Dave Zvenyach Archives | FedScoop https://fedscoop.com/tag/dave-zvenyach/ FedScoop delivers up-to-the-minute breaking government tech news and is the government IT community's platform for education and collaboration through news, events, radio and TV. FedScoop engages top leaders from the White House, federal agencies, academia and the tech industry both online and in person to discuss ways technology can improve government, and to exchange best practices and identify how to achieve common goals. Wed, 17 Aug 2022 14:05:15 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.4 https://fedscoop.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2023/01/cropped-fs_favicon-3.png?w=32 Dave Zvenyach Archives | FedScoop https://fedscoop.com/tag/dave-zvenyach/ 32 32 Dave Zvenyach leaving the General Services Administration https://fedscoop.com/dave-zvenyach-leaving-the-general-services-administration/ Tue, 16 Aug 2022 20:37:56 +0000 https://fedscoop.com/?p=58209 It is understood that Sept. 9 will be his last day and that Lauren Bracey Scheidt takes over leadership of Technology Transformation Services on an interim basis.

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Senior General Services Administration technology leader Dave Zvenyach is leaving the agency, FedScoop understands.

According to three people familiar with the matter, he is set to step down from his role as director of GSA’s Technology Transformation Services branch in the coming weeks.

It is understood that Sept. 9 will be Zvenyach’s last day at the agency and that following his departure, current acting Deputy Director Lauren Bracey Scheidt will take over as director on an interim basis.

He has led the Technology Transformation Services division at GSA since January 2021. In a prior stint with the agency during the Obama administration, he held several other senior IT leadership roles, including as director of 18F and a senior technical adviser.

Zvenyach has held other high profile public service roles including as general counsel of the District of Columbia. He is also an adjunct professor at the George Washington University Law School.

No further details were immediately available on Zvenyach’s next destination.

Commenting on his departure, GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan said: “Since rejoining GSA last year, Dave Z has made invaluable contributions to GSA’s mission and to the governmentwide effort to make the public’s interactions with government simpler and more secure.”

She added: “Today, thanks to his efforts, agencies across the federal government are able to more effectively and efficiently deliver for the taxpayers we serve. I look forward to seeing TTS continue to build on this progress in prioritizing customer experience and developing digital solutions that deliver.”

GSA’s Technology Transformation Services branch was launched in 2016 to help agencies across federal government modernize their IT systems and to build, buy and share emerging technology solutions.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to include comment from GSA.

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GSA’s Zvenyach: US Digital Corps technologists are already transforming government services https://fedscoop.com/u-s-digital-corps-transforming-government/ Mon, 11 Jul 2022 17:27:53 +0000 https://fedscoop.com/?p=55310 TTS Director Dave Zvenyach hopes for 100% retention, as the Corps prepares for a second cohort using early lessons learned from the first.

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Technology Transformation Services is already learning from more than 40 fellows in its inaugural U.S. Digital Corps cohort, who bring new experience to fields like data science and engineering, according to the office’s Director Dave Zvenyach.

TTS, which was established within the General Services Administration in 2016, onboarded its first former law enforcement officer and, rather ironically, a federal talent recruitment expert among the early career technologists the fellowship placed there and 12 other agencies toward the end of June.

The purpose of the U.S. Digital Corps is to place fellows in needed data science, engineering, product management, design and cybersecurity roles at agencies with existing digital services infrastructure, but that doesn’t mean they’re novices. 

“There’s a bias or expectation that these fellows — because it’s called Digital Corps, and they’re described as early career technologists — aren’t going to be able to contribute a ton of value instantly,” Zvenyach told FedScoop in an interview. “What I’ve already seen is that they’re participating on Slack, they’re already starting to get on board, and they’re really starting to bring different perspectives and backgrounds to the conversation.”

The fellowship represents a second career for some, who may have started in state or local government, while others were in the private sector or recently earned PhDs.

TTS typically hires by looking at past experience, often in software development with JavaScript and Python, but some of the fellow have more C and C++ experience than senior employees or were working on hardware problems before applying, Zvenyach said.

