People on the move, events in the news

PEOPLE

The General Services Administration has picked three new regional administrators.

George Northcroft is taking charge of GSA’s Northwest Region, which covers Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. He most recently was director of business relations and economic development for King County, Washington.

Shyam Reddy was named regional administrator of the agency's Southeast Region and starts the job March 29. The region covers southern states from Kentucky to Florida. Reddy most recently worked as a partner at Kilpatrick Stockton, a law firm in Atlanta.

Jason Klumb started work Feb. 24 as regional administrator of GSA’s Heartland Region, which includes Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. Klumb is a major at the Army National Guard Judge Advocate General Corps and recently returned to private practice after a year's deployment to Kosovo as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Dan Mintz, former chief information officer at the Transportation Department, has joined Powertek as the company’s chief operating officer.

After leaving DOT at the end of the Bush administration, Mintz joined Computer Sciences Corp. as chief technology officer of CSC’s civil and health group.

Powertek, of Rockville, Md., is an 8(a) woman-owned small business that offers services and solutions in information sharing and analysis, systems integration, software engineering, information technology support, consulting and financial management services. Mintz was hired in part for his interest in areas such as social networking, open government and cybersecurity, the company said.

RECENT EVENTS

Roger Baker, chief information officer of the Veterans Affairs Department, had a busy schedule during the last week of February. He talked about the agency's fiscal 2011 budget request and program updates at two breakfast events, in testimony on Capitol Hill and during a conference call with reporters. He managed to keep his sense of humor throughout.

In a Q&A at a conference hosted by Mark Bisnow Feb. 23, Baker was asked about the relationship between VA and the Military Health System regarding health record interoperability. "It is a lot like a marriage,” he said. The audience waited for him to finish the thought, but he didn't — which, when you think about, might have illustrated the point.

Baker hit the phones with the news media the next day to publicize VA’s program management approach to troubleshooting information technology programs. “We are working through it," he said. "I liken it to a swamp fairly frequently. I hope the water gets lower, but sometimes it gets higher. There are alligators right now.”

Aneesh Chopra gave a state of the union address Feb. 23 in Washington — for technology, that is. Chopra, the Obama administration’s chief technology officer, was the keynote speaker at the Atlantic magazine’s State of the Union for Technology event.

He discussed some of the administration’s efforts to make government data more available and harness IT for governance. He also touted the administration's commitment to investing in technology research and development and creating tax policies that promote innovation and entrepreneurship.

Meanwhile, Chopra said an all-hands-on-deck approach is needed for developing a clean-energy economy and finding innovative ways to enhance the health care system so that patient satisfaction is higher and costs are lower.

COMING EVENTS

The TechAmerica Foundation is planning an awards ceremony June 16 in Washington, D.C., to hand out the 2010 Sherman Awards. The awards honor technology products and services in 17 categories, including cloud computing, green technology, cybersecurity and Internet services. Industry press and technology companies select the winners.

For more information, visit www.techamerica.org/theshermans.

OUR EVENTS

Knowledge Management Conference and Exhibition
Cloud Computing Summit
Open Government and Innovations Conference
May 3-5, Grand Hyatt Hotel, Washington, D.C.

Cory Ondrejka, a fellow at the Network Culture Project at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, will be the keynote speaker for the Open Government and Innovations Conference May 4-5 in Washington, D.C.

Ondrejka is a co-creator of Second Life, a 3-D virtual world where users can socialize, connect and create using voice and text chat. His keynote address is titled "Open and Agile: Accelerating Change and Institutional Incompetence" and is described this way:

"The first decade of the 21st century has been a period of rapid change across media, technology, telecommunications and education. The next decade is going to move even faster and undoubtedly questions will arise such as: How can government institutions avoid irrelevance as the rest of the world builds on the increasing power and connections available to them? What lessons from product development need to be applied more broadly in our connected world?"

1105 Government Information Group is presenting the conference concurrently with two other conferences, Knowledge Management and the Cloud Computing Summit, to give participants the flexibility and freedom of a wide range of speakers, topics and networking opportunities.

For more information about 1105 Government Information Group events, go to www.1105govinfo.com/events.

FEEDBACK

When we posted online the item about GSA's new regional administrators, reader Ed Emig commented: "I noticed that the only one of the administrators you identify by gender was George Northcroft, who has an 'obviously male' name. As our culture and the names of people in it become more diverse, we occasionally require guideposts — such as gender clues in text like this — to help us avoid unnecessary social gaffes. I have innocently addressed male contracting officers as 'Ms. So-and-So' because I was lacking such guideposts. I suspect some of your readers will be contacting these new administrators before meeting them in person and would like to avoid making the same type of mistake I made. It wouldn't take much to remedy this situation, and I dare say it would not be politically incorrect to do so."

On our story about the National Security Agency partnering with Google, someone anonymous — to us, if not to NSA — said:

"Google has been an NSA black project for years. I can't imagine a better source for 'intelligence' than the halls of the Goog. And having posted this, I expect to vani... +++NO CARRIER"

OVERHEARD

Lisa Mascolo, managing director of Accenture's U.S. Federal Client Service Group:

“It used to be the government had to do more with less. Now they have to do even more with even less.”

From the General Services Administration's 2009 Citizens Report:

“The U.S. General Services Administration celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2009 yet is quite possibly the largest federal agency you have never heard of.”

FOSE

FOSE and GovSec are almost here. The twin trade shows take place the week of March 22 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington. CNN correspondent Candy Crowley has joined the roster of illustrious keynote speakers, which also includes Anthony Zuiker, creator of the TV drama "CSI," and Bill Bratton, former Los Angeles police chief and one of the pioneers of the fusion center concept, among others.

For information, go to FOSE.com and www.govsecinfo.com.