GSA honors top federal achievers at IRMCO

A federal technologist helping to enforce child-support laws with computers and a multi-agency team managing the flow of people over the U.S. boarder received awards for making different government sectors work together better.

The General Services Administration gave its individual 2010 Interagency Resources Management Conference Award to Joseph Bodmer, senior information technology specialist and project director in the Health and Human Services Department’s State and Tribal Systems Division. Bodmer developed a computer database that improves communication between state and local governments and tribal entities that track and enforce child-support laws. GSA said the system is expected to save tribes and the federal government from developing duplicative systems.

A cross-agency team working on the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative received the 2010 Team IRMCO Award for its collaborative efforts to set up technologies to better manage the flow of U.S. citizens and legitimate foreign visitors, while also strengthening border security, GSA said. The team included employees from Customs and Border Protection, GSA and the State Department.

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The annual IRMCO awards highlight efforts to improve government operations and make government open and interactive with the public.

For making government engage more with the public, GSA gave gave Office of Citizen Services Awards to teams at three agencies:

• The Federal Student Aid Information Center simplified its Website, shortened its online Free Application of Federal Student Aid and improved how it shares income and tax information with the IRS.
• The Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration earned an award for managing the TV Converter Box Coupon Program. NTIA handled questions through its Web site and call center as more than 34 million households sought assistance in the transition from analog to digital  television. The agency delivered multi-lingual services while maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction.
• The Health and Human Services Department's Administration on Children, Youths and Families was recognized for its Child Welfare Information Gateway, a campaign of social media outreach in 2009 that including a Facebook page and creating an agency YouTube channel.

Finally, the Chief Information Officers Council gave Leadership Awards to three individual federal employees and an HHS team for their use of technology to open government and strengthen network security:

• Timothy Cromwell, project leader for the Health Information Data Exchange at the Veterans Affairs Department, worked collaboratively to securely share health information electronically across government agencies.
• Donna Roy, chief data architect from the Homeland Security Department, worked with the Justice Department to improve data management and information sharing.
• Robert Vietmeyer, FORGE.mil project director from the Defense Information Systems Agency, used the Web site as an avenue to share open source software and defense community source software.
• The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in HHS launched a dashboard that provides important state-level health care data.