Fellows were certified using the Subject Matter Expert Qualification Assessment (SMEQA) process the U.S. Digital Service and other agencies have been refining since 2019. Dozens of SMEs reviewed more than 1,000 applications and evaluated qualifications using the existing Pathways Program as a hiring model.

Among the 13 initial agencies accepting certified fellows were the General Services Administration, where TTS resides; Office of Management and Budget; Office of Personnel Management; Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; Department of Veterans Affairs; and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Participants needed to have leadership support and the budget to keep fellows on staff after the fellowship ends, should they choose.

TTS placed fellows on its Login.gov, USA.gov, Vote.gov and 10x teams as “full-fledged members,” Zvenyach said. Login.gov is scaling to support more than 40 agencies with engineering and product management gaps on the team.

Elsewhere fellows are helping VA’s digital experience product team modernize tools veterans use to access their benefits; CMS create a behavioral health treatment locator tool; and CISA develop vulnerability, risk and resilience assessments.

“We wanted to focus on programs and teams that needed the support,” Zvenyach said.

In addition to co-creating the U.S. Digital Corps’ curriculum — including tech conferences and government-specific trainings on federal contracting, funding and the President’s Management Agenda — fellows receive guidance from a network of mentors. Fellows have one mentor irrespective of agency, while mentors may have multiple fellows.

Tracking fellows’ performance will be a “shared responsibility” between themselves, the agencies they were placed with and U.S. Digital Corps supervisors, Zvenyach said.

Whether every fellow remains in government depends on whether they’re a good fit.

“My goal is 100%; I would love for 100% of these fellows to stay in government,” Zvenyach said. “It’s too early to tell what that will realistically end up looking like, but it really is our goal to find folks who are going to make a career in public service.”

Part of that involves ensuring the technologists have the tools they need — like TTS investing in Jupyter Notebooks for its data scientists — to succeed in their work.

The U.S. Digital Corps was housed within TTS because it’s a cross-governmental initiative capable of recruiting and supporting fellows differently than agencies given its broad civic tech ecosystem, which includes the Presidential Innovation Fellows, Centers of Excellence, 18F and Data.gov team among others, Zvenyach said. While money from the American Rescue Plan Act funded the first cohort, some agencies plan to reimburse the fellowship.

TTS’s desire is for a larger second cohort, recruitment beginning in a month or two, but not at the expense of the fellow-agency matching process. Different skills and agencies may be prioritized, but it’s “too early to say” how, Zvenyach said.

Expect hiring authorities to be adjusted or new ones used for the second cohort.

“We couldn’t really target people who were coming out of coding boot camps or folks who are self-taught or otherwise non-traditionally trained,” Zvenyach said. “There were certain limitations that we had.”

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GSA won’t use facial recognition with Login.gov for now https://fedscoop.com/gsa-forgoes-facial-recognition-for-now/ Wed, 09 Feb 2022 18:18:20 +0000 https://fedscoop.com/?p=47507 The agency's secure sign-in team continues to research the technology and to conduct equity and accessibility studies.

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The General Services Administration won’t use facial recognition to grant users access to government benefits and services for now, but its secure sign-in team continues to research the technology.

“Although the Login.gov team is researching facial recognition technology and conducting equity and accessibility studies, GSA has made the decision for now not to use facial recognition, liveness detection, or any other emerging technology in connection with government benefits and services until rigorous review has given us confidence that we can do so equitably and without causing harm to vulnerable populations,” said Dave Zvenyach, director of TTS, in a statement provided to FedScoop.

“There are a number of ways to authenticate identity using other proofing approaches that protect privacy and ensure accessibility and equity.”

Login.gov ensures users are properly authenticated for agencies’ services and verifies identities, and the Technology Transformation Services team that manages it is also studying facial recognition equity and accessibility.

