Rising Star: Christine Calvosa
Christine Calvosa, chief technology officer at the Agriculture Department's Natural Resources Conservation Service, developed and deployed the NRCS website only months after taking over the troubled project.
Christine Calvosa
Age: 32
Organization: Natural Resources Conservation Service, Agriculture Department
Title: Chief Technology Officer
Nominated for: Developing and deploying NRCS’ national website only seven months after taking over the project, which had failed twice before.
First IT mentor: The center director at the first company I worked for out of college, who helped me grow personally, professionally and technically by encouraging me to hone my skills as a client-focused project and program manager.
What you're most proud of accomplishing on the job: Deploying the national website at USDA, which is accessible to our internal and external user base. The project design and implementation had been in the pipeline for two years before I arrived as an IT project manager, and it was a distinct honor to push it forward to completion.
Career highlight: Becoming CTO for the second-largest agency within USDA.
Your advice for a government IT wannabe: Grow constantly. Bring innovative ideas to the table, make decisions, and implement them flawlessly and expeditiously.
What you enjoy most about working in government IT: I enjoy being part of an environment that can create meaningful, tangible and significant change that not only makes the jobs we do easier but also helps the citizens of this country interact with their government in efficient and relevant ways.
Favorite job-related bookmarks/apps: American Council for Technology site, LinkedIn, Gartner.com