On Sept. 30, 2004, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) upgraded the DOL's e-government initiative to green, the highest score allowed by the PMA. E-government isn't the only area in which the DOL has done well. Security, IT investment planning, enterprise architecture and a host of other critical functions have also improved under Pizzella's watch.
The man behind these achievements has spent much of his career in public service. He was appointed to his current job by President Bush in 2001 and has been making marks in the federal CIO community ever since. Under the direction of DOL Secretary Elaine Chao, who endorsed a blueprint for transforming the department into a digital agency, Pizzella revamped major operations with IT while balancing the twin challenges of cost and performance.
The DOL is the managing partner for a Web site that allows visitors to determine their potential eligibility for benefits programs. Launched in 2002, the portal was the first of the OMB's 24 e-government initiatives to go live. Originally designed to provide access to 55 federal programs, it now provides access to 1,000 federal and state benefits programs, making it one of the few truly intergovernmental e-government services online today. Since it's inception, nearly 15 million people have visited the site.
Under Pizzella's leadership, the DOL boosted the number of IT business cases accepted by the OMB to 100 percent in September 2004, up from just 50 percent in fall 2003. Meanwhile performance measurement strategies reduced cost overruns or shortfalls from 30 percent of IT development projects to less than 10 percent.
Pizzella also streamlined the department's infrastructure with a common e-mail system, automated procurement, automated property tracking, enterprisewide directory services, as well as a safety and health information management system for worker compensation claims.
But Pizzella singles out the moment when the DOL received the green rating from the OMB for its e-government initiative as his most rewarding accomplishment so far as CIO for the department.
"That represents both a departmental accomplishment and the fulfillment of a presidential initiative," he said. But it isn't individual accomplishments that keep Pizzella going to work each day -- the reward is public service, he said.
"It's the ability to make a difference in the way government works on behalf of my fellow Americans."
Congratulations to this year's group of "Doers, Dreamers and Drivers," who appear in the March issue of Government Technology magazine.
