"In my district, we have about a two percent unemployment rate," said U.S. Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), who represents a large portion of the Washington suburbs in Virginia. "The IT sector is a big part of our booming economy. There is an opportunity for everyone with the skills and education who wants to work hard."
"The Washington area is the largest research and development program in the country and it shows up as contracts," said Dr. Stephen Fuller, director of George Mason University's Center for Regional Analysis. "We don't think of it as R&D, and yet we're applying new technology to solve difficult problems and private sector benefits from this."
In order to sustain the phenomenon, the federal government in particular should do a better job of attracting and preparing a skilled workforce, Moran added.
"The information technology contracting industry needs the very best and brightest in our country, actually on our planet, but we also need the best and brightest in the federal workforce. There needs to be a balance."
ITAA President and CEO Phil Bond hosts Moran and Fuller for the discussion along with Karen Evans, administrator for e-Government and IT at the Office of Management and Budget and Greg Baroni, president of Unisys's Global Public Sector division.
Evans agreed that improving the federal workforce is a priority, noting that the Administration offers continuing education for IT managers through its CIO University program. "We have agreements in place with universities in the area so people can go in and get a degree in information technology, in becoming what it means to be a CIO."
Education and training programs are key to attracting and retaining talent, Baroni said. "Compensation is important, but it still comes down to creativity around job enrichment and other things that this next generation of workforce is coming into."
ITAA Tech Talk debuts as part of BusinessNow: Capital Edition at 11 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 18 on Maryland Public Television. ITAA Tech Talk explores the partnership in innovation between the federal government and the IT industry in the greater Washington-Baltimore area through a series of fast-paced roundtables and in depth interviews. BusinessNow: Capital Edition is a half-hour news magazine focused on the public sector technology marketplace.
