Page 58 - FCW, November, December 2018

Rising Stars
“That’s the stuff that [outside] people don’t see, but the IT folks in the background go, ‘Oh, that’s sexy!’” Roat said.
NICHOLAS HOLTZ
Digital Services Expert and Appeals Team Lead, U.S. Digital Service at the Department of Veterans Affairs
The Department of Veterans Affairs has a reputation for bureaucracy, including backlogs and stacks of paperwork for patients. Nicholas Holtz is working to change that.
He used his previous experience at the Board of Veterans’ Appeals to modernize the appeals process and reduce a five-year backlog of claims. In just 15 months, he coordinated the design, development and launch of five applications involving several external partners, including Nava.
“Nicholas changed the way the Digital Service at the Department of Veterans Affairs builds and buys technology and ultimately how government serves our nation’s veterans,” said Sunil Sadasivan, Nava’s senior engineering lead.
Holtz’s approach extended beyond the back end to connect straight to the system’s users — veterans, attorneys and judges — so that developers could receive direct feedback on the functionality and services users needed.
“As a result, regional offices can smoothly send appeals
to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals for review, attorneys can review documents for an appeal more efficiently, judges can prepare for hearings faster, and more,” one colleague said.
DAISY O. JAMES
Project Manager, Enterprise Services, Office of Information and Technology, Passenger Systems Program Directorate, Customs and Border Protection
A fearless agile development expert, Daisy James led the transformation of one of Customs and Border Protection’s most popular public-facing programs.
Under her direction, CBP replaced the Global Online Enrollment System with the cloud-based Trusted Traveler Programs (TTP) — an undertaking that was completed in just nine months using agile methodology. GOES was the public side of CBP’s Global Entry program for pre-approved clearance for travelers and commercial entities.
James’ team completed the shift in October 2017. CBP officials said users created more than 1 million accounts and submitted over 400,000 applications during the new TTP website’s first 90 days. It is now the fifth most-visited Department of Homeland Security site with roughly 26 million total visits, according to the General Services Administration’s analytics website.
Along the way, James and her team had to coordinate with the federal government’s Login.gov for self-creation and management of user account information.
TTP was CBP’s first major application to move to
the cloud, so James worked closely with the Office of Information and Technology on the agency’s broader cloud migration effort.
Agile development and constant communication were essential, said Michelle Nelson, director of CBP’s Passenger Systems Program Directorate. And James was central to those efforts.
“She’s been driving the conversation and has the ear of her technical counterparts,” Nelson added.
58 November/December 2018 FCW.COM