DOD group, FBI IT leader win at IRMCO

The Defense Department's team that procures enterprise software licenses and the head of three major FBI information systems last Tuesday received Information Resources Management Conference (IRMCO) '99 achievement awards from the General Services Administration and the CIO Council.

At a ceremony in Williamsburg, Va., the DOD Enterprise Software Initiative (ESI) Working Group won a team achievement award for creating an independent group within the Pentagon that established a way to procure common software for departmentwide use. Rex Bolton, ESI Working Group chairman, accepted the award.

Jim Flyzik, Treasury Department chief information officer and co-chairman of the CIO Council, said the cost savings that the ESI teams have brought to DOD—in one case, a savings of 98 percent compared with the previous contracts—has been impressive enough.

But the team's real contribution has been a cultural change within DOD, Flyzik said.

"What's particularly exciting to me is that they've got little formal guidance and they are empowered," he said.

The IRMCO individual achievement award went to Douglas Domin, deputy assistant director in the criminal justice information services division at the FBI. Domin led the deployment of the agency's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, the National Crime Information Center 2000 and the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

"In a very short time frame, he led the deployment of not one, not two, but three major systems," Flyzik said of Domin.

Flyzik said the systems that Domin deployed will not only improve how the FBI performs its mission but will affect the everyday life of many U.S. citizens.

"These are the kinds of things that make you feel good about being a government employee," he said.