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Celebrating 25 Years

GCN Home > 05/01/06 issue

Straight shooter

Bonner mixes humor with a straightforward approach to make things happen in Defense medical logistics

By Caron Golden, Special to GCN

Three and a half years ago, Steve Marquess, an engineer at Defense Medical Logistics Standard Support (DMLSS), realized that he could write an open-source encryptographic module that secures data.

Called the Cryptographic Module Validation Program, the software faced huge political hurdles in getting approved—in the form of resistance from software companies that sell proprietary modules to the federal government and others. With an open-source module, anyone needing this kind of secure software stands to save a lot of money on licensing and vendor hardware needed to run proprietary software. Although the project also had some corporate sponsors, other companies that trade in this area might have had good reason to be unhappy.

But Marquess had a powerful advocate—Debra Bonner, director of operations for DMLSS.

Bonner, essentially, was the catalyst for moving the program forward.

Rocking the boat

“Vendors aren’t real happy because of lost revenues. There was a lot of pressure not to rock the boat,” recalled Col. Catherine Erickson, DMLSS program manager and Bonner’s boss. “Debbie was the one who said, ‘No, we have to continue with this.’ She’s a gutsy lady. She had to stand up to some of the larger corporations who might have put some political pressure on her.”

And when the program received Federal Information Processing Standard-140-2 validation on Jan. 27, Bonner said it was the highlight her 36-year federal career. Her time in government has been built around a straightforward, honest approach to working with other people—and a good dose of humor as well.

“The most important thing to me is honesty,” she said. “People may not like what I say, but it’s the truth. When you’re honest, you get trust; and when you have trust, you’re unlimited in what you can do together as a team.”

But, she said, “you also have to keep things fun. I work with so many witty people. And, it’s helped that throughout my career I’ve known people inside and outside work, which helps everyone gain trust and understanding.

“Also, I don’t squash creativity. I tell people what the job is, and I run a pretty tight ship—but I’m always amazed at the ways people accomplish their tasks. And when they succeed, everyone wins.”

Bonner jump-started her career from an Oklahoma City Dairy Queen, where she worked in high school in the late 1960s. She recalls her boss telling her that the FBI was looking for people to hire and that her—the boss’—daughter had applied and gotten a job. Bonner decided to give it a try, took what she described as a “weird spelling test” and passed. Soon, she got a formal letter that she was in.

More news on related topics: Business Process Management, Defense IT, Management, IT Management



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