Month: March 2022

Arnold Jackson is CEO of AJ Management Consulting LLC, in Silver Spring, MD. Prior to founding AJ Management Consulting, Mr. Jackson was Associate Director for Decennial Census at the U.S. Census Bureau and served as the Chief Operating Officer for the 2010 Decennial Census at the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. In that role, he exercised full oversight of the $14 billion budget as he directed the management and administration of all decennial census and geographic support plans and operations of the 2010 Census.

Mr. Jackson served on the Director’s executive staff and on the newly established executive steering committee for the 2020 Decennial Census. After completing the operations of the 2010 Census, he contributed to emerging Bureau executive bodies for Diversity, Data Quality, and Internal Operating Efficiencies. Previously, he served as President and member of the Board of Directors of James Martin Government Intelligence (1998-2002), an information management consultancy that worked primarily with defense and civilian intelligence agencies. His work there included strategic planning, enterprise architecture, technology strategies and process reengineering. He implemented programs and practices in support of the Clinger-Cohen Act, a 1996 law that was designed to improve the way the federal government acquires and manages information technology. During an earlier tenure at the Census, he was the first Associate Director and Chief Information Officer to serve on the Director’s executive staff at the U.S. Census Bureau (1991-1997) and also served as the Chief of the former U.S. Census Bureau Decennial Operations Division (1984-1991). From there, Mr. Jackson pioneered the use of highly distributed information technology solutions and strategic outsourcing for the decennial census by executing nationwide support for the 1990 Census. He returned to private management consulting following that experience.

He was a partner and director at Ferguson-Bryan and Associates, a minority-owned business consulting firm in Washington, DC, from 1980 to 1984.

Mr. Jackson recently served as a Special Advisor to the Secretary of Commerce and his immediate staff.  As a seasoned executive with vast experience in all phases of Decennial Censuses and the Census enterprise, he advised the Secretary and the Under Secretary on a range of risk reduction, operational and organizational matters potentially driving the success of the 2020 Census.

Mr. Jackson received a Hammer Award for leading the team that launched the Census Bureau website in the mid-1990s. The Hammer Award is presented to teams of federal employees who have made significant contributions in support of reinventing government principles. His senior management team was awarded the Department of Commerce Gold Medal in 2011 for their widely acclaimed contributions to a most successful 2010 Decennial Census.

Mr. Jackson is a graduate of Hampton University, the Harvard Business School, and the Federal Executive’s Institute. He is a frequent speaker on topics including program management, management of information technology projects, performance management, and large-scale data collection and analysis.

Alan Balutis recently stepped down from his position as a Distinguished Fellow and Managing Partner with Cisco Systems US Public Sector’s strategy and consulting arm. Before joining the networking firm, he served more than 30 years in public service and industry leadership roles.

Mr. Balutis was a founding member of the Federal CIO Council after working on the legislation and the ensuing Executive Order that created the CIO position in government and set up the Council itself. At the Department of Commerce (DoC), Alan headed their Office of Management and Budget and served as the first CIO of a Cabinet-level agency. He finished his stint at the DoC, as the Director of the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. ATP was created by Congress to be a “civilian DARPA” and fund cutting-edge emerging tech firms.

Mr. Balutis has been selected as a Federal Computer Week (FCW) FED 100 recipient seven times and voted to be a member of the Government Computer News and FCW halls of fame. He is also a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, where he chaired their Standing Committee on Public Service, as well as a SAGE at The Partnership for Public Service. He currently chairs an expert panel chartered by the Social Security Advisory Board. His panel just completed a report on the multi-year, $700+ million IT modernization program underway at the Social Security Administration.

Mr. Balutis is a strong advocate for good government and has authored or edited numerous articles, books and studies on this matter and served as a mentor and connector for those who are interested in public service. He has also spoken at many panels, conferences, and media fora.

Finally, his experience as both a government and industry executive, as well as an academician and the head of a major non-profit industry association, has given Mr. Balutis a unique perspective on how government and industry can team for the best outcomes for citizens. He has served on several corporate Government Advisory Boards, including Endeca (acquired by Oracle), INPUT (acquired by Deltek), IT security firms Sigaba and Entrust, Akamai, and most recently Government CIO (purchased by a venture capital firm).

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I have been with WhirlWind Technologies for a little more than a year, and I have had the opportunity to engage with colleagues and leadership who share a common goal of living the organizational core values:

  1. Raise the Bar
  2. Earn and Keep Trust
  3. Improve Continuously Rather than Delay Perfection
  4. Have the Mindset of an Entrepreneur
  5. Do the Right Thing

These core values are embedded in the organizational culture and are consistently demonstrated and exemplified by leadership and my teammates. This year, I have had the opportunity to learn and improve my Program Manager portfolio through ongoing team building and continued support that all team members have been willing to provide. I truly enjoy working here developing relationships, developing people, and developing systems and processes that will have allow the organization to grow and establish a digital footprint that is rooted in an outstanding customer experience.