GSA‘s methodical evaluation of the technology contrasts with that of the IRS, which announced Monday that it would transition away from using ID.me‘s service for verifying new online accounts after the company disclosed it lied about relying on 1:many facial recognition — a system proven to pose greater risks of inaccuracy and racial bias.

Login.gov currently collects a photo of a state-issued ID and other personally identifiable information, which are validated against authoritative data sources. The last step involves either sending a text message to the user’s phone number or a letter to their address containing a code that must be provided to Login.gov to complete identity verification.

More than 60 applications across 17 agencies — including USAJOBS at the Office of Personnel Management and the Paycheck Protection and Disaster Loan Application programs at the Small Business Administration — use Login.gov, encompassing more than 17 million users.

GSA’s rejection of facial recognition for Login.gov was first reported by The Washington Post, but the technology is most certainly in the agency’s, and the government’s, future.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is crafting an Artificial Intelligence Bill of Rights to protect people from technology infringements and focused its initial request for information on biometrics like facial recognition.

While OSTP’s definition of biometrics needs refining, not all facial recognition algorithms are prejudicially biased. Technical and operational bias also exist and don’t necessarily lead to inequitable outcomes.

“There are not direct correlations between technical and operational biases and prejudicial bias,” Duane Blackburn, science and technology lead at MITRE‘s Center for Data-Driven Policy, told FedScoop in January. “Even though in a lot of policy analyses they’re treated as equivalent.”

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GSA eyes wider service impact in response to CX executive order https://fedscoop.com/gsa-eyes-wider-service-impact-cx-executive-order-dave-zvenyach-raylene-yung/ Thu, 03 Feb 2022 20:30:26 +0000 https://fedscoop.com/?p=47249 The more agencies and people that GSA services, programs or projects touch, the better, two of the agency's top tech officials tell FedScoop.

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As the General Services Administration looks to deliver on the action items laid out in the recent customer experience executive order, it’s focused on using its common services to have an impact on as much as the federal government as possible, according to top technology officials at the agency.

The more agencies and people that GSA’s services, programs or projects touch, the better, the officials told FedScoop in an exclusive interview. Those efforts include the delivery of digital services supported by the agency’s Technology Transformation Services branch, as well as its administration of Technology Modernization Fund projects.

There’s “this real focus on shared services” in the executive order, said Dave Zvenyach, director of TTS. “It really mentions this idea of sort of the governmentwide approach. And one of the great things that’s called out in the executive order is building on some of the experience and work that we’ve done over the years around shared services,” he said, pointing to TTS programs like Login.gov, Search.gov and the U.S. Web Design System.

“We’re really thinking about how we can build on top of those strengths,” Zvenyach said.

While federal agencies face different mission sets, they often ultimately come back to serving the same people: the greater U.S. public. And the new executive order stresses that common customer to bring agencies closer in how they serve the public, he said.

“Ultimately, one of the things that we have recognized over the years, and we see this expressed in the executive order, is that it is all too easy for agencies to think about themselves and just sort of say, ‘Well, what does it mean for me?'” Zvenyach said. “As opposed to putting the user or the customer in the center of the work. And the executive order really pushes agencies to think about what the user need actually is and to put that squarely into the center.”

The Technology Modernization Fund, which has its program office housed in GSA, is taking a similar approach in seeking out modernization project proposals that provide the greatest benefit to the American public and across agencies.

By serving as this central clearinghouse of sorts for agencies looking for investments to support modernization, the TMF has the ability to follow trends from across government to “make the most impactful kind of strategic investments in government technology modernization as a whole,” said Raylene Yung, executive director of the TMF.

“We have this pretty unique bird’s eye view of what federal agencies are looking to modernize,” Yung said. “And so we’re kind of in this position to look across and say: ‘Wow, this is a common theme that we’re seeing, or, you know, maybe this investment actually might have a disproportionately large impact because it might benefit multiple agencies, or this is a shared problem that we think one solution in one place can benefit others.'”

