Terry Gerton A couple of months ago, we covered your first report in this disaster assistance high-risk series where you looked at the federal response workforce. You’re back with report number two, looking at state and local response capabilities. Talk to us about the headlines.
Chris Currie The headline for this report is that the capabilities of state and local governments across the country vary drastically for a disaster or other type of event. You know, what we did is we actually look at data that the states prepare and provide to FEMA as part of their justification for federal preparedness grants. It’s meant to be a very, very honest self-assessment of capabilities. And for that reason, we actually don’t provide states individually, we sort of roll it up and wrap it up anonymously because some of that information, as you imagine, could be sensitive. We looked at states that have been involved in major disasters over the last two to three years, and some of these states are very experienced, large states, and even they vary in terms of their capabilities. There’s actually 32 capabilities that FEMA sets in the National Preparedness System that you want to achieve to be prepared to respond for a disaster or a large event. And states vary. Some of the areas, they were less than 10% prepared — met less than 10% of those capabilities — and others, they were much more. So the reason that’s important right now is to understand that if you were to change the support that FEMA and the federal government provide to states quickly, then they’re going to have capability gaps that are going to have to get filled.
Terry Gerton Let’s talk about some of the support that FEMA does provide. One of the ways that they support the states is through preparedness grants, and those help build local capacity. What did you find as you dug into the preparedness grants?
Chris Currie Those preparedness grants started after 9/11, and since 9/11, there’s been over $60 billion provided to states. It’s the main way that the federal government transfers funds to state and local governments to get them ready to handle something bad that could happen, not just a natural disaster, but it could be a terrorist attack. And those grants have built capabilities tremendously over the years. But those capabilities change over time, and we identify through real-world events and exercises the gaps that still need to be addressed. So I’ll give you a great example. After Hurricane Helene and after other disasters, housing for disaster survivors is always a perennial challenge. Housing is a capability area that is assessed and we want to build up through these preparedness grants. It’s an area that states, even very experienced disaster states, still fall short of in terms of their capabilities. And the federal government kind of comes in after a disaster and provides a lot of that support because states don’t. So if the federal governments not going to provide it, then someone else is going to have to provide it. And that’s going to be someone at the state or local level.
Terry Gerton Talk to me about the flexibility and the allocation framework for these grants. Is it meeting requirements? Does it seem to be focused on the places that have the greatest need?
Chris Currie There’s a couple different ways they’re given out. There’s a portion of the grants that are supposed to go towards certain national priorities, and FEMA sets those targets. So think about things like election security or other national priorities. But then a large part of the grant, they’re discretionary, and the states can use them and they’re supposed to use them in the areas where they assess they have gaps. And that’s the data I was talking about earlier that we provided. For example, certain states may have gaps in their ability to handle a mass casualty situation or may struggle to house disaster survivors because they don’t have a lot of housing stock or rental. So those are things they’re supposed to identify and then target those grants towards those specific areas, which makes sense. You want to close your gaps so you’re ready to go when something happens.
Terry Gerton FEMA also provides a great deal of training and technical assistance. How effective has that been in helping states be ready?
Chris Currie This is, I think, one of the biggest success stories since Hurricane Katrina. If you remember Hurricane Katrina, the issue was the role of various levels of government was not clear, and thus, nobody stepped up and was proactive in responding to that event. And people lost their lives. Since that time, the National Preparedness System and FEMA leading that has been extremely effective through exercises, through training, through just regional relationships in taking care of a lot of those problems. So today we are way more proactive and responsive to disasters than we were 20 years ago in Hurricane Katrina. So that’s a huge success story. Having said that, a disaster is a disaster. There’s always going to be things that happen that you don’t expect. And there’s areas where states still have major gaps and require resources and people to address those. And the federal government comes in fills a lot of those gaps. Here’s a great example. Hurricane Helene happened and devastated a very remote part of our country in places like rural Tennessee and North Carolina and Virginia. States and localities don’t have the search and rescue assets for such a large swath of that kind of terrain. Federal government provided a lot of that. They provided a lot of the air support, the land support, the temporary bridges — Army Corps of Engineers. You know, the federal government really kicks in when something’s too big for a state or locality to handle.
Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Chris Currie. He’s director, Homeland Security and Justice at GAO. So Chris, all of this begs the question. This administration has been very clear that it wants states and localities to pick up more of the disaster response mission and that it wants a much smaller FEMA. Given what you found in your first study about the federal response workforce and the impacts of downsizing there, and now the variability in state and local readiness, what are the implications for national disaster response?
Chris Currie I want to make one thing really clear, because all I know is what we know now and the data that we’ve looked at. And I want it to be clear that nothing has changed in terms of FEMA’s responsibilities today. There’s been a lot of talk about it. There’s the president’s council that studied it. But there has been no change so far. So FEMA is still responsible for what it was responsible for two years ago. They have lost some staff. We looked at that in our first report, as you mentioned. They have lost about 1,000 staff, and maybe a little bit more than that, at this point, but they haven’t been cut drastically or cut in half as has been discussed. So they still have the same responsibilities and they’re still performing the same functions on disasters throughout the country, even though last year we didn’t have a huge land-falling hurricane. So what’s important about that is that everybody’s waiting to hear what the next steps are going to be and what’s going to happen to FEMA. One of the things we wanted to do in this report is we wanted to provide a comprehensive picture of preparedness to show what’s going to be necessary if that FEMA support is pulled back or FEMA is made smaller. And the bottom line is that states and localities are going to have to do more. However, it’s going to be critical that they have the time to prepare for that. For example, a lot of the assistance that’s provided to individual survivors, like cash payments and housing, that comes from the federal government. It does not come from the state or local government. So if FEMA is not going to be providing that, the state of the locality is going to have to fill that need. And that requires a lot of money and a lot preparation and planning that you can’t just turn on in a heartbeat. You don’t want to start figuring out programs to help people after a disaster happens.
Terry Gerton You bring up a good point on that time to prepare. As you did the survey, you talked to lots of state and local response officials. What did they tell you, beyond time to prepare, that they were going to need to be effective?
Chris Currie Very simple: Just tell us what we need to do. Tell us what were going to expect from you, the federal government. Nobody knows right now. The FEMA Council has not finished its work. There has been reform legislation introduced in the House and in the Senate, but nothing has passed yet. So the key message is, tell us what the roles and responsibilities are going to be so we know what to prepare for, so we don’t get caught flat-footed in the case of something really bad happening. One of my fears is that last year, like I said, we didn’t have a large land-falling hurricane. It was the first year in a long time we did not. We did not have a catastrophic disaster, other than Los Angeles fires early in the year. So my fear is that folks are going to look at last year and say, hey, things have gone pretty well. We don’t need to be thinking about it. And that is an absolute mistake. Because we’ve seen in years like 2017, 2018, 2024 — my fear is we’re going to have another situation this year or next with multiple concurrent disasters, and we’re just not going to the resources to deal with them.
Terry Gerton So what will you be watching for in the next few months to see if Congress and the federal government and the states have taken your recommendations on board?
Chris Currie Well, when the FEMA Council report comes out, I would like to see, in whatever the execution is for FEMA reform or the changes in how the system works now, an understanding of how this needs to be rolled out so states and localities can prepare and have as clear roles and responsibilities as possible. We’d also like to see them address many of the problems that we’ve pointed out. And to be clear, we’ve pointed out a number of issues with FEMA, particularly in the frustrating recovery phase. I want to see that they’re making sure that we don’t break what’s not broken and we fix the issues that are broken. And there are a number those things.
FEMA workers set up a new disaster recovery center in Manatee County, Florida, following Hurricane Milton. Survivors can meet with FEMA staff at centers to discuss their applications and available federal resources. (Photo credit: FEMA)
The federal government is preparing to undertake one of the most ambitious IT transformations in decades: Modernizing and unifying human resources information technology across agencies. The technology itself is not the greatest challenge. Instead, success will hinge on the government’s ability to establish an effective, authoritative and disciplined governance structure capable of making informed, timely and sometimes difficult decisions.
The central tension is clear: Agencies legitimately need flexibility to execute mission-specific processes, yet the government must reduce fragmentation, redundancy and cost by standardizing and adopting commercial best practices. Historically, each agency has evolved idiosyncratic HR processes — even for identical functions — resulting in one of the most complex HR ecosystems in the world.
We need a governance framework that can break this cycle. It has to be a structured requirements-evaluation process, a systematic approach to modernizing outdated statutory constraints, and a rigorous mechanism to prevent “corner cases” from derailing modernization. The framework is based on a three-tiered governance structure to enable accountability, enforce standards, manage risk and accelerate decision making.
The governance imperative in HR IT modernization
Modernizing HR IT across the federal government requires rethinking more than just systems — it requires rethinking decision making. Technology will only succeed if governance promotes standardization, manages statutory and regulatory constraints intelligently, and prevents scope creep driven by individual agency preferences.
Absent strong governance, modernization will devolve into a high-cost, multi-point, agency-to-vendor negotiation where each agency advocates for its “unique” variations. Commercial vendors, who find arguing with or disappointing their customers to be fruitless and counterproductive, will ultimately optimize toward additional scope, higher complexity and extended timelines — that is, unless the government owns the decision framework.
Why governance is the central challenge
The root causes of this central challenge are structural. Agencies with different missions evolved different HR processes — even for identical tasks such as onboarding, payroll events or personnel actions. Many “requirements” cited today are actually legacy practices, outdated rules or agency preferences. And statutes and regulations are often more flexible than assumed, but in order to avoid any risk of perceived noncompliance or litigation.
Without centralized authority, modernization will replicate fragmentation in a new system rather than reduce it. Governance must therefore act as the strategic filter that determines what is truly required, what can be standardized and what needs legislative or policy reform.
A two-dimensional requirements evaluation framework
Regardless of the rigor associated with the requirements outlined at the outset of the program, implementers will encounter seemingly unique or unaccounted for “requirements” that appear to be critical to agencies as they begin seriously planning for implementation. Any federal HR modernization effort must implement a consistent, transparent and rigorous method for evaluating these new or additional requirements. The framework should classify every proposed “need” across two dimensions:
Applicability (breadth): Is this need specific to a single agency, a cluster of agencies, or the whole of government?
Codification (rigidity): Is the need explicitly required by law/regulation, or is it merely a policy preference or tradition?
This line of thinking leads to a decision matrix of sorts. For instance, identified needs that are found to be universal and well-codified are likely legitimate requirements and solid candidates for productization on the part of the HR IT vendor. For requirements that apply to a group of agencies or a single agency, or that are really based on practice or tradition, there may be a range of outcomes worth considering.
Prior to an engineering discussion, the applicable governance body must ask of any new requirement: Can this objective be achieved by conforming to a recognized commercial best practice? If the answer is yes, the governance process should strongly favor moving in that direction.
This disciplined approach is crucial to keeping modernization aligned with cost savings, simplification and future scalability.
Breaking the statutory chains: A modern exception and reform model
A common pitfall in federal IT is the tendency to view outdated laws and regulations as immutable engineering constraints. There are in fact many government “requirements” — often at a very granular and prescriptive level — embedded in written laws and regulations, that are either out-of-date or that simply do not make sense when viewed in a larger context of how HR gets done. The tendency is to look at these cases and say, “This is in the rule books, so we must build the software this way.”
But this is the wrong answer, for several reasons. And reform typically lags years behind technology. Changing laws or regulations is an arduous and lengthy process, but the government cannot afford to encode obsolete statutes into modern software. Treating every rule as a software requirement guarantees technical debt before launch.
The proposed mechanism: The business case exception
The Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management have demonstrated the ability to manage simple, business-case-driven exception processes. This capability should be operationalized as a core component of HR IT modernization governance:
Immediate flexibility: OMB and OPM should grant agencies waivers to bypass outdated procedural requirements if adopting the standard best practice reduces administrative burden and cost.
Batch legislative updates: Rather than waiting for laws to change before modernizing, OPM and OMB can “batch up” these approved exceptions. On a periodic basis, these proven efficiencies through standard processes to modify laws and regulations to match the new, modernized reality.
This approach flips the traditional model. Instead of software lagging behind policy, the modernization effort drives policy evolution.
Avoiding the “corner case” trap: ROI-driven decision-making
In large-scale HR modernization, “corner cases” can become the silent destroyer of budgets and timelines. Every agency can cite dozens of rare events — special pay authorities, unusual personnel actions or unique workforce segments — that occur only infrequently.
The risk is that building system logic for rare events is extraordinarily expensive. These edge cases disproportionately consume design and engineering time. And any customization or productization can increase testing complexity and long-term maintenance cost.
Governance should enforce a strict return-on-investment rule: If a unique scenario occurs infrequently and costs more to automate than to handle manually, it should not be engineered into the system.
For instance, if a unique process occurs only 50 times a year across a 2-million-person workforce, it is cheaper to handle it manually outside the system than to spend millions customizing the software. If the government does not manage this evaluation itself, it will devolve into a “ping-pong” negotiation with vendors, leading to scope creep and vulnerability. The government must hold the reins, deciding what gets built based on value, not just request.
Recommended governance structure
To operationalize the ideas above, the government should implement a three-tiered governance structure designed to separate strategy from technical execution.
The executive steering committee (ESC)
Composition: Senior leadership from OMB, OPM and select agency chief human capital officers and chief information officers (CHCOs/CIOs).
Role: Defines the “North Star.” They hold the authority to approve the “batch exceptions” for policy and regulation. They handle the highest-level escalations where an agency claims a mission-critical need to deviate from the standard.
The ESC establishes the foundation for policy, ensures accountability, and provides air cover for standardization decisions that may challenge entrenched agency preferences.
The functional control board (FCB)
Composition: Functional experts (HR practitioners) and business analysts.
Role: The “gatekeepers.” They utilize the two-dimensional framework to triage requirements. Their primary mandate is to protect the standard commercial best practice. They determine if a request is a true “need” or just a preference.
The FCB prevents the “paving cow paths” phenomenon by rigorously protecting the standard process baseline.
The architecture review board (ARB)
Composition: Technical architects and security experts.
Role: Ensures that even approved variations do not break the data model or introduce technical debt. They enforce the return on investment (ROI) rule on corner cases — if the technical cost of a request exceeds its business value, they reject it.
The ARB enforces discipline on engineering choices and protects the system from fragmentation.
Federal HR IT modernization presents a rare opportunity to reshape not just systems, but the business of human capital management across government. The technology exists. The challenge — and the opportunity — lies in governance.
The path to modernization will not be defined by the software implemented, but by the discipline, authority, and insight of the governance structure that guides it.
Steve Krauss is a principal with SLK Executive Advisory. He spent the last decade working for GSA and OPM, including as the Senior Executive Service (SES) director of the HR Quality Service Management Office (QSMO).
Overview On January 14, NSFOCUS CERT detected that Microsoft released the January Security Update patch, which fixed 112 security issues involving widely used products such as Windows, Microsoft Office, Microsoft SQL Server, Azure, etc., including high-risk vulnerability types such as privilege escalation and remote code execution. Among the vulnerabilities fixed by Microsoft’s monthly update this […]
With the looks and speed of a gaming keyboard and the comfort of an ergonomic keyboard, the Falcata is a unique and expensive hybrid for a niche audience.
The Pentagon doesn’t know exactly how many civilian employees telework or work remotely across the Department of Defense, according to the Government Accountability Office.
While DoD has good data on which positions are eligible for telework or remote work, it does not consistently track whether civilian employees are actually using those programs. As a result, official figures have at times overstated remote work usage by counting eligible positions instead of the number of employees approved to telework or work remotely, a new watchdog report shows.
In May 2024, for instance — a period within the December 2021 to February 2025 span reviewed in the new GAO report — the Pentagon publicly reported it had 61,549 remote employees. One month later, however, the Defense Department told GAO it had 35,558 remote workers.
“The reason that happened is because they were reporting position eligibility. They were not reporting the individual employees. That’s exactly what we found — they had good data on the positions eligible but didn’t have such good data on who was actually using those programs,” Alissa Czyz, director of defense capabilities and management at GAO, told Federal News Network.
“We found that two-thirds of the positions in 2024 were eligible for telework, but the data were not very good when you got to the individual employee level,” she added.
Czyz said her team found that most DoD civilians were already working in person even before the current return-to-office policy, and that fully remote workers made up only a tiny fraction of the workforce.
“According to our data, the vast majority of civilians — about 81% — were in person. About 1% were doing remote work. That perception that large amounts of federal employees were teleworking, at least at the Department of Defense, did not bore out in our analysis,” Czyz said.
Since President Donald Trump terminated remote work for federal employees, about 8% of the DoD civilian workforce — roughly 62,000 employees — had not returned to in-person work. About 6%, or 45,000 workers, did not return to office after accepting offers for deferred resignation. The government used the deferred resignation program last year to reduce the size of the federal workforce. Another 2%, or about 17,000 people, did not return due to reasonable accommodations.
No formal review of telework, remote work
Office of Personnel Management guidance requires agencies to evaluate how telework and remote-work programs affect their mission, employee recruitment and retention, and operating costs. However, GAO found that the Defense Department has not evaluated the impact of those programs on the department’s broader goals.
While there were scattered efforts across the department to assess some aspects of telework and remote work, there was no comprehensive, departmentwide evaluation of both benefits and drawbacks of those programs. One data source — the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey — previously included telework-related questions, but OPM canceled the survey this year.
Czyz said her team was able to gather some anecdotal feedback on telework and remote work, with DoD officials citing benefits such as improved communication, recruitment advantages for hard-to-fill positions and potential cost reductions. Some disadvantages included reduced in-person collaboration and decreased morale among employees who were not eligible for telework. But ultimately officials were not able to provide concrete data demonstrating cost savings or other outcomes.
“I mean, the bottom line was they were not conducting formal evaluations of telework or remote work,” Czyz said. “There was maybe some anecdotal cost savings with reduction in office space and that sort of thing, but there had been no formal evaluation of cost savings in the department.”
DoD also hasn’t assessed whether increased in-person requirements have created new costs, but GAO is examining those potential increases as part of a separate review of the department’s use of office space. That review comes as DoD seeks to reduce its office footprint while simultaneously bringing employees back to the office. GAO expects to release that report in early spring.
The Pentagon updated its telework policy in 2024 for the first time since 2012, instructing DoD components to “actively promote” telework and remote work and to eliminate barriers to program execution through education and training. The department has since rolled back the policy.
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email anastasia.obis@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at (301) 830-2747.
The new landscape of civilian federal government employment during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 global outbreak looks strikingly similar to your house. That’s because most likely it is, say U.S. Army personnel advisors. In an effort to protect the health of the military workforce while maintaining operational momentum, many organizations are sending civilian employees home. Telework has expanded to meet the need. (Photo courtesy of April Gail Pilgrim)
Terry Gerton I want to talk about a letter that was released on December 9. Over 100 former DOJ civil rights attorneys and staff really released an extraordinary warning about the destruction of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. What prompted that letter, and why now?
Paul Kiesel What prompted the letter was that there have been, over the last now 11 months, close to 5,000 career Department of Justice attorneys who have either resigned or been removed. And it’s a reflection that these are individuals that are non-political, they’re non-partisan, they’re there to serve justice for our American system, and they have been under assault. And so this is just consistent with that same approach of taking down members of the justice system that don’t seem to agree with the administration’s policies.
Terry Gerton The letter walks through a number of very specific constraints. What does this tell you about the state of the organization right now?
Paul Kiesel They’re expressing their frustration that in trying to do the job that they were hired to do and many of them — like Liz Oyer, who was the pardon lawyer — left Big Law and became