Experts agree that IT professionals who understand the importance of securityfor digital government and some of its technical aspects will rise to leadershippositions. Judith Spencer, director of the General Services Administration's Centerfor Government- wide Security, is one of the government IT executives whogets it. Spencer heads GSA's efforts to offer public-key infrastructureservices to other agencies and to create interoperability among PKIs inthe government. PKI entails the policies and framework needed to managethe use of digital signatures to secure electronic transactions. While she isn't an engineer, she doesunderstand a lot of the technical substance.
Security involves challenges that most IT leaders in years past did nothave to face.
Charlotte Knepper, director for encryption policy at the National SecurityCouncil, leads the Interagency Working Group for Cryptography, which tacklesencryption policy and related e-commerce and security issues. This balancing act can be tricky in the often contentious security and encryptionarena, said Bruce McConnell, president of McConnell International and formerdirector of the International Y2K Coordination Center. For some leaders, the more basic challenge of knowing how to apply technicalexpertise will be an invaluable skill. David Korsmeyer, chief informationtechnology architect in NASA's CIO office and the technical group lead atAmes Research Center's computational sciences division, has helped NASAsave time and money with his work on database management and integration. For example, Korsmeyer has developed a method to allow remote users toaccess internal wind tunnel systems at Ames, run tests and analyze the results.