At the same time, the TMF has been forced to find a way to do the most good from the investments it’s gotten based on an influx of demand. While the TMF saw a billion-dollar injection in 2021 under the American Rescue Plan Act — far surpassing what it had received in several years’ worth of fiscal appropriations prior to that — the response was staggering, with agencies submitting $2 billion across more than 100 proposals since last spring.

Before, that, “over the course of three years, the TMF maybe looked at a few dozen proposals and made 11 investments,” Yung said.

As an example of focusing on widespread impact, TMF Board last September made three different awards to agencies for zero-trust security projects, which the Biden administration has prioritized through its recent cybersecurity executive order. Rather than those agencies facing those projects independently, the TMF office created a cohort so they could work in lockstep.

“So all three agencies meet every other week. They talk, they exchange tips, they exchange information,” Yung said. “And that idea was TMF is not only giving each agency funding and an opportunity to accelerate their zero-trust journey, but now they can collaborate. And as a group, they can publish shared findings, and all other agencies doing the same things” can take advantage of that.

And Yung hopes to add more technical talent to the TMF team in the coming year “to support projects and investments through their full lifecycle.”

Yung, who joined GSA in September 2021, said these offices across the agency are “really feeding well together” to support cross-government, high-impact services by “thinking about opportunities to create these shared platforms and services and tools that work really well, for maybe all agencies or multiple agencies.”

After spending the past several years founding and leading the U.S. Digital Response — a nonprofit response organization designed to assist governments, mostly at the state and local level, and other organizations during crisis — Yung said this shared perspective also extends beyond the federal level of government: “What are those shared services that GSA can provide, that the federal government can provide that reach throughout all levels of government?”

‘Common vocabulary’

Ultimately, the new CX executive order not only gives agencies marching orders to improve customer services but also offers a blueprint and “common vocabulary” on how to execute, Zvenyach and Yung emphasized.

“There’s a reason beneath [the executive order], which is that we ultimately want policymakers to be able to confidently pass laws and regulations and have them actually get services delivered to folks,” Zvenyach said. “And we also want to make sure that when people interact with the government, it’s an opportunity to build trust and to build better experiences with the government.”

While the implementation of the executive order is a whole-of-government effort, GSA as a central service provider to other agencies is “really thinking about implementing the spirit and the practical day to day work around that customer experience executive order, really trying to focus on reducing burden and thinking about addressing the public’s needs when they’re interacting with government,” he said.

Yung added: “It’s kind of establishing that common language that agencies can use to say: ‘We need to make these websites more accessible, we need to think about the shared user experience, a life experience that touches multiple agencies.’ And so I think already, you can see that vocabulary kind of making it into strategic conversations and to goal setting and planning for appropriations for the next year and the following year.”

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GSA funds 14 digital projects with $150M from American Rescue Plan https://fedscoop.com/gsa-divides-150m-in-american-rescue-plan-funding-among-14-projects/ https://fedscoop.com/gsa-divides-150m-in-american-rescue-plan-funding-among-14-projects/#respond Mon, 15 Nov 2021 15:57:01 +0000 https://fedscoop.com/?p=44641 The 14 projects range from automating farmers' debt relief processing to streamlined identity verification.

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The General Services Administration is using part of the $150 million it received under the American Rescue Plan Act to fund 14 citizen-facing digital service projects, it announced Monday.

GSA’s Technology Transformation Services selected 14 projects — from automating farmers’ debt relief processing to streamlined identity verification — to fit the plan’s themes of recover, rebuild, and reimagine in providing emergency support and services to Americans affected by COVID-19.

“These projects are a prime example of GSA’s commitment to using technology to make sure government can move at the speed of need and deliver for the people and communities we serve,” GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan said in a statement. “From making it easier for families to access child care services to helping farmers access debt relief programs, these projects address some of the most pressing issues people face in their daily lives. Combined with efforts like the Technology Modernization Fund, we have an opportunity to make a truly transformative impact and reimagine how we deliver services to the public.”

