Johnson will have a full plate if confirmed as GSA chief

President Obama's pick to lead the General Services Administration is a strong choice with a solid information technology background, industry analysts said on Monday. But if confirmed, Martha Johnson will have her hands full managing the billions in stimulus funds set aside to renovate and upgrade federal buildings, they noted.

Obama announced Johnson's nomination on Friday evening. Johnson, currently vice president of culture at Computer Sciences Corp., an IT consulting firm in Falls Church, Va., would succeed Lurita A. Doan, who resigned last May as GSA administrator. Paul Prouty, a 38-year veteran of the agency, has been serving as acting administrator since late January and before that, Jim Williams and David Bibb held the interim position.

Doan said Johnson is well-prepared for the demanding job.

"President Obama is going to be especially dependent upon GSA to help implement his agenda -- to simultaneously modernize federal buildings, expand the fleet of federal autos and ramp up unprecedented levels of federal spending," Doan said.

Johnson is no stranger to GSA. She served as the agency's chief of staff from 1996 to 2001 under then-administrator David Barram, and she was co-chair of the Obama transition team that assessed the agency.

"She's a good person and a sound choice," said Larry Allen, president of the Coalition for Government Procurement. "It's always good to have somebody as administrator who doesn't need 'GSA 101.' "

Through her transition work Johnson is fairly up-to-speed on what is happening at GSA and the challenges she would face as administrator, Allen said. But he noted that her last two jobs have been with IT firms, while most of her initial work as GSA chief likely would be related to the Public Buildings Service, which is responsible for spending the more than $5 billion in stimulus funds set aside to renovate federal facilities.

"I think she'll have her hands full with that, but she won't completely ignore the federal acquisition service," Allen said.

Ray Bjorklund, senior vice president and chief knowledge office for the McLean, Va., consulting firm FedSources, agreed that the stimulus spending would dominate Johnson's time at first, but said eventually she would have to address ongoing weaknesses in GSA's Federal Supply Schedules program. Doan established a blue-ribbon panel last year to examine the schedules, which are catalogs of pre-negotiated contracts available governmentwide. The panel has spent the past year discussing potential changes to the program and its recommendations are expected in the next month.

"I really think there ought to be more review and rethinking of the schedules program," Bjorklund said. "They probably need to expand it and make it more convenient" to buy services like financial management and accounting.

The recent proliferation of multiple-award contract vehicles among the agencies is strong evidence GSA needs to update its image as the government's central procurement office, he added. The absence of activity on GSA contract vehicles like the Networx telecommunications agreement is evidence the agency must do more to market the programs and improve customer service, he said.

"Some agencies are questioning whether [GSA's] products and services are really the best on the block," Bjorklund said. "I'm not passing judgment, but if agencies aren't marching to the doors of GSA then it suggests GSA needs to do a better job marketing, fix their product and service lines, their processes or something else."

Allen said he expects Johnson to strengthen the relationship between GSA headquarters and the regional offices. "Her last tour of duty at GSA featured a time when some regions showed a lot of autonomy and GSA had to rein them in," Allen said. Johnson might try a similar approach this time, he said.