“If you had 15 minutes alone with President Bush, what is the one critical issue you would bring to his attention?” Now, that might have been a dicey proposition for the POTUS if asked at a different D.C. venue today, but in the context of the ExecutiveBiz CIO Series Event held this morning at the WestWood Country Club in Vienna, Virginia, the question was a very good one.

The hypothetical was posed by the event’s moderator Barry West, Executive Vice President of SE Solutions. West asked the two featured speakers - Casey Coleman, CIO of the General Services Administration, and Venkatapathi (P.V.) Puvvada, VP and CTO of UNISYS - what critical Federal IT issue they would bring to the President’s attention if given 15 minutes of his time. Coleman deftly deferred to P.V., who said he would focus on the supply chain problem that exists in terms of available talent, and how there is a critical need to educate and attract highly-skilled IT workers.

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Interested in learning more about the Government IT space? Then, mark your calendars: On Wednesday, March 19, Casey Coleman will speak at ExecutiveBiz’s Government IT series. Coleman was named Chief Information Officer for U.S. General Services Administration this past fall — the first woman in GSA’s history to hold that position.

Founded in 1949, GSA manages more than one-fourth of the government’s total procurement dollars and influences the management of $500 billion in federal assets, including 8,300 government-owned or leased buildings and 205,000 vehicles. It only takes a cursory look at statistics to see just how unique Coleman’s role is at GSA: The 2006 Census of Women Corporate Officers, Top Earners, and Directors of the Fortune 500 found that women held just 15.6 percent of corporate officer positions in 2006.

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