The projects, which are in progress and in some cases have been completed already, are:

Recover

Rebuild

Reimagine

The $150 million was passed to GSA’s Federal Citizen Services Fund through the American Resuce Plan, which was signed into law March 11 and approved $1.9 trillion in relief spending for COVID-19 recovery. Within that, Congress also appropriated $1 billion to support the Technology Modernization Fund, which GSA administers.

GSA said it will use “best practices” from its 10x program, which crowdsources – and funds – digital projects proposed by federal employees, to manage these 14 projects, including “equitable evaluation criteria, performing due diligence, and project tracking.” GSA also recently opened the submission period for the latest round of 10x projects.

TTS Director Dave Zvenyach said these new projects are “just the beginning.”

“As we head into FY22, TTS will be doubling down on what is possible to make the largest impact on public-facing digital services,” he said.

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GSA making ‘significant’ investments to automate FedRAMP processes https://fedscoop.com/tts-significant-fedramp-investments/ https://fedscoop.com/tts-significant-fedramp-investments/#respond Wed, 02 Jun 2021 20:10:41 +0000 https://fedscoop.com/?p=41623 The agency has also moved to a distributed-by-default work model ahead of the return to in-person work.

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The General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services arm is making “significant” investments in automating security authorization processes for cloud service providers, Director Dave Zvenyach said on Wednesday.

Zvenyach said these new investments under the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) will focus on automation, process improvements and additional resources to help plug gaps, as well as make agencies more aware of existing authorities to operate (ATOs).

FedRAMP approves secure cloud technologies for agencies’ reuse via ATOs. Onboarding new cloud service providers, however, carries significant costs, not only that of the initial authorization but also annual reassessments, significant change requests and continuous monitoring as well.

CSPs and CIOs regularly urge the FedRAMP Program Management Office to automate what processes they can to streamline onboarding, but investment hasn’t kept up with demand.

“As we add cloud service providers to FedRAMP, it ends up having a nonlinear cost,” Zvenyach said, during an ACT-IAC event.

TTS investments in automation, process improvements and additional resources will help plug gaps, as well as make agencies more aware of existing ATOs, he added.

The thousands of ATOs agencies already reuse save taxpayer dollars, improve security and lower vendors’ overhead costs.

TTS is collaborating with the FedRAMP PMO and Joint Authorization Board on process work, as well as the Federal CIO, CIO Council and Office of Management and Budget to ensure FedRAMP’s reciprocity with the Pentagon’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program. The Department of Defense‘s CIO office is already represented on the JAB, which makes things easier, Zvenyach said.

“This isn’t just a [General Services Administration] thing,” he said. “We really do need to have partnership.”

Tasked with improving the public’s digital experience with government, TTS is still responding to the pandemic, economic recovery, racial inequity and climate change in its work. Major investments are also being made to improve the security and usability of Login.gov, the government’s identity and authentication platform, Zvenyach said.

But now agencies including GSA also need to finalize return-to-office plans by July 19, as required by the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force.

Under Zvenyach’s leadership, TTS has adopted a “distributed-by-default” mindset.

“My experience is distributed by default is a better pattern than the hybrid approach,” Zvenyach said. “I think people should be distributed, or they should be in person. And we should try and think about how you use the best of each, rather than trying to blend them together.”

People working in person shouldn’t receive more benefits than those who opt not to, which, in turn, allows TTS to focus on outcome delivery and measuring success, he added.

To that end, TTS has invested in collaboration tools, restructured how it conducts meetings and rethought results measurement to enable employees to live across the country in a more equitable, accessible work environment.

One downside to a more distributed workforce is feedback is harder to come by, so Zvenyach set up an anonymous, digital feedback form.

“I really do read all of the comments that come in,” he said.

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GSA planning to lend tech, acquisition expertise to support scaling TMF https://fedscoop.com/gsa-tech-expertise-tmf-fcsf/ https://fedscoop.com/gsa-tech-expertise-tmf-fcsf/#respond Mon, 12 Apr 2021 20:57:32 +0000 https://fedscoop.com/?p=40581 Personnel from the Centers of Excellence and Presidential Innovation Fellows program may be tapped for project evaluation improvements after the TMF received $1 billion for pressing modernization projects.

