Author Archive

Sami Lais

Digital Government

Defense Executive of the Year: James Cartwright

2007 GCN Awards | Gen. Cartwright spells out DOD transformation by starting with a focus on results.

Cybersecurity

Free thinking

Defense initiative scours industry for innovative ideas.

Management

Apollo Teng | A Place for Everything

You could pass within inches of him on the street, this man credited with virtually inventing the GIS department for Montgomery County, Md., and later be unable to place him. Apollo Teng seems to strive for the effect.<br><b>2007 GCN IT Leadership Award winner</b>

Infrastructure

System starts with authentication

Putting a permit application process online opens a cornucopia of possibilities: increasing speed, accuracy and cost-effectiveness, and adding services. But "security has to come first," according to Allison Young.

Infrastructure

Stamp of approvals

The Agriculture Department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service expedites permit approval process while adding security and accountability.

Digital Government

Bottom-line results

Avie Snow and her team really had to move after 9/11 when the Coast Guard was reassigned from the Transportation Department to the Homeland Security Department and had to migrate off DOT's accounting system. In nine months, they built the Core Accounting System (CAS) for about $7 million.

Digital Government

The dervish is in the details

Despite funding cuts, Susan Smoter updated the irs.gov site and recently earned a five-point increase in customer satisfaction on the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

Management

Mile-High City's four-by-four mobile unit scales interoperability mountains

For the Denver Police Department, the Justice Department's 25-city project was a sterling opportunity to plug a communications gap that ran through the streets of the Mile-High City, past the city limits, past the edges of Denver County and into some of the roughest terrain in the country.

Management

Local channels

Every emergency or disaster, whether natural or man-made, is different in how much, if any, warning it gives, how hard it hits and the destruction it leaves in its path.

Digital Government

Success is pending

PTO scores with trademark e-filing, goes back to the drawing board on patents.

Digital Government

Seats of responsibility

Where seat management works, it's a godsend; where it doesn't, it's probably the agency's own fault.

Digital Government

Meyerriecks helped put Defense systems on common ground

Create a common operating environment for the military's IT infrastructure, lead the team moving the Defense Department from legacy systems and mainframes to IP networks, commercial software and PCs, and act as chief architect of the Global Command and Control System used by all of DOD today.

Digital Government

Watch your step: Can major efforts avoid more slipups?

Will 2004 be the year that some of the government's largest and most crucial IT modernization projects turn the corner toward success?

Digital Government

FAA overhaul will change IT purchasing

A shake-up at the Federal Aviation Administration announced last week by Russell G. Chew, its new chief operating officer, will change the way the agency buys IT.

Digital Government

FAA reorganization will alter IT purchases

A shakeup in the organization of the Federal Aviation Administration announced last week by Russell G. Chew, its new chief operating officer, will change the way the agency handles IT acquisitions. <br>

Digital Government

Civilian Executive of the Year: Cooper brings a clear sense of mission to a complex task at DHS

The explosions of Sept. 11, 2001, touched off a series of events that led to the creation this year of the Department of Homeland Security.

Digital Government

Defense Executive of the Year: Boutelle's vision kept the military connected in Iraq

During the Iraq war, the Army's battlefield communications flowed with unprecedented speed and reliability, keeping nearly every soldier connected, Defense Department officials have said.

Management

Police agencies scramble to identify CDPD alternatives

Once the cutting edge in communications, Cellular Digital Packet Data is tottering off the scene and sending state and local law enforcement agencies such as the Yakima County, Wash., Police Department scrambling in search of alternative technology.