New leadership at the Defense Information Systems Agency say they're aware of challenges caused by a shifting technology landscape and a literal change in landscape following a planned move to Ft. Meade, Md. DISA executives spoke July 15 at a panel discussion hosted by AFCEA-NoVa.

Paige Atkins, the newly appointed director of Strategic Planning and Information, said DISA is working to a future that's more integrated and seamless. The agency's new enterprise infrastructure will allow better sharing and collaborating between public and private sector.

"The services that DISA provides today no longer know boundaries. And we have been mov[ing] to an infrastructure in support of an environment without boundaries," she said. 

But there are several hurdles the agency must overcome in order to meet its vision. "We obviously have budgetary concerns," said new DISA Chief Information Officer Henry Sienkiewicz. "We also have issues with on going operations--be they operations on the physical side or are they operations in the cyber-space side."

He also said that there is a need to "retool" and "reset" warfighting capabilities--in the face of budgetary restrictions--and still meet the "insatiable demand for all of these institutional services that DISA is able to provide."

Another operational challenge facing DISA is the imminent move of the office to Ft. Meade, Md. The agency will have to sustain operations during the transition by continuing services from the old and new locations simultaneously to ensure nothing is dropped. While the job will not be easy, Sienkiewicz sees it as an opportunity to reinvent the processes of the agency and reshape its information architecture.

David Bennett, the new deputy program executive officer for Global Information Grid Enterprise Services, said moving to Ft. Meade presents human capital challenges as well. "The reality is, we're losing a lot of skill sets right now, as part of the process," Said Bennett. "We are hiring people, but the reality is you lose a lot of corporate knowledge. And as you lose the knowledge, every time you bring in a new topic or a new issue, a lot of folks want to reinvent the wheel."

Sienkiewicz also recognized changes in acquisition at the agency. Going forward DISA may not be selecting big-name licenses. "We may be forcing them to compete one, by one, by one as you're building up the model."

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