Prologue

FROM: Mercer, Elias (DIRECTOR) TO: All_Hands SUBJECT: Announcing our new Chief Information Officer Team, I have asked Chief Information Officer Rod Simpkins to take on an advisory role for the remainder of his time at the Civil Defense Agency. Rod has served CDA nobly for the past 18 months, valiantly confronting a range of challenges at a post that is perhaps the most difficult for any CIO in the country. Keeping the trains running on time is already hard enough within the average large organization. But at CDA, we help the nation and its critical infrastructure recover from events that quite literally take out our electrical grid, our telecom networks, and our rail lines. Making the trains run on time is a whole different kind of challenge here. Rod has done an admirable job, and I thank him for his service. I’m excited to announce that Ramona Callahan has accepted an offer to fill Rod’s seat as CDA’s next CIO. Ramona has spent the past 12 years at Whalen-Cole, where, as Chief Innovation Officer, she led the transformation of a century-old American institution, born in the Industrial Era, into an innovation powerhouse. Thanks to Ramona, a company once known for telegrams is now an indispensable piece of the global digital economy, processing 30% of all credit card transactions and peer-to-peer money transfers. Ramona is not the safe choice. She is new to government. But in my opinion, that’s exactly what we need: someone with great ideas that have succeeded in the outside world, on behalf of a company fighting for its survival. We are in the same boat: Americans have dwindling faith in our ability to protect them from the threats of an ever-more dangerous world. And technology is a big reason for that lack of faith. Gone are the days when the IT department simply ran the computers in the basement. The computers are everywhere, on everyone’s desks, in the field, and in the hands of the people we serve. Technology is no longer just mission support. It is the mission. And if the technology we offer doesn’t measure up to what Americans have come to expect, their faith in us will continue to decline. Ramona is here to keep the trains running on time. But she’s also here to re-envision our entire mission, and I have full faith in her ability to do just that. Please join me in welcoming her. v/r, e