DHSJohnson makes his presence known at DHS
DHS spent much of 2013 operating with forty-eight vacancies in top management positions, but since Congress approved Jeh Johnson as head of DHS in December 2013, the department has successfully filled seventeen positions.The appointment of former chief technology officer for McAfee, Phyllis Schneck, as deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity,reflects Johnson’s attempt to bridge the gap between DHS and the private sector. Johnson has pushed for other changes in the 22-agency, 240,000-employee organization by introducing some operational philosophies gained from his time as General Counsel for the Defense Department. “Meetings at DHS are already starting about two hours earlier, like they did at DoD,” says one person with multiple contacts at the department.
DHS spent much of 2013 operating with forty-eight vacancies in top management positions, but since Congress approved Jeh Johnson as head of DHS in December 2013, the department has successfully filled seventeen positions, including Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Gil Kerlikowske. Other appointments include former Air Force officer and U.S. counterterrorism coordinator Francis X. Taylor as undersecretary for intelligence and analysis, and former chief technology officer for McAfee, Phyllis Schneck, as deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity.
Defense News notes that the appointment of Schneck reflects Johnson’s attempt to bridge the gap between DHS and the private sector. In a recent February 2014 speech, Johnson said that “the key to the government’s efforts is to build trust with the private sector and attract the best and the brightest from the private sector to come work for us.” Since joining DHS, Schneck and Johnson have visited many of the nation’s top tech colleges and universities to recruit cyber talent at a time when cybersecurity funding for DHS has increased from $700 million in 2014 to $1.2 billion in President Barack Obama’s 2015 budget request.
At a recent Border Security conference in Arizona, Mayorkas noted DHS’ effort to connect with the private sector when he told members of industry and law enforcement that “we in the government do not have a monopoly on the best ideas,” and that “engagement [with the private sector] will yield a stronger, a more responsive and a more resilient Department of Homeland Security.” As the former director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Mayorkas issued multiple short-term technology contracts, allowing the agency to adopt new technologies as needed without having to endure long outdated contracts. “That is the direction that we need to go” across the DHS, he insisted.
The CBP recently awarded the long-awaited $145 million contract for its Arizona border security project, the Integrated Fixed Tower (IFT) program to Israeli-owned Elbit Systems of America (see “CBP awards $145 million border towers contract to Elbit,” HSNW, 6 March 2014). Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Telephonics, and Boeing also bid for the contract, but Elbit currently operates a similar program on Israel’s borders. According to CBP, the program is designed to “detect, track, identify and classify items of interest across the southwest border through a series of fixed sensor towers and command and control center equipment that displays information on a common operating picture.”
Johnson has pushed for other changes in the 22-agency, 240,000-employee organization. He has introduced some operational philosophies gained from his time as General Counsel for the Defense Department. “Meetings at DHS are already starting about two hours earlier, like they did at DoD,” said one person with multiple contacts at the department. For an agency just established about a decade ago, it will take time to streamline operations and establish efficiency but the new team at DHS is making progress.