On a personal note, WhirlWind Technologies allows me the opportunity to be myself, and it provides a healthy work environment. The WhirlWind team encourages healthy living and provides an atmosphere where you can feel comfortable being yourself, discussing community and social justice issues and world events.

What is WhirlWind? Some people would like to think of “whirlwind” as a storm. It is a storm that has brought new solutions and cutting-edge technology to customers. What about to employees? It is also a warm storm that brings care to each of us.

I am a data scientist with over seven years of experience. I’ve guided companies across industries on leveraging modern technology to solve complex business needs and provide data-driven and data integration solutions with system development, data mining, ML, and AI. I hold four degrees in business analytics, supply chain management, economics, and computer science.

However, I have not seen any other company that cares for its employees as WhirlWind does. People here not only care about your performance, but also your life. Whenever you share some experience, there are always people to listen and offer their help. This extra care really strengthens you at a special time and makes you feel at home.

Furthermore, the company extends its care to the community by consistently offering volunteer activities and donations. It reminds me of my time teaching elementary students during my college years. At WhirlWind, we pass on that care to everyone around us and the community we live in. I doubt anyone would not want to work at a company like WhirlWind. Are you ready to feel the warm storm?

I am here with WhirlWind because we do amazing work. We have helped our government customer with very significant contracts, ranging from simple equipment upgrades to more weighty efforts on their employee assistance programs. Both are important, and the point is we really make a difference no matter what we do. When we help, we help in real, tangible ways.

My team is full of generous and hardworking people. I can feel pride in the work my team and I accomplish on a daily, monthly, and annual basis. I see them going the extra mile regularly, and our customers often give us raving reviews. When we need to improve, we work on it until it is right.

At WhirlWind, we get to participate in team-building events and health-creating contests regularly. Recent examples are our game show happy hour holiday event and the exercise mileage competition to see who ran the most miles in a month! We use our core values to give point bonuses and publicly praise every staff member when goals are reached, and milestones are celebrated.

Outside of my work, I am focused on my two beautiful kids and my extended family. I am a transplant from Arizona to Northern Virginia, so although I have been here 20+ years, I am still getting used to the cold. Any beach is my favorite place, and I love to get out in nature. There is nothing like the silence between the trees.

As a Senior Business Analyst, I’ve enjoyed working for WWT. WWT has enabled me and my team to gain new skills while strengthening our prior skills experiences. For example, using my past skills with Camtasia, I’ve learned to use Doodly and Toonly to make white board animation and animated explainer videos. WWT not only enabled me to make several videos using Doodly and Toonly, but also allowed me to train, attend certificates, and use Tableau for data analysis. I’ve also become proficient in Prezi, Microsoft teams, and data entry.

WWT values each employee though its core values and bonus points each month, which strengths teams and individuals by focusing on individuals strengths and showing appreciation for team members. But WWT goes above and beyond by their various philanthropy projects that bring value to our communities, such as Toys for Tots, giving laptops to K–12 public school students during COVID, giving scholarships to college students with IT majors, stocking up local food banks, disbursing back-to-school bookbags filled with school supplies, and supporting local coat and hat drives.

The past two years, my NGO Helping Families Monthly has been one of the food pantries selected by WWT. This year alone (2021), WWT provided fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy, toiletries, diapers, spices, and snacks for six families. But Kojo and Rhonda also connected me to a wonderful group of pro bono lawyers who have helped to file for 27 individuals for humanitarian parole, as Afghanistan goes through the worst humanitarian crisis. Although the chances of humanitarian parole acceptance is less compared to SIVs, P1, and P2 visas, WWT has given me hope and a chance to apply for families in need. Many lives have been touched by WWT, and I’m very lucky to be working in such a wonderful company.

Mike Lisagor, the founder of Celerity Works, is a trusted advisor providing expert business development (BD), acquisition, contracting, project management, coaching and training to federal contractors and government agencies. Mike has implemented market research, BD, capture, and proposal processes as well as both online and in-person project management (PM) training programs for over 70 contractors who benefited from lessons learned from over 450 business growth assessment interviews and 250 coaching assignments.

Mike is also a co-founder of GovFlex.com, an online service that matches government contractors and agencies with the best independent consultants. As the Chief Knowledge Officer, he developed the GovFlex Knowledge Academy, the industry’s largest online best practices library with hundreds of articles, templates, and checklists. Mike was also a minority owner and the government contracting and business development subject matter expert for Centurion Research Solutions, one of the two leading federal opportunity market research firms until being acquired by Deltek in November 2013.

