‘The federal government is finally getting its systems integrated,” states Alex Funkhouser, a VP at Computer Careers International Inc (North Miami Beach, FL), a recruiting firm for senior software developers and managers. “Businesses have spent the past decade integrating their systems; now the government is finally coming on board,” Funkhouser declares.

Homeland security needs triggered by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 may have been the proximate cause of this development. New federal laws like the Patriot Act, and the integration of disparate systems of the FBI and CIA, will continue to demand new software apps and database systems. These, in turn, have created a demand for technical services work in the government.

“The nuances of the work itself have shifted,” says Julie Martin, recruiting manager at consultant Booz Allen Hamilton (McLean, VA). “We are providing a higher level of services based on responding to September 11.”

Business and industry as well as government are expected to call in more tech consultants, creating a new demand for experienced IT and engineering pros. Funkhouser foresees a special need for upper-level programmer/analysts and project managers, and expects to place some seventy-five of them this year.

A better year coming
Contracts – and therefore employment – in the technical services sector are expected to strengthen and remain steady, industry watchers say.

“It won’t be a get-well year, but it will be better than the past eighteen months,” predicts Gary Cluff, corporate recruiting manager for the nonprofit Mitre Corp (McLean, VA), which provides systems engineering and IT consulting to a number of government agencies. Cluff thinks EE and CS will be the hot buttons, and tentatively puts his need for new tech staff “in the 300-plus range.”

Recruiting manager Martin says the hiring outlook at Booz Allen is strong, with a projected 750 to 1,000 new hires in IT and engineering fields. “We’ve continued to see significant growth in our recruiting activity. I don’t anticipate we will taper off,” Martin says.

At Harris Corp (Melbourne, FL), the international communications company, systems engineering gets the major emphasis right now. “It’s front-end work – things like requirement definitions,” says David Ridgley, senior manager of corporate staffing. He’s beginning by looking for people with fifteen years experience or more. “But since that is the front end, it will filter down as we move through the year,” he says.

Opportunities in technical services can be tremendous and the work interesting and satisfying as well as – admittedly – rather stressful by nature. Let’s see how some women and minority tech pros are making out in this industry.

Mitre’s Dr Bill Neal helps the Army plan future computer systems.

At Mitre, Dr Bill Neal helps the Army plan its computers
As a kid, Bill Neal loved a TV science show called Mr Wizard. Today, Dr Neal is a wizard himself, as he helps the U.S. Army identify science and technology programs to create futuristic computer systems. “It’s one of the biggest things on the Army’s plate today,” Neal says.

Neal is program area manager for objective force initiatives at Mitre, which operates federally funded R&D centers for the Department of Defense (DOD), the Federal Aviation Administration and the Internal Revenue Service.

Neal gets to look at the Army’s planned requirements for the next twenty years and assess the technologies needed to meet them. These are “the most advanced computer systems that haven’t been built yet,” he says. “Billions of dollars are planned for them. It’s fun stuff!”

Ten other techies work with him on the project, responsible for computers, software, networks and more.

Neal graduated from Howard University (Washington, DC) in 1976 with a BSEE and received his MSEE from Stanford University (Palo Alto, CA) in 1978. While he was at Stanford he worked at NASA’s Ames Research Center, on computer systems that helped design elements of the space shuttle and the Galileo Space Probe.

He went back to Howard to teach and work on his 1984 PhD in EE. Then he joined Potomac Systems Engineering Inc (Washington, DC). By the time he left for Mitre in 1991 he was chief scientist and senior VP for R&D at Potomac.

From 1984 to 1996 Neal was also a member of the Army Science Board, a congressionally approved organization that provides science advice to multi-star generals.

Linda Gooden is the entrepreneurial president of Lockheed Martin Information Technology.

Linda Gooden is president of Lockheed Martin IT
Linda Gooden is president of Lockheed Martin Information Technology (LMIT) and an officer of Lockheed Martin Corp (Bethesda, MD). LMIT is an operating company within the corporation’s technology services business area and, in a very real sense, Gooden’s personal creation.

The fast-growing, 7,000-member organization has business locations in twenty-four states. It is responsible for IT contracts for business systems, managed services and infrastructure solutions. Its clients are federal defense and civil departments, state governments and commercial companies.

As the demand to outsource in both government and industry grows, Gooden says, vendors must constantly position themselves to offer the best solutions. That’s why encouraging innovation is one of her prime objectives. At LMIT she always has pilot programs on the burner, and if the ideas work they become part of the operation.

Gooden received her BS in computer technology from Youngstown State University (Youngstown, OH) in 1977, then did more work in business at San Diego State University. Her first job was with General Dynamics (San Diego, CA), writing code for cruise missile systems.

She joined Martin Marietta and took on various roles of increasing responsibility, including managing software modernization contracts for the Social Security Administration, corporate-wide IT initiatives, corporate MIS support and DOD logistics systems.

In 1994 she persuaded management to form a new company within Martin Marietta, Information Support Services, and became its VP. “My idea was to broaden the software services we had been providing so that we could run data centers and do facilities management and business processes reengineering work. It went very well,” Gooden says.

The unit branched out and grew with government customers, and Martin Marietta, of course, became Lockheed Martin. In 2001, Gooden proposed acquiring a company that offered additional skill sets. The acquisition was successful, and “We renamed ourselves Lockheed Martin Information Technology.”

“One of the great things about our company,” Gooden reflects, “is that, if you have a good idea and a strong business case, you’ll find support from your management to take it forward. It allows you to be entrepreneurial. And that’s where we are today.”

Dianne Rogers.

At ACS Government Services, Dianne Rogers supports an AFB
Since December 2001, Dianne Rogers has been system program office support manager for a major management information tech service contract at ACS Government Services (Rockville, MD).

Government services and other branches of ACS provide military, government and commercial clients with full-service systems engineering and IT outsourcing. Rogers’ group of forty tech pros provides first-line desktop and application support to Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts. She needs to understand the overall perspective of the network and the program office makeup.

Rogers started her career as an operations engineer at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida while working on her 1986 BS in professional studies and business at Barry University (Miami Shores, FL) and her 1990 MBA in aviation at the Patrick Air Force Base campus of Embry Riddle Aeronautical University (Daytona Beach, FL). All the while, she was raising a family and working full time.

She worked at NASA until 1994, then spent two years as a civilian Air Force employee working as an industrial engineer on the Joint STARS aircraft. She moved to Coopers and Lybrand (Burlington, MA) in 1997, and then to Systems Software Associates (Hopkinton, MA), where she was a program manager until her move to ACS.

“You need to set goals, define where you want to go and find a company that will parallel what you want to do,” Rogers says. “It’s all about your goals and objectives.”

At CherryRoad Technologies, Kathleen Shanahan and her group.

Kathleen Shanahan of CherryRoad: integration for the U.S. Army
CherryRoad Technologies Inc (formerly Acuent Inc, Parsippany, NJ) provides a range of systems integration services for the federal government, big companies, higher education and the public sector.

Kathleen Shanahan is a program manager in CherryRoad’s federal practice. She oversees a contract that provides IT support to the U.S. Army’s program manager for chemical demilitarization, an Army organization that oversees and directs the safe disposal of the nation’s chemical weapons and shares its expertise with other countries.

Shanahan’s staff has grown from three to fifteen in two years. “We started out as a helpdesk. Now we’re also responsible for network security, Web development and digital operations,” she says. A recent successful project involved converting a physical library into a digital library, then using the library’s backend solution to design, implement and support the demilitarization group’s intranet and public website.

Shanahan also leads a group of twelve on a project for the Pentagon, supporting the U.S. Army’s effort to implement a business continuity solution for the project. “Basically, if a disaster were to occur in a building or room, we want to make sure the organization could continue to do business,” she says.

Shanahan received a BA in political science from the University of Maryland in 1985 and a BSCS in 1987. She worked at several IT-focused companies as a project manager, IT manager and program manager, “But none let me make use of my experience like CherryRoad,” she says. She started at the company in 1999.

“Too many people want to throw technology at a problem rather than making the effort to understand the requirements,” Shanahan believes. “Consultants need to take the big-picture approach. First understand the problem, next define the requirements and then make recommendations.”

Shariq Mirza.

Shariq Mirza: streamlining the post office at Conquest
After the September 11 attacks, Muslim American Shariq Mirza, who came to the U.S. from Pakistan in 1991, grieved like everyone else, but because of his background he had some additional anxieties. During that stressful time, his colleagues at Conquest Systems (Washington, DC) offered him the support he needed.

“The president of the company went out of his way to give me contacts in his congressman’s office in case I needed them,” Mirza says.

Conquest Systems is a minority-owned software development company, a frontrunner in Web apps development. It specializes in Web-based business intelligence, e-business systems, wireless technology solutions and data warehousing. Mirza is manager of the company’s enterprise engineering solutions group.

For the past four years Mirza has worked mostly on contracts for the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). “We are building a flagship project for them that will change the way they do business,” he says.

“Post office facilities will be able to exchange data electronically with their customers. For example, they’ll know which companies will have how many delivery trucks of mail each day. This system and the financial systems will be engineered to be very customer-centric. This will streamline the process,” Mirza says.

He heads up database development for the project, with thirteen people working directly for him. He also plays a key role on the USPS technical architecture systems engineering team. The entire project has a staff of about sixty-five.

Mirza received his BS in computer IS in 1997 from Southeastern Oklahoma State University. He did programming, database and Unix admin at Hollins University (Roanoke, VA) for a while, and joined Conquest in March 1999.

“I think this country provides great opportunities, and this company does, too,” he says. “The company believes its strength is the diversity of its employees.”

DynCorp project manager Vicki Buschur.

At DynCorp, Vicki Buschur works for the U.S. Air Force
Vicki Buschur retired from a great career with the U.S. Air Force, and stepped right into a job that lets her keep her Air Force contacts and friends while expanding her civil engineering skills. “One of my fears was that I wouldn’t feel comfortable with a job outside the Air Force, but this was the perfect way to retire. The transition worked out better than I could have imagined,” she says.

The new job is with DynCorp (Reston, VA). The company’s services include IT and enterprise technology, management and ops support and aerospace and aviation services. DynCorp has 500 locations around the world and supports more than forty federal agencies.

Buschur began as a project manager in 2001. She oversees workers who handle all aspects of civil engineering, from roads and infrastructure to building maintenance, at various Air Force installations.

Military family housing at Air Force installations is one of her major focuses. As existing facilities age, her staff works with the base staff to figure out and set priorities for housing modernization.

Buschur started college in 1976 and left to enlist in the Air Force two years later. The Air Force sent her to technical school to become a site developer, working closely with electrical and mechanical engineers. That exposure piqued her interest in engineering, and she applied for an Air Force program that would let her return to school and finish her degree. She graduated from North Carolina State University in 1986 with a degree in civil engineering, and became a commissioned officer.

She worked on assignments all over the U.S., finishing up at the Pentagon. There she got acquainted with DynCorp, and as she approached the twenty-year retirement mark, DynCorp offered her the job she now has.

Her work centers on preparing proposals for new contracts. “I’m always looking for opportunities at Air Force installations, stateside and overseas. Budgets are tight everywhere, so I try to find the right work and the best way to execute it,” she says.

Integic program manager Patti Decker.

At Integic, Patti Decker helps the Navy automate
Integic (Chantilly, VA) is a leading e-business solutions provider to major corporations and federal and public sector organizations. Patti Decker, a program manager at the company’s offices in Lexington Park, MD, manages several contracts for the U.S. Navy. She’s helping automate day-to-day processes using a tool called e.power.

e.power helps manage ordnance disposal at the Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technology Division (Indian Head, MD). Other sites use the tool to manage maintenance work on helicopters and airplanes.

Decker began her Integic job in 1998. Before that she managed an IT network infrastructure group at the ordnance disposal division, working for another contractor. And prior to that she provided IT support and systems engineering for a Naval air station (Patuxent River, MD). Before she found her niche in military consulting she worked for local businesses, setting up computers, networking and automated accounting functions.

Decker has worked full-time in the IT field since graduating from high school in 1982. Most of the time she was also going to school. She received an associates degree in microcomputer programming in 1995 from the College of Southern Maryland, and a 1999 BS in IS management from the University of Maryland University College.

Integic, she says, is the first company where she’s enjoyed a level playing field as a woman in IT. “At Integic I’ve been judged on my abilities and merits and am able to grow.”

Larry Pines works in IS at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Larry Pines works in IT at Pacific Northwest National Lab
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL, Richland, WA) is one of nine U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) multiprogram national labs that develop technology to work on issues like environment, energy, health and security. The lab is managed by Battelle for DOE’s office of science but does work on a contract basis for many DOE offices and other government agencies.

Larry Pines works in the IS and engineering area at PNNL. His current job involves the integrated operations system, a Web-based application that helps the lab train employees who work in hazardous areas. “It’s a self-monitoring tool,” Pines explains.

This project is internal, but since Pines joined the lab in 2000 he has also handled similar work for outside agencies. One was a Web-based app to train IRS agents in the field.

Another system gave the Army ways to analyze the performance of its logistics supply pipeline to a degree never before possible, Pines says.

He also worked on the DOE’s Tank Waste Information Network System (TWINS). The system managed huge volumes of operational and historical data on high-level waste tanks.

Pines went to Walla Walla Community College (Walla Walla, WA), where he got a degree in respiratory therapy in 1992. He left the field for the greater opportunities of IT, and in 2000 completed a BS in business and MIS at Washington State University. He’s currently working on his MS.

At the end of his senior year he got a post at PNNL as an intern on the TWINS project, which led to his current IT position.

Raytheon’s Jennifer Mercado: “looking across the entire business.”

Jennifer Mercado directs Six Sigma at Raytheon
Jennifer Mercado uses her industrial engineering knowledge to reduce waste across Raytheon Technical Services Co (Reston, VA). Raytheon provides technical, scientific and professional services for defense, federal and some commercial customers worldwide.

Mercado is director of Raytheon Six Sigma, an in-house program designed to improve productivity and reduce costs for Raytheon customers. “We do a lot of process analysis and measurement, but it’s more than that. It’s culture change and understanding that the customer values,” Mercado says.

Six Sigma provides tools to analyze areas like supply-chain management, IT and finance. About 500 Raytheon consultants work onsite at the businesses that Raytheon serves, forty-seven of them leading significant projects. Mercado monitors the financial aspects of the projects.

“I enjoy looking across the entire business, and bringing the right resources to fit the problems and make a difference to the bottom line,” she says.

Mercado graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 1981 with a BSIE. She received an MBA from California State University-Fullerton in 1989.

From 1981 to 1984 she worked in the transportation systems business division of General Electric (Erie, PA). In 1985 she moved to Hughes Aircraft Co (El Segundo and Long Beach, CA). Hughes merged with two other companies to form Raytheon Technical Services.

“This will be my eighteenth year with the company and its predecessors. The opportunities have been tremendous,” Mercado says.

D/C

– Heidi Russell Rafferty is a freelance writer in Fayetteville, NC.