| Sue Rachlin, CIO
Department of Interior
WTOP:
Tell me a little bit about your background. What brought you
into government service and how did you land at the Department
of Interior?
RACHLIN:
I entered federal service with the Defense Department right
after graduating from college. I actually began as an IT intern
with the Army in Ft. Rooker, Alabama. I'm a native [of Alabama]
, so I didn't travel very far from home to start my government
career. After three years with the Army, I spent the next
ten years working for the Air Force in Montgomery, Alabama.
Again, not too far from home. With the Air Force, I held a
number of line and staff positions. In 1986, I moved to the
Washington, D.C. area and worked for several civilian federal
agencies including Justice, State and Agriculture. My most
recent position before coming to Interior was with the CIO's
office at the Agriculture Department. I headed up a major
division of USDA's National Information Technology Center
out in Ft. Collins, Colorado. But my entire career, which
is over 30 years now, has been spent in the IT arena.
WTOP:
You're a lifer. That's a little unusual. Most folks we've
interviewed in this series have a little bit of private-sector
background. Do you intend someday to augment your career with
some private-sector work someplace?
RACHLIN:
I could see that as being my post-public service career goal
after I've finished what I want to do here at Interior.
WTOP:
Let's talk about that. What you want to do. How so far has
the Department of Interior been able to leverage these new
e-gov efforts?
RACHLIN:
Interior really had been working on a number of e-gov initiatives.
Some of them independently and some of them with some other
partners, both in the private and public sectors, before this
became one of the President's management agenda items. When
OMB's Mark Forman launched his Quick Silver task force, the
Department was very fortunate in having two of our initiatives
be included in OMB's portfolio of these Quick Silver initiatives.
WTOP:
What are the two that you're working on?
RACHLIN:
Interior is serving as managing partner for two of the Quick
Silver multi-agency initiatives. The first is geo-spatial
one stop. It's one of the initiatives that's in the government-to-government
portfolio. It's intended to centralize information online
through a spatial data one-stop portal, if you will. So all
government entities that need access to geo-spatial information
can get it at one stop through a common portal. Our second
Quick Silver project is recreation one-stop. This is one of
the initiatives that's in the government-to citizen portfolio.
What that will do is provide citizens a searchable database
of recreational areas nationwide. In other words, if they're
going to spend some time in Arizona and they're looking for
recreational facilities, they won't have to be concerned with
whether it's a national park or state park. They can go to
recreation one-stop and query the system, enter some geographic
area on where they want to recreate, and find out what's available
and even be able to conduct some transactions online. In addition
to locating a campground, they can make their reservation
and even purchase the passes if those are required. They can
also purchase maps and other products right there online.
We're really excited about being able to provide leadership
for both of those initiatives. And of course, we're working
on geo-spatial one-stop with a lot of other government agencies.
In recreation one-stop, we're working with state and local
partners and we're involving some private-sector partners
in that project.
WTOP:
You've been in government work long enough to know that's
a change in status quo. Is there a cultural barrier that is
one of your challenges as you try to do this agency work and
work with private sector as well?
RACHLIN:
It's interesting, because at Interior, culturally we sometimes
feel challenges to just work bureau to bureau. We're not unique
in that. I remember Mark Forman's words that I'll borrow from
him. He thinks its easier to work and integrate some of these
initiatives across several departments than it is sometimes
to do it within a federal department. But it is challenging.
Let me take this opportunity to plug something else that I'm
involved in. I've recently been asked to co-chair the Federal
CIO standing committee on best practices. I'm joining Debra
Stouffer who's with HUD. We're going to be forming teams of
government and private sector people to go out and look at
best practices that are associated with - right now we have
about 13 of these initiatives that we've been asked by OMB
to work with - and look into the private and public sector
and academia or wherever for best practices that we can bring
back to the managing partners of the Quick Silver initiatives.
They don't have to reinvent the wheel. They can incorporate
what's already an established best practice. I'm really excited
about that. We're getting a wonderful response from the Private
Sector Council and the Industry Advisory Council on recruiting
volunteers from some of their member organizations to do these
best practice studies with us.
WTOP:
You're a good person to ask this question, because you've
made a career out of government work. Is there a better way
to promote opportunities within government to the upcoming
IT talent out there?
RACHLIN:
I think overall we have some great opportunities here at Interior.
And I believe that's true within the federal government as
a whole. What I think we have to do to attract the right young
talent is to better advertise our strengths. I think we need
to [also] convince young people that a public service career
- and I certainly can speak to this having a long, exciting
and successful one - can provide satisfaction that they can't
get working at company-x or company y. Right now, a lot of
this is patriotism. It's coming back in a big way. That might
give us an edge that maybe we didn't have prior to September
11th. Then of course we need to borrow from what's going on
in the private sector. We're looking at sign-on bonuses and
family friendly workplace initiatives like telecommuting,
e-learning and some of these other things that helps people
within the government balance their professional and personal
priorities.
WTOP:
Anything you want to add?
RACHLIN:
One of the things maybe in closing since I have recently returned
about a year ago from a job out in the field back to Washington,
is how excited I am to be here in Washington. I know there
are a lot of government employees who've never worked here.
And I think they've missed something. The field organizations
are really nice too. I've been in them several times. I've
been in an out of Washington in my career. But I didn't realize
how much I missed Washington before I came back.
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