show, I interviewed Transportation Security Administration Chief Human Capital Officer Jason Nelson. Unlike previous shows that highlighted agencies many Americans don’t even know exist, folks are generally very familiar with TSA’s primary mission of maintaining the security of U.S. air travel. That familiarity may lead people to think they know more about TSA than they really do, and after 20 years without a major air travel event, some people have started taking the agency for granted. That has led to naive proposals for returning to the same localized privatization model that failed so miserably in the past. 

In fact, there is a lot more going on behind the scenes at TSA than people realize, and good reasons why TSA has been so successful compared to the old model. Federalizing air travel security has enabled TSA to consolidate critical functions and leverage economies of scale to fund them at levels no single airport authority or private company ever could or would. Leveraging economies of scale, that centralized effort has enabled TSA to keep pace with a continuously evolving and growing threat from adversaries and other bad actors. One example of this is centralized R&D on sensors that is done in coordination with other federal security and defense agencies. TSA has made exponential improvements in the efficacy and efficiency of sensors. As a result, TSA airport sensors today are capable of detecting potential dangerous items that the general public doesn’t even know exist. 

Federalizing air travel security has also resulted in similar improvements in both process and personnel. For example, consolidated and standardized training for TSOs enables TSA to hire world class instructors and continuously improve a syllabus that includes best practices, lessons learned and threat intelligence gathered from screening two million passengers per day at more than 400 airports nationwide.

We also had the chance to discuss a number of things about TSA that people don’t know, including TSA’s role in keeping our pipelines, railroads and highways safe.  

Most importantly for our show, we discussed how hundreds of thousands of people have been able to take advantage of serving in the TSA as a gateway to amazing careers within the Department of Homeland Security and elsewhere. Each year, TSA hires 10,000 TSOs in 400 different locations in every part of the country. That enormous scale and geographic dispersion, coupled with the fact that these openings are entry level jobs open to people with or without a college degree provides fantastic career opportunities nationwide.  

Previously considered relatively low paying jobs with great benefits, changes in the TSA pay system recently approved by Congress have increased TSA pay significantly. As a result, these are now very well-paying entry-level jobs with health, retirement, educational and time off benefits that are on par with local police departments and far better than most private security firms.

To learn more about the amazing work being done at the Transportation Security Administration, please listen to my interview with Jason either on the air Wednesday at 10:00 am or as a podcast available on the Federal News Network app or wherever you get your podcasts. 

The post A Deeper Look at the TSA first appeared on Federal News Network.

This week’s Deeper Look is with Arun Venkataraman, the assistant secretary of Commerce for global markets and director general of the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service, and his deputy, Dale Tasharski. Having worked with both Arun and Dale when I was chief information officer of the U.S. International Trade Administration, I knew it would be a fun interview, and they did not disappoint.

ITA is another one of those little known agencies that have a huge impact on thousands of small businesses in virtually every corner of America. A bureau within the Commerce Department, ITA has more than 100 offices throughout the United States (including one in every single state and territory) and another 100-plus offices in every economically developed country on the planet.

The agency has three core business units, including Enforcement and Compliance (E&C), Industry and Analysis (I&A), and Global Markets (GM). Arun and Dale lead the last — the largest of the three — but all units work in a very integrated manner with a single mission: Strengthen American competitiveness in order to bring back and keep jobs in the United States and ensuring that American workers earn the living they deserve for as hard as they work.

Venkataraman explained ITA’s top three priorities, to which the business units roughly align:

• Ensuring businesses know about and have access to ITA products and services they need to expand their business into new, foreign markets (GM and I&A).
• Strengthen the U.S. supply chain by bringing critical manufacturing investments back into the country (GM).
• Ensure American companies are not placed at a competitive disadvantage by countries that engage in unfair and non-market business practices (E&C).

Unlike most government agencies that have minimal, non-regulatory or non-contractual interaction with private industry, the ITA operates “hand-in-glove with industry,” Venkataraman said. With a primary customer base consisting of the thousands of small businesses that employ 80% of Americans, the entire ITA — especially Global Markets — operates much more like a commercial consulting firm selling products and services than it does like a government agency.

