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GSA Issues Initial Awards for IT Modernization Centers of Excellence

Working to ensure the United States remains the world’s leader in technological innovation, GSA has issued the initial set of awards related to the wide-scale IT modernization efforts.

Washington, D.C. -- The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) today announced the issuance of five awards that will start the first phase of work for each of the five GSA-housed IT Modernization Centers of Excellence (CoE). An integral part of the administration’s government-wide IT modernization plan, the CoEs provide agencies with consulting and IT engineering services to radically improve the way agencies design services and interact with their customers.

Each CoE will tackle distinct tasks, beginning with the first lighthouse agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). To perform the work at USDA, GSA issued the awards to SIE Consulting Group for Cloud Adoption; McKinsey & Company, Inc. for IT Infrastructure Optimization; ICF Incorporated, LLC for Customer Experience; Kaiser Associates, Inc. for Contact Center; and ICF Incorporated, LLC for Service Delivery Analytics.

“The awards announced today mark a major milestone in implementing the administration’s far-reaching federal IT modernization effort,” said GSA’s Acting Director of Technology Transformation Services (TTS) and Deputy Commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service Joanne Collins Smee. “GSA will play a pivotal role in this endeavor, and our team will be at the tip of the spear constantly focusing on meaningfully improving outcomes for our agency partners. We look forward to working closely with the award recipients and our great partners at USDA - the first lighthouse agency for the CoEs - to bring about a federal IT infrastructure that will make it easier for the American people to interact with their government.”

“This is a significant step forward in the Government’s commitment to improve citizens’ lives,” said Chris Liddell, Assistant to the President and Director of the American Technology Council. “My congratulations to Joanne and her team for their leadership in driving this critical agenda..

Furthermore, Bob DeLuca, most recently the chief information officer at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), has joined GSA to implement the day-to-day operations of the CoE initiative. DeLuca led several major transformation efforts at OPIC and brings 20 years of experience in technology, business, and the U.S. military.

“I am very pleased that Bob DeLuca is joining our team as the Director of Centers of Excellence to oversee the day-to-day progress of the CoEs,” Collins Smee continued. “Bob's technical experience in enterprise software, cloud adoption, infrastructure planning, and execution give him the necessary skills to make a significant contribution to the team.”

Background: The CoE initiative was formally introduced through a Request for Information (RFI) issued on October 20, 2017. Additional information was released at an industry day held at the White House on December 14, 2017.

Beginning with the first lighthouse agency, USDA, each CoE will tackle distinct tasks. Each CoE will begin with an assessment and planning phase, resulting in the development of a roadmap that will allow for the successful implementation of managing centralized, function-specific talent, solutions, and acquisition vehicles. They will also provide for documented and scalable best-practices that can be rapidly spread to, and adopted by, other agencies throughout the government.

About GSA: The mission of the U.S. General Services Administration is to deliver value and savings in real estate, acquisition, technology, and other mission-support services across Government.

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