HSPD-12 gets a fair deal

 

Connecting state and local government leaders

2008 GCN Technology Leadership Award winner Mike Butler draws on ID card experience.

Mike Butler of the General Services Administration credits good fortune for a lot of the success he has had in federal technology. 'I have always been lucky,' he said.Rather than relying on blind luck, Butler's career exemplifies the adage that luck favors the well-prepared.Butler's success in bringing civilian agencies into compliance with Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12, which requires agencies to issue smart identification cards to federal employees and on-site contractor employees, grew out of his 35 years of technology management.Butler's familiarity with credentialing programs started with an early Navy Department program to provide electronic ID cards. That Navy program became the inspiration and model for the Defense Department's massive Common Access Card (CAC) program, for which Butler also worked.Butler shared that technical expertise with civilian agencies when he became responsible for securing rooms where they house HSPD-12 enrollment terminals and related equipment. The HSPD-12 budget provided only $3 million for that task, a sum that would not cover the cost of renting space for dozens of enrollment centers.'We asked the partner agencies themselves to donate the rooms where this equipment would be stored and used,' Butler said.A similar technical challenge for the HSPD-12 program arose as the small GSA team asked agencies to connect the enrollment stations to their networks.'We are a foreign agency' to the participating organizations, Butler said. 'They are not used to having an agency come in and put a machine on their network.'Agency concerns included how attaching the HSPD-12 enrollment stations to their networks might affect their Federal Information Security Management Act compliance grades from the Office of Management and Budget.Butler and his team overcame that problem by drafting a detailed agreement setting forth the enrollment stations' network transmission protocols and security measures.The resulting interconnection security agreements provide for efficient HSPD-12 equipment operation while preserving the agency networks' integrity.'We signed about 40 or 50 of those agreements,' Butler said.However, bringing the HSPD-12 program to fruition still requires agency managers to learn the technology that underlies the massive project.'People don't [immediately] understand the technology of the HSPD-12 program,' Butler said. 'It is a Web-based service, but it is more than that. It has an additional [large and pivotal] back-end element as well as a smart card that links to the other components.'The enrollment process itself adds an additional level of mandatory technical requirements that participating agencies and employees must adopt.Butler drew on his experiences with the CAC project and the knowledge of other DOD employees with credential project backgrounds. 'I said, 'There are people who broke this code five years ago,' and we brought them in,' Butler said.'When I was at DOD, we went through many of these same problems that involved the back end,' Butler said. 'Now that we have seen them before, we know where to look [for answers]. It is technology transfer.'An indicator of the program's success came recently in the form of a request from a small agency that was not required to provide HSPD-12 cards to its employees.'I met with the agency director, and he told me that the only proof the agency employees had that they worked for the federal government was their building passes,' Butler said. 'He made it clear that providing HSPD-12 cards to them would help provide the esprit and motivation that comes from being a federal employee.'

2008 GCN Technology Leadership Award winner

General Services Administration



PERSONAL MOTTO
Get 'er done.


BIGGEST MISTAKE YOU'VE MADE AND WHAT YOU LEARNED FROM IT

Sometimes I make the mistake of thinking that problems that have been solved once have been solved for all time. Only last week, I held a problem in my hand that we had solved in 1999. It is important to understand that [institutional memory doesn't always apply].


HOW YOU KEEP IT FUN
I get real joy from allowing members of my team the autonomy to go out and manage projects independently. It is very rewarding to see how a federal employee, who may have worked for the government for decades and never managed a project, can grow into the task of taking responsibility for a task and bringing it to successful completion.

GSA's Mike Butler is is one of the 2008 GCN Technology Leadership Award winners.

Emily Barnes






MORE ON THIS TOPIC: 2008 Technology Leadership Awards home page




































NEXT STORY: Raising the bar at USPS

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.