In addition to discussing the role GM’s Select USA program plays in improving national security and economic stability by driving investments in U.S. based manufacturing, we spoke about how the Global Diversity Export Initiative is helping underserved communities — such as small businesses in rural areas — expand their businesses.

The math is simple: “80% of U.S. jobs are in small business, and 95% of the world’s consumers are not in the United States,” Venkataraman said. So if U.S. small businesses don’t have the opportunity to compete on a level playing field and win our fair portion of those foreign sales, the U.S. economy and the American people will suffer.

During the second half of the show Deputy Director General Dale Tasharski and I discussed how the ITA has changed over the past 40 years to become a more diverse, inclusive, fun and rewarding place to work.

The post Meet one little-known agency with an outsized influence on small business expansion first appeared on Federal News Network.

I sat with the principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army (ASA) for acquisitions, logistics and technology (ALT), my old friend Young Bang, this week. For those not familiar with the Defense Department  hierarchy, acquisitions — i.e., undersecretary of Defense (USD) for acquisitions, technology & logistics  at the DoD level and ASA(ALT) at the Army level — wield incredible power with USD(ATL) being first among undersecretaries in the order of succession. Within the Army, ASA(ALT) leads 12 program executive offices (PEO). These twelve offices are responsible for designing, producing and fielding everything from the Army’s bullets, beans and business systems to the entire nation’s COVID vaccinations.

Young’s top priority as the principal deputy ASA is Army modernization. He is laser-focused on ensuring the Army acquisition community continues to field all the systems necessary to ensure the Army’s warfighting capabilities continue to keep pace with our only remaining military peer China. The entire ASA(ALT) team is driving toward that goal with the fielding of 24 new systems this year via a coordinated effort guided by ASA(ALT)’s internal Digital Transformation Forum.

Led by Bang, and managed by the newly created office of the deputy assistant secretary of the Army for data, engineering, and software (DES), led by Ms. Jennifer Swanson, ASA(ALT)’s Digital Transformation Forum provides a mechanism through which all of the deputy assistant secretaries and program executive officers meet on a regular basis to implement topics central to a successful digital transformation, such as workforce development and career management, software acquisition, agile contracting, data, open systems architecture, artificial intelligence, cyber and several other key areas.

Including workforce development on the list of transformation priorities is not by accident. Of the Army’s 32,000 acquisition professionals, 95% are civilian federal employees, and ASA(ALT) realizes the success of Army modernization is largely dependent on the ability of both those civil servants and the soldiers with whom they serve to evolve and expand their individual skills and capabilities to meet the demands of digital transformation. As a result, ASA(ALT) has implemented a number of workforce transformation efforts including a digital foundations pilot to upskill people’s computer skills and classes to teach people how to ensure modern software practices and data centricity requirements are included in requests for proposals. Like the rest of the Army, the Army acquisition community is transforming from 20th century “personnel management” to 21st century “talent management.”

ASA(ALT) is identifying and addressing skill gaps across the acquisition force, and providing career paths and training to help employees gain the digital skills they need to be successful in a digitally transformed world.  They are also making sure human resources professionals and hiring managers know and leverage all of the flexible hiring authorities they have been given to help bring new talent into the workforce.

Of course, a big part of that workforce transformation effort includes not only reskilling and upskilling Army acquisition professionals to use new technologies and software tools to make acquisitions faster and more efficiently, but also making sure they have those tools. ASA(ALT) has jump-started that effort, providing their people an entirely new contract writing system, “bots” that help them do market research, and even training that uses virtual reality to simulate contract negotiations.

Ultimately, ASA(ALT) digital transformation is enabling the Army’s broader modernization goal of fielding multi-domain forces capable of our nation’s ultimate goal, which is dominance so decisive that no adversary wants to fight us. Roman Emperor Hadrian called it “peace through strength,” but Sun Tzu said it best: “The greatest war is the one never fought.” For ASA(ALT), that is the guiding light.

The post A Deeper Look at the Army acquisition community first appeared on Federal News Network.

