Federal Drive interviews – June 11

Mary Armstead of NIH discusses the successes under the agency's signature governmentwide acquisition contract. The Partnership for Public Service's John Palg...

This is the Federal Drive show blog. Here you can listen to the interviews, find more information about the guests on the show each day and links to additional resources.

Today’s guests:

Mary ArmsteadProgram Director, NITAAC

Is your agency buying commodities or making custom purchases? We’re examining federal buying trends on Federal News Radio as part of our week-long multimedia special report, Inside the World’s Biggest Buyer. This morning we start with governmentwide acquisition contracts.

The NIH Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center or NITAAC is trying to speed up task orders under its signature GWAC. It just awarded 54 IT companies places on the newest governmentwide contract. It’s the Chief Information Officers Solutions and Partners 3 contract, CIO-SP3.

READ MORE: Flexible contracts, customer service key to NIH’s GWAC success


Diana Furchtgott-RothEconomist and Senior Analyst, Manhattan Institute

For decades, business planners and economists have relied on data gathered and organized by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Like other statistical agencies, BLS has stood apart from politics. But lately, BLS has changed the policies under which news organizations and other media access BLS data. It sparked a hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.


John PalgutaVice President for Policy, Partnership for Public Service

After two years with salaries on ice, the debate over federal pay has caught fire again. President Barack Obama recently threatened to veto any appropriations bills that don’t include a federal pay raise. And a New Jersey publication recently posted the salaries of every federal worker onto a public website. This week, the Coalition for Effective Change is taking on the federal pay in a public debate. Palguta is the debate moderator.


Steve LucasExecutive Vice President and General Manager, SAP’s Global Database and Technology

Ever since there were computers, both users and computer scientists have been worrying about how to get value out of the data generated by systems. The latest holy grail is Big Data. That’s the sum of all the data in databases plus all of the content that’s electronic but not in a database. Now the trade group TechAmerica has appointed a task force to help the government get a handle on Big Data. Steve Lucas of SAP is a co-chairman of the task force.

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