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General Services Administration officials anticipate lending technology and acquisition expertise to agencies modernizing IT using the more than $1 billion in funds allocated within the American Rescue Plan Act.

GSA holds weekly meetings with the Office of Management and Budget, U.S. Digital Service, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, federal chief information officers, and industry to discuss the $1 billion added to the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) and $150 million to the Federal Citizen Services Fund (FCSF).

The TMF is a central pot of appropriations that agencies can apply for to fund impactful modernization projects under the stipulation that they’ll pay it back within five years. The FCSF, on the other hand, is an internal GSA fund that TTS can use to support interagency digital services initiatives.

While process improvements streamlining how that money is distributed to agencies will be determined in the coming weeks and months, the news that GSA teams like Technology Transformation Services and 18F will offer assistance should assuage tech companies that demanded as much in a letter last month.

“If we can be of service along the way — whether it’s through our technology expertise, whether it’s through our acquisition expertise, whether it’s through our thought leadership in certain areas,” Sonny Hashmi, commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service, told FedScoop in an exclusive interview. “We will be available as a resource for those agencies to tap into in the most frictionless way possible.”

TTS is working with the TMF Board to bring in the right people, potentially from the Centers of Excellence and Presidential Innovation Fellows programs, said Dave Zvenyach, the TTS’s director and deputy federal acquisition commissioner.

Adding the right capabilities and skills to the evaluation side of investments is a priority, Hashmi said.

“We have to figure out our org chart behind the scenes and work with our agencies in all the many different ways that we can,” he added. “Because that has been a challenge historically that I think we have the ability to overcome.”

In addition to improving the way investments are made, government is reconsidering agency repayment requirements and how to hold projects accountable for the way funds are spent to “make the most good happen as quickly as possible,” Hashmi said.

GSA’s 10x program has had great success expanding Login.gov entity verification across government on a smaller budget than the TMF and FCSF have now, Zvenyach said.

He categorizes the uses of new funds in three ways: recovery tied to the COVID-19 pandemic, economy, racial inequity and climate change; rebuilding government services; and reimagining digital services delivery — all of which offer high-impact opportunities for investments.

“Some of them are going to be duds,” Zvenyach said. “But some of them are going to be home runs.”

Both officials declined to name specific initiatives that will likely receive TMF funds citing the many stakeholders involved in those decisions. But possibilities include immediate, tactical investments in cybersecurity in response to last year’s SolarWinds hack, new shared services, and specific systems helping people find COVID-19 vaccinations, vote or receive Social Security benefits, Hashmi said.

GSA is assisting the Small Business Administration with baking fraud detection into its loan application systems, which may have doled out as much as $105.4 billion in COVID-19 relief money to fraudsters.

“There are a range of specific initiatives we’re looking at,” Zvenyach said. “Everything from [the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program] to improving forms and digitizing paper-based services.”

Another factor in all of this is President Biden’s appointment of Clare Martorana as federal CIO last month. Martorana‘s experience with IT modernization as CIO of the Office of Personnel Management and, before that, at USDS bodes well for projects reimagining digital and shared services.

“She brings a wealth of knowledge and experience,” Hashmi said. “And new thinking around how the TMF can actually be used as an investment fund to change things at a much greater scale, across multiple agencies.”

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President Biden taps Obama alums to lead GSA tech, acquisition https://fedscoop.com/president-biden-taps-obama-alums-lead-gsa-tech-acquisition/ https://fedscoop.com/president-biden-taps-obama-alums-lead-gsa-tech-acquisition/#respond Wed, 20 Jan 2021 20:49:26 +0000 https://fedscoop.com/?p=39719 Sonny Hashmi and Dave Zvenyach will return to GSA to help run acquisition and technology services, respectively.

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The General Services Administration under President Joe Biden will be led by an array of Obama-era officials, the agency announced Wednesday, just hours into the 46th president’s term.

