This expert panel will review the Social Security Administration’s IT modernization efforts
An independent panel of experts has been chosen to review of the Social Security Administration’s IT modernization efforts as its official plan nears the two-year mark.
The Social Security Advisory Board announced on Tuesday that 11 high-level IT and management professionals — mostly from the federal contracting space — will assess SSA‘s progress on the initiatives outlined in the October 2017 IT Modernization Plan.
“The Panel will also review the success of the systems modernization from the end-user’s perspective, including those inside and outside the agency,” a statement reads.
Alan Balutis, senior director of North American Public Sector at Cisco’s Business Solutions Group, will lead the group. Other members include:
- Dan Chenok, executive director of the IBM Center for the Business of Government
- Nani A. Coloretti, senior vice president for financial and business strategy at the Urban Institute
- Renato DiPentima, a former SSA CIO, who now serves on the Boards of Directors of Cap Gemini Government Solutions, Amida Technology Solutions, iNovex Information Systems, and Gunnison Consulting Group
- Martha Dorris, former deputy associate administrator at the General Services Administration
- William D. Eggers, executive director of Deloitte’s Center for Government Insights
- Mark Alan Forman, Vice President of digital government at Unisys Federal and the first administrator at the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of E-Government and Information Technology
- Greg Giddens, partner with Potomac Ridge Consulting
- Dave McClure, leader of transformational IT initiatives at Accenture Federal Services
- Mark Richert, director of public policy for the National Disability Institute, and
- Jim Williams, partner in Schambach & Williams Consulting, LLC.
The panel will meet for the first time in “fall 2019” and will present its findings to the Advisory Board by early fiscal 2021.
In summer 2018, SSA leaders spoke about the agency’s IT modernization journey and its focus on hybrid cloud solutions. This kind of environment allows SSA “to reduce our footprint on the mainframe where it makes sense,” John Foertschbeck, senior adviser in SSA’s Office of Systems Operations and Hardware Engineering said at the time. “We want to be able to put applications in the appropriate location where they run the best.”
The Social Security Advisory Board is a bipartisan, independent federal government agency established to advise the president, Congress and the commissioner of Social Security on matters of policy. The seven-member board was created in 1994.
