DHS Hiring Acquisition Staff

Chief Acquisition Officer Greg Rothwell of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently noted that the biggest challenge for chief acquisition officers governmentwide is either rebuilding or growing their workforce. His own department is no exception.

DHS itself has 115 Tier 1 programs that cost more than $100 million each, but only 18 of those programs have certified project managers. DHS’ Office of the CIO is the procurement office’s biggest customer, he said. DHS’ fiscal 2006 budget, $13 billion is procured and $6 billion of that is IT spending. DHS is working to hire and attract a new workforce to replace a large percentage of DHS procurement employees who have been downsized or who are retiring over the next five years. Rothwell now has permission to increase the size of his office to 127 people in fiscal 2006 and 220 in fiscal 2007, he said. Building an IT acquisition center to centralize buying decisions is the second goal (of five). Further details can be found in Federal Computing Weekly (July 25/05) – Rothwell: DHS needs more acquisition staff