In particular, GSA’s acquisition and technology efforts will be run by agency alumni keenly familiar with its missions: Sonny Hashmi, former GSA CIO, will lead the Federal Acquisition Service. And Dave Zvenyach — who served as executive director of 18F for a time during the Trump presidency and in other roles with the tech services team under Obama — will oversee the Technology Transformation Services office.

At the top, GSA will be led by Katy Kale in the near term as acting administrator. Kale will then move to her official role as deputy administrator when Biden’s eventual pick to run the agency is confirmed.

Additionally, Jacky Chang will serve as a senior adviser on technology. Chang served as CTO for Biden’s campaign and a senior engineer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. While a GSA release said Chang spent time working with the U.S. Digital Service as the head of its product team, a USDS spokesperson told FedScoop she didn’t take a role with the team.

Other Biden appointees tapped to run GSA services:

  • Brett Prather, the former associate administrator for the Office of Strategic Communication and deputy associate administrator for policy in the Office of Congressional & Intergovernmental Affairs at GSA, will be chief of staff.
  • Sonal Larsen, a former official at both the White House Council of Environmental Quality and at the Department of Energy, will be a senior adviser on climate.
  • Nitin Shah, former chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Justice, will be general counsel;
  • Gianelle Rivera, director of policy for D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and a former appointee in GSA’s office of congressional and intergovernmental affairs, will lead the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs.
  • Krystal Brumfield, who comes to the role with a variety of private-sector experience and service as counsel for the Senate Small Business Committee, will lead the Office of Government-Wide Policy.

Correction: Jan. 21, 2021. An earlier version of this story misstated Jacky Chang’s experience with USDS. She did not hold a role with the team.

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Bill Zielinski tapped to lead GSA’s IT acquisition branch https://fedscoop.com/zielinski-zawatsky-tapped-it-acquisition-roles/ https://fedscoop.com/zielinski-zawatsky-tapped-it-acquisition-roles/#respond Thu, 16 Aug 2018 15:34:08 +0000 https://fedscoop.com/?p=29465 Zielinski has seen a quick rise as an IT acquisition leader at GSA.

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Days after news that Kay Ely will be leaving the General Services Administration, the agency has selected a new leader to head up the Office of the Information Technology Category.

Bill Zielinski will serve as acting assistant commissioner of ITC once Ely departs the office on Oct. 1, FedScoop has learned.

Ely is leaving to help lead a task force that will oversee the transfer of Human Resources Solutions from the Office of Personnel Management to GSA before retiring later this year after her 90-day detail.

Zielinski, the current ITC deputy assistant commissioner and governmentwide category manager for IT, has been a key figure in the development of some of GSA’s most prominent technology contract vehicles in the past year, including the $50 billion Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions contract and the $50 billion Alliant 2 IT services contract.

He first came to GSA in 2016 after a stint as the branch chief for agency oversight in the Office of Management and Budget. Zielinski also served as the Social Security Administration’s CIO from 2013 to 2015.

The move makes sense, given Zielinski’s role in helping craft the EIS and Alliant 2 vehicles, as well as his quick rise as an IT acquisition leader at GSA. He was named the governmentwide IT category manager nearly a year ago, following Mary Davie’s promotion to acting deputy commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service (FAS). Davie is now also reported to be leading the OPM HRS merger taskforce. The merger is planned to be completed by March 30, 2019.

In the past week, reports also surfaced that David Vargas, OPM’s director of the HR line of business, left the agency to lead GSA’s new Service Management Office in addition to Davie’s and Ely’s roles on the merger task force.

GSA officials also confirmed that Judith Zawatsky will remain as acting assistant commissioner for the Office of Systems Management. She assumed the position in May, when predecessor David Zvenyach moved to a senior technical advisor role. Zvenyach said last week that he would depart federal service for the private sector by the end of the fiscal year.

Zawatsky has been with GSA since 2006 and was most recently the FAS chief of staff. In 2016, she was tapped as the Multiple Award Schedules transformation program manager after serving as deputy assistant commissioner for the Integrated Award Environment.

