Renee Wynn Chief Information Officer NASA

Renee Wynn is the NASA Chief Information Officer. Ms. Wynn has a long career in the federal government. She was with EPA for more than 25 years, and joined the Office of Environmental Information in April 2011. Beyond the experience she gained since joining the information management and technology arm of the Agency, Ms. Wynn served in EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response and the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. We sat down with Ms. Wynn for her perspective on the current landscape of IT within NASA: IT challenges being faced within NASA How NASA is finding talent that can move with the technology

transformation How the IT budget is being allocated Specific services or solutions to improve security that will be

implemented The future of IT modernization as it relates to the government over the

next 2-5 years

She will also be speaking at this year’s 4th Government IT Modernization event April 26-28 in Washington D.C.

For more background on Renee Wynn view complete bio here.

What are some of the IT challenges you are facing within NASA?

“I, like other CIOs, have the continuing challenge of aligning the NASA CIO team of teams on my vision and delivering on our priorities and two major challenges – protection and use of data. For cyber protection, I need tools that alert the users to potential threats, by such means as disabling questionable links, and identifying and isolating anomalies within a network. NASA has a massive amount of data. I’d also like tools that make it easier to share and experiment with that data, including tools that can be used by lay users – the same way all of us easily use spreadsheets and document creation tools.”

“NASA has been thinking a lot about IT modernization and is finishing up an IT Strategic Plan to coincide with the new NASA Strategic Plan in the works.”

This employee’s team won. He and his team were invited to the White House for lunch and asked to present their project at several government venues. Attracting, hiring and retaining a diverse and extraordinary IT workforce is critical to NASA’s success. Fortunately, NASA’s mission often attracts the best and the brightest of the U.S. population even though higher salaries can be achieved within the private sector. NASA IT organizations must continue to communicate the value of the NASA mission and the exciting and fulfilling work planned and achieved by the Agency to continue to attract and retain the top IT talent available in the education domain and in the public and private sector workforce.

How is NASA finding talent that can move with the technology transformation?

“NASA leverages a number of programs such as co-op, intern, and Presidential Fellows programs to bring in new and young talent. Within the past year and a half we had an employee complete the prestigious, selective and competitive inaugural IT Solutions Challenge Program. The employee was nominated and accepted into the inaugural federal wide program called the “IT 5 Solutions Challenge”. This program is for up and coming professionals. There were six teams who presented solutions to a Procurement/IT federal problem and a panel of judges selected the best solution that could be implemented across the government.

of sophistication of attacks from those who would do us harm, IT security really needs to be engrained in everything we do at NASA – just like safety. And because of this, the way we look at our IT security budget is really based on risk. We are constantly evaluating NASA’s environment in order to place emphasis on the highest priority IT security initiatives, with the goal of continuously improving our IT security baseline. In FY17 our IT security focus

is on the implementation of the Department of Homeland and Security (DHS) Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation Program, as well as coming into compliance with HSPD-12, also known as PIV.”

“In FY17 our IT security focus is on the implementation of the Department of

Homeland and Security (DHS) Continuous Diagnostics and

Mitigation Program.”

In addition, proactively identifying and addressing the gaps between current workforce capabilities and future workforce needs, will better prepare the Agency to leverage training and development resources and help realign our employees to respond to NASA’s changing mission priorities and to the dynamic IT domain.”

How is your IT budget being allocated? Do you plan to use or implement any specific services or solutions to improve security or move away from traditional IT?

“We have aligned NASA’s IT budget to meet the needs of a rapidly changing IT ecosystem. Specifically, we are working to change the way we deliver IT to NASA, including modernization of communications services, data center consolidation, and increasing our Cloud footprint. Through our modernization efforts we have been able to increase efficiencies and deliver IT to NASA scientists and engineers while improving our IT security posture.. Because of the level

Where do you see the future of IT modernization as it relates to the government over the next 2-5 years?

“NASA has been thinking a lot about IT modernization and is finishing up an IT

Strategic Plan to coincide with the new NASA Strategic Plan in the works. NASA has unique IT needs in a lot of ways but faces a lot of the same challenges the rest of the Federal Government faces. The fast pace of IT changes, smaller budgets, aging systems, and a large percentage of retiring federal works affect us all the same. IT modernization requires new and innovative ways to meet all the challenges. Unfortunately a lot of everyone’s budget goes to keeping the lights on, not towards modernization. Finding innovative ways to do the mission better and cheaper is one way to free up modernization funding. We’re embarking on what we call the “Data Centric Model” where it’s all about the data. Protect but make the data available is the new mantra. You don’t have to worry about the devices as much if the data is accessed in a secure way. We need to make changes to networks due to the Internet of Things, and ever increasing Big Data. There will be lots more data coming from satellites and probes. The Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration had a pulsed Laser Beam that set record in data transmission.

It transmitted data over 239,000 miles between moon and Earth with a record-breaking download rate of 622 Mbps. The Laser Communications Relay Demo (LCRD) is next and will transmit data 10 to 100 times faster than the fastest radio-frequency systems and use significantly less mass/power. We’ve got to plan now for this tremendous increase in data hitting our network. IT Modernization will focus on helping update systems used by the missions: Aeronautics Research, Human Exploration and Operations, Science, and Space Technology. As more employees work from home, we’ve got to plan tools that work in every environment—cloud based, easy to get to, scalable, and cost efficient. And most important is aligning with mission and business strategies. And if that isn’t enough to be thinking through and preparing for, we have greater usage of drones and robotics. Serving as a CIO is both invigorating and exhausting!.”

April 26-28 in Washington D.C.

Three Ways To Register! Visit: www.Governmentitmodernization.com

Email: IDGA@idga.org Call: 1-800-882-8684

View the 2017 agenda!

Speaking Session

Security Factors to Take into Account when Modernizing IT for your Department

APRIL 26TH

Renee Wynn Chief Information Officer National Aeronautics and Space Administration

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