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Celebrating 25 Years

GCN Home > 10/07/02 issue

Where are they now...

Rona and Neil Stillman

By Nancy Ferris, Special to GCN

Rona Stillman made her mark as the chief scientist for computers and telecommunications in the General Accounting Office’s Accounting and Information Management Division. There she was known for applying her high editorial and technical standards to GAO reports and for her insightful reports on the IRS’ modernization program and other agencies’ IT problems.

Her 33 years of federal service included stints with the old Defense Communications Agency and National Bureau of Standards. In her first job, with the Air Force at the Air Development Center in Rome, N.Y., she sat for seven years at a desk next to her husband, Neil.

Neil Stillman served as the de facto CIO in his post as deputy assistant secretary for information resources management at the Health and Human Services Department. He was a community leader, serving as president of the Federation of Government Information Processing Councils and playing an active role in the CIO Council and other federal IT organizations. Besides the Air Force, he also worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency during his 34-year career. He was known as an advocate of systems interoperability.

Both Stillmans retired in 1999 and have not taken new jobs. Near their home in Rockville, Md., they play tennis and golf and have finished a major remodeling project. They hold many of the same opinions and sometimes finish each other’s sentences. They are fiendish M&M eaters.

The Stillmans’ thoughts: Neil Stillman: “Systems standardization has been the major government IT issue for the last 20 years, and it remains an issue. In the bureaucracy, each person wants to do his or her own thing.

“The inability of radios operated by different public-safety agencies to communicate during the terrorist attack on New York in September 2001 was just one glaring example. How many times do we have to hear it? It makes no sense for each agency to have its own unique personnel system. But I’m expecting that some of these problems will go away in the next 20 years as people who know IT take over.”

Rona Stillman: “Neil is more optimistic than I am about solving this problem. Many of the decision-makers don’t consider it in their career interest to use a standard solution. The government does not reward people for spending less and employing a smaller staff. It’s basically irrational.”

Neil: “Many of the complexities of the federal IT environment are not really necessary. For example, when the FTS 2000 telecommunications service was being set up, I asked whether we could get a flat rate per employee—so much per person, regardless of actual usage. That’s the kind of deal the cellular phone companies are offering now, but it wasn’t in the cards then.”

Rona: “Software development is another area that needs more standardization and compliance with good methodologies. Software is doing the government’s business, the work that people used to do.”

Neil: “I remember a talk Ruth Davis gave in 1986 when she left the Bureau of Standards. She said the government thinks it has unique requirements, but commercial software usually can satisfy 80 percent of its requirements. If you can achieve 80 percent of what you need, that’s good enough, she said, and she was right.

“How do we like retirement? We’re reveling in not working. Government is a very frustrating environment. There’s no decision that isn’t colored by politics.”
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