FedScoop also recently reported Technology Transformation Service Director Joanne Collins-Smee is set to leave the agency at the end of the month. GSA has yet to announce her replacement.

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18F planning marketplace of digital services tools https://fedscoop.com/18f-digital-services-marketplace/ https://fedscoop.com/18f-digital-services-marketplace/#respond Mon, 21 Dec 2015 11:44:58 +0000 http://ec2-23-22-244-224.compute-1.amazonaws.com/tech/18f-planning-marketplace-of-digital-services-tools/ The General Services Administration's 18F is looking to pilot a marketplace of software tools for use by other burgeoning digital services teams around government.

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The General Services Administration’s 18F is looking to pilot a marketplace of software tools for use by the burgeoning numbers of digital services teams elsewhere around government.

Part of a move to build more micro-marketplaces similar to the Agile Delivery Services Marketplace, which was developed in conjunction with the agile blanket purchase agreement pilot procurement launched earlier this year, the digital services marketplace will provide specific software tools uncommon to government for developers’ needs, Dave Zvenyach, management director for 18F Consulting, told FedScoop.

In the private sector, he said, “developers will use a particular tool for a particular need. If you’re a Ruby developer, you may prefer one type of continuous integration tool over another. If you’re a Python developer, you may prefer a different continuous integration tool over another.” However, “really allowing the developer or the designer to have the choice of tools that are most appropriate for them in government is actually a difficult thing.”

[Read More: 18F’s micro-purchasing procurement hack]

18F envisions the digital services marketplace as portal in which teams have real-time access to software-as-a-service and pure software development tools. The GSA team came to the idea from facing its own similar struggles during its growth.

“We have those sort of needs at 18F,” Zvenyach said. “So trying to learn from our own needs and our own expectations around how to do this type of work, and using that experience, using those sort of data points to inform how we’re going to pursue these marketplaces is really important.”

“And we know that as other digital service teams pop up throughout the U.S. government…that there’s a ready avenue for them to get [these tools],” he added.

Digital services teams have been established at Veteran’s Affairs, and more recently at the Department of Homeland Security and the Environmental Protection Agency as well. Other departments are working on them.

[Read More: USDS execs: Americans expect Uber-like government]

The GSA digital team won’t stop there with the marketplaces, though. It plans to replicate what it’s done in the agile delivery space in other domains as well. 18F says it is looking into building micro-marketplaces in the following areas:

  • Infrastructure/platform
  • Data management
  • Cybersecurity
  • Financial tech
  • Health IT

Unlike GSA’s schedule procurement vehicles, 18F’s marketplaces strategy is more about giving agencies very specified and vetted products and services for their specific needs, which is possible in the current environment, but a daunting task given the broad nature of offerings in traditional federal contracting.

“We want to be like Etsy, but for government,” Zvenyach told FedScoop. “We want to be able to get the right companies for a particular type of activity to the right customer.”

He added, “Providing sort of a curated set of vendors with particular expertise — vetted vendors that are doing really excellent work in a particular space — and not focusing on boiling the ocean, but focusing on sort of a smaller set of unique skill sets that are appropriate for a certain task at hand, is really what we’re focusing on.”

Zvenyach isn’t completely sure which marketplace might be the next to launch. “I think we want to do a little more research and talk to a few more potential customers and industry before we decide what the next marketplace will look like,” he said.

Like most everything 18F does, this is about experimentation and showing the innovation that’s possible within the confounds of the federal government, he said.

“It’s going to be explicitly experimental. We’re expecting to learn a lot. A lot of this will look and feel very different from how we’ve done things in the past,” Zvenyach said. “We expect that there’s going to be great things that come from it, but we also expect that there are going to be some points along the road where we have to reevaluate the direction and then pivot.”

Reach the reporter on this story at billy.mitchell@www.fedscoop.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillyMitchell89. Sign up for the Daily Scoop to get stories like this in your inbox every morning: fdscp.com/sign-me-on

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