Mr. Lisagor was also a U.S. and International business development and operations executive for 13 years at Lockheed Martin, CTA, ANSTEC and ATS. Prior to that, he was an information technology program and new business capture manager, leading the capture activities for several hundreds of millions of dollars in contract awards at the DOD, FAA, FBI, and DOT.

A FED100 awardee and emeritus AFFIRM board member, Mike has written several books and hundreds of articles for several publications including, Washington Technology and Federal Computer Week. He was the co-founder of the annual Federal Program Management Summit and implemented the Acquisition Risk Management process at GSA FEDSIM.

Mr. Lisagor holds a Bachelor of Science in Urban Studies from California State University at Northridge and a Master of Science in Management from National Louis University where he taught Marketing for managers. He lives with his wife of 50+ years on an island in the Pacific Northwest where he plays harmonica and sings in a local blues band.

Gloria Parker is CEO and Senior Partner of Parker Group Consulting advising major companies from large integrators, to consulting firms and small businesses on government and business strategies. She also works with Federal Government Agencies on executive management issues such as IT Governance including Enterprise Architecture and Capital Planning, electronic government, IT Operations, applications of IT solutions to address mission needs and requirements, as well as organizational excellence, strategic planning, capital planning, management development, executive mentoring and coaching and other disciplines.

Ms. Parker held executive management positions at CSC and Apptis, Inc from 2005 through 2009. Prior to that time, she served as the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) beginning in 2002. She also served as HUD’s first Chief Information Officer (CIO) from 1998 through 2002. As CIO and CTO, Ms. Parker’s focus was on Information Technology (IT) Reform, IT Capital Planning and Investment Management, Business Process Improvement, eGovernment, IT Security, Enterprise Architecture, IT Operations, and data quality and management. Prior to HUD, Ms. Parker was the first CIO at the U.S. Department of Education.

Ms. Parker served on the Obama/Biden Transition Team in 2008 serving 4 agencies, including HUD, Education NARA, and GPO. She also recently served on the Biden/Harris Policy committee.

Ms. Parker was employed by the IBM Corporation for 17 years where she was recognized for her exceptional ability to apply technology to meet the business needs of her customers. She held high-level management and executive positions and received many awards, including the prestigious “IBM Golden Circle” recognition for exemplary leadership which is presented to the top 1% of personnel.

Ms. Parker’s government-wide leadership is recognized by both government and industry. She was a charter member of the Federal CIO Council and a former Co-chair, IT Workforce Committee of the Federal CIO Council. Ms. Parker is past president of the Association for Federal Information Resources Management (AFFIRM) and currently serves as one of its two directors. Ms. Parker has received several prestigious awards and acknowledgments including the 2000 Presidential Rank Award given for exemplary Government leadership, the 2000 Federal 100 Award for CIO Council leadership in recruiting and retaining Federal IT workers, the Presidential Medal for successful Y2K conversion of HUD’s systems, and Vice President National Performance Review Hammer Award. In addition, Ms. Parker has been commended by OMB for her leadership in establishing HUD as a model in IT investment management. She is a Fellow in the Council for Excellence in Government, a member of the CIO SAGE (Senior Advisor to Government Executives) Partnership for Public Service program. She has served as keynote speaker at the International CIO Conference and the Korean Forum on electronic government both held in Seoul, South Korea in 2005 and 2010. Most recently, Ms. Parker was named to serve on the Advisory Committee for the Korean International Forum on Electronic Government.

Ms. Parker holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Hampton University and has completed 2 years in Mathematical Statistics Ph.D. program at Ohio State University.

David Kriegman is the President and CEO of Z2B, LLC, a consulting company that provides strategic and operational advice to help companies achieve their growth goals.

Mr. Kriegman spent 30 years growing and managing companies that provide professional services. After working for the government as a section chief for the Bureau of the Census, he held several leadership positions in private industry. Kriegman was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of SRA International, a $1.3B government systems integration company with 5,500 employees; President of Command Federal, a venture-backed company focused on the Internet of Things; President of Tech Team Government Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of a commercial, IT outsourcing company; and Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Jacobs Technology Strategic Solutions Group.

Mr. Kriegman began his career with the U.S. Bureau of the Census where he served as a section chief in the Statistical Methods Division. Kriegman is a frequent speaker at industry and corporate events and serves as a lecturer and adjunct professor at programs offered by the Defense Acquisition University and the George Mason University (GMU) School of Business Executive Education Department where he co-authored the course: Tech to Exec: Making the Transition while Forging Stronger Client Relationships. He also helped developed the Executive Education course Building GovCon Acumen. Mr. Kriegman is the author of the Amazon best-selling book, Zero to a Billion: 61 Rules Entrepreneurs Need to Know to Grow a Government Contracting Business.

Mr. Kriegman holds a Master of Science in Mathematics from Florida Institute of Technology.

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