OMB replaces two e-gov project managers

The Office of Management and Budget last month replaced a pair of e-government project managers leading Quicksilver initiatives under the aegis of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.To run the Disaster Management project, OMB tapped Mark Zimmerman, who is on detail from the Marine Corps. He replaced FEMA’s Dennis Green. To supervise Project Safecom, the wireless public-safety effort, OMB selected Susan Moore. On loan from the Agriculture Department, Moore replaced Tom Ringer Mark Forman, OMB’s associate director for e-government and IT, recently said he is not pleased with the progress of the two projects. Forman also said the Geospatial Information One Stop initiative is falling short of its objectives.Zimmerman’s experience with the Marine Corps, which is far along in developing its own disaster management processes, will help speed progress on the comparable e-government project, Forman said. Zimmerman will have to get the project on track quickly, however. FEMA CIO Rose Parkes said yesterday that her agency plans to launch disasterhelp.gov Nov. 25."We are modeling it after the Army’s and Navy’s knowledge online portals," said Parkes during a discussion on homeland security at the Industry Advisory Council’s Executive Leadership Conference in Hershey, Pa. Moore’s job may even be more difficult than Zimmerman’s. Parkes compared Safecom to herding cats."There are a lot of solution sets within the communities," she said. "Our objective is to build a road map that allows us to review all the solutions sets and determine best practices. We want to survey the systems so we know what is out there."FEMA will not dictate standards, but provide guidance to see what is needed or lacking in certain areas to make wireless systems interoperable, Parkes said.