When you research, advocate and write about diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) every day, getting to report on a good news story is always uplifting. Recently, I was lucky enough to interview the Deputy Administrator of the General Services Administration Katy Kale. However, researching for the interview and this story, I found a lot more about the GSA to help restore my confidence in the government. Using the Office of Personnel Management’s FedScope data to dig into the numbers (as I am apt to do), I uncovered an agency making amazing progress in an area where many others continued to struggle.

With 43% of its employees identifying as one or more minorities, the GSA’s workforce fairly represents our nation’s 41% minority population. By itself, that would not make the GSA stand out. However, the fact that 40% of GSA’s approximately 380 leaders and senior executive service (SES) members identify as one or more minorities is even more impressive, and GSA is taking steps to ensure the pipeline of future leaders remains strong and diverse.

Probably for the first time in history, the number of women being placed and promoted into the penultimate GS-15 positions, from which future SES will be selected, was the same as men. A watershed moment by itself absent context, it is more amazing considering that, according to OPM FedScope data, only two years earlier GSA hired 40% more men into GS-15 positions than women.

Additionally, the agency is focusing on building a cadre of GS-9/11/12 interns and recent graduates who will become the next generation of GSA leadership 15 years from now. Eliminating unpaid internships that place people from working class families at a huge disadvantage, GSA continues to invest significant effort reaching out to public colleges and universities, including community colleges, the Association of Rural and Regional Colleges (ARRCs), Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs). Using popular campus platforms, social media and direct recruiting efforts, GSA successfully drove hundreds of students from all over the country to attend informational webinars and apply for GSA’s internship and recent graduate programs this year.

Like most folks, I went into the interview knowing the GSA manages a bunch of buildings and the GSA schedule and other contracts, but I asked Katy to talk about all the things GSA does that really impact the lives of ordinary Americans. The list was impressive. She talked about GSA’s role delivering a million and a half pounds of baby formula to Americans during the crisis last year, managing several public service delivery websites for multiple departments (including Vote.gov that helps millions of Americans register and vote), working with civil engineering and architecture schools to promote designing for accessibility and so much more.

Listen to A Deeper Look with Joe Paiva on Federal News Radio 1500 AM at 9:30am and 1:30pm Wednesday, March 15 to hear my interview with Katy Kale, GSA’s deputy administrator, as we talk about GSA’s mission, DEIA initiatives and career opportunities.

The post GSA showing how to diversify its leadership ranks first appeared on Federal News Network.

My name is Joe Paiva. I am a retired software industry executive best known for helping to start, grow, buy and sell tech companies. However, I started out as an enlisted sailor, and served 13 years in the Navy before starting my commercial career.

I got extremely lucky in private industry, and was lucky enough to hold VP, CIO, EVP and COO positions in multiple private and publicly held companies (most of which actually made money). However, when the war in Iraq started, I was drawn back in to serve as an Army Reserve officer, and ultimately spent another 13 years serving simultaneously as both an Army reservist and a senior federal civilian leader in the departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs and Commerce before returning to private industry and life as “an ordinary citizen” back in 2017.

Now I am fortunate to have the ability to do whatever I want in retirement, and incredibly thankful to Federal News Network for enabling me to create and host A Deeper Look on Federal News Radio. The premise of our show came from two realizations:

• Despite decades of public service as both a military officer and senior civilian, I could not even begin to explain what the overwhelming majority of hundreds of government agencies actually do.
• The lack of knowledge about what agencies do (combined with a dearth of socio-economic diversity at the leadership levels of almost every federal agency) dissuades people from public service, which in turn exacerbates existing gaps in both knowledge and diversity (leading to lack of trust of government).

So we created A Deeper Look to help people better understand what each federal agency does and attract more people to apply for jobs within their government. Accordingly, each episode features a different agency, and provides that agency’s leader a chance to explain exactly what their agency does, the impacts they have on people’s lives, and why their agency is a great place to work.

Thank you for visiting our show’s home page, and please tune in to listen to our show (either live or as a podcast) and come back to this page often to read articles we will publish here to go with the show.

Sincerely,
Joe Paiva

The post Introducing: A Deeper Look with Joe Paiva first appeared on Federal News Network.