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GCN Home > 03/06/06 issue

Dave Combs | Enterprise efforts are in tune at USDA

Interview with Agriculture CIO Dave Combs

By Mary Mosquera, GCN Staff

Agriculture CIO Dave Combs, who took the reins last summer, has had a career as varied as USDA’s business lines. He was an industry IT executive—he spent 20 years with AT&T Corp. in North Carolina—music producer and composer before coming to USDA’s Rural Development agency in 2002. His instrumental, “Rachel’s Song,” topped easy-listening charts in the mid-1980s, and he has written or produced 15 albums.

As CIO, he’s finding some common ground across the disparate operations of one of the largest and most decentralized federal departments. USDA has business spanning research, geospatial, health care, bioterror, commodities and recreation.

Combs’ music shows how one person can affect the lives of many people. “What we do at Agriculture also virtually touches every American,” he said.

GCN: The Office of Management and Budget keeps increasing reporting requirements, such as security and financial management. Is it getting burdensome for CIOs?

COMBS: I look at it as a process of continuous improvement. Our monthly, quarterly and annual reporting on elements of [the] President’s Management Agenda, security and internal controls just go with the territory of managing a good IT organization. We also are raising the bar internally at USDA. We issue a 12-element scorecard on security to every USDA agency so they know where they’re falling short. When you institute a reporting and scorecard process, you make things transparent. People pay attention, and things happen. Because of the volume of the metrics to report, USDA agencies are looking at tools to automate reporting and to have a shared database or common reporting mechanism.

GCN: How are your IT security efforts progressing?

COMBS: IT security ties in with efforts on internal controls under OMB’s revised Circular A-123. IT security is a centerpiece of that effort because all the financial systems and feeder systems need to have this tightly controlled environment. We have a major effort with USDA’s cybersecurity organization performing pre-audits before [the] department inspector general and outside auditors perform theirs. The major A-123 milestone is June 30, when the department secretary must attest to the fact that USDA has internal controls in place. We have a senior executive team and a workgroup under them, who meet at least weekly to assure internal controls.

More news on related topics: Business Process Management, Enterprise Architecture, Management



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