Dennis Stolkey of EDS: Navigating ARRA

May 1st, 2009 by JD Kathuria

Dennis Stolkey

Topping 1,500 pages, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is a little akin to an ancient Maya hieroglyphic: as seemingly incomprehensible and daunting to navigate at times. For tips on how the government contracting community can navigate ARRA — and find opportunities that meet the needs of federal, state, and local clients — ExecutiveBiz recently sat down with Dennis Stolkey, senior vice president of US Public Sector for EDS, an HP company. Here Stolkey hones in on specific opportunities he’s tracking on behalf of state and federal clients, and identifies areas where information technology can support the government’s economic stimulus initiatives.

EB: How is the economic environment affecting your state and local customers?

Dennis Stolkey: Obviously, the economic crisis is affecting us all. A lot of our state and local government initiatives are getting delayed because the states don’t have the funding right now to support important programs.The states had a $176 billion budget deficit before President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. And now everybody’s trying to figure out what ARRA means and how funding will be distributed to help state and local governments and the people they serve.We are closely reviewing ARRA to understand its implications and identify areas where information technology can support the government’s economic stimulus initiatives.

EB: Any thoughts on where IT can support those initiatives?

Dennis Stolkey: Undoubtedly, there are many areas where IT can be leveraged and be an enabler to help address the administration’s critical priorities. We have constituted an integrated team across HP and EDS — and across our federal, state, and local groups — to assess the implications of ARRA, assess where the governments may need assistance and in these cases, to offer the governments (federal or state/local) solutions and offerings from our portfolio.

EB: Information security and citizen privacy is becoming a major priority. How is that priority being addressed by EDS?

Dennis Stolkey: The number and types of threats are increasing, and because of that we’ve got to make sure we keep the government’s information and records as safe as possible. We support 700,000 men and women in the armed forces under the Navy Marine Corps Intranet contract. We are focused every day on making sure that nothing harmful happens to their network. We can’t allow critical information to get into foreign hands or countries, or to have the personal information of our citizens get into the hands of anyone who should not have access to it. EDS [an HP company], believes that a good security program is one that permeates throughout an organization’s culture, including people, processes, technology and governance.

EB: Let’s talk about the stimulus bill. You’ve mentioned that EDS is working to make it a success at both the state and federal level. How particularly?

Dennis Stolkey: We are looking at business opportunities pretty much across the board. Some of the areas of focus are the energy side of the ARRA, the health side of ARRA, tax administration, welfare and aid to the states.

EB: Any specific examples?

Dennis Stolkey: One example is contact centers. ARRA provides nearly $787 billion in tax cuts and government spending, and these spending provisions require agencies to get projects under way within 30 to 60 days of enactment. Because of this, agencies will face large program volumes and workloads. EDS can help agencies manage this increased phone, email, web chat and fax communication volume while also reducing costs. Another example is that much of the support to citizens, either tax credits or welfare initiatives, have complex eligibility criteria. We have a number of solutions that can help federal and state and local governments address citizen inquiries about eligibility. We can also help these governments incorporate eligibility criteria into their applications systems.

EB: What approach are you taking to the national cyber security initiative?

Dennis Stolkey: We’ve been protecting our government and commercial clients’ information and networks since we’ve been in existence for more than 45 years. We also have a cybersecurity practice here in our U.S. public sector unit. With more than 2,000 security and privacy professionals dedicated to EDS clients around the world, we manage more than 300,000 servers, 3 million desktops and 156 data centers worldwide. We offer a full range of security services, from information security management to access and identity management to threat and vulnerability management. The end-to-end security solutions we deliver continue to reduce risk and ensure security compliance.

EB: What’s the latest in shared services?

Dennis Stolkey: With the Obama Administration’s initial initiatives, shared services has become an increasingly important issue for government. The real question is what teeth is President Obama going to give his CIOs, his CTOs to ensure that they can drive home compliance with shared services. Today, aside from each department having the responsibility to fulfill the president’s obligations, there are no penalties for not fulfilling them. That’s not going to help taxpayers, and that’s not going to help government get to the end game which they need. Shared services across a wider plane is a way to reduce the number of data centers, the number of applications and, ultimately, the overall costs for taxpayers.

EB: What specific initiatives do you have underway in shared services?

Dennis Stolkey: HP recently won a contract to provide shared services to other Branches of DoD through a cloud implementation. EDS also provides identity management solutions (HSPD 12 compliance and in support of the GSA Managed Service Office to multiple agencies) and other critical enterprise level cyber security protections that enable shared services as an effective way of doing business in both the public and commercial sectors.

Interview conducted by JD Kathuria

Read more interviews here: http://blog.executivebiz.com/category/interviews/