Defense Department 'a little, homogeneous corporation'?

 David DeVries, DOD’s deputy CIO for information management, integration and technology, demonstrated another talent recently: a dry wit.

His sense of irony was in full flower when he suggested, jokingly, that the Defense Department is “a little, homogeneous corporation.”

 “The secretary thinks of something and [DOD CIO Teri Takai] comes up with an innovative idea, she passes it along to the director, and we of course type up a quick memo and she signs it, and everyone says, ‘Hey, that’s a great idea, we’ll do this!’ And it gets done within a week or do,” joked DeVries. DeVries, Richard Spires, CIO at the Homeland Security Department and Casey Coleman, CIO at the General Services Administration participated in an April 13 panel discussion on how to secure the cloud with the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program. David McClure, associate administrator at GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, moderated the event, which was organized by the Association for Federal Information Resources Management.

Taking on a more serious tone and addressing the topic of information sharing, DeVries highlighted governmentwide collaboration and said his agency rarely does anything by itself. "Every action we take out there involves our partners, whether it's the federal government or the state and local governments," he said. "Gone are the days when the Department of Defense just worried about the warfighting mission side of the house. We are now across the whole spectrum and heavily engaged, and it all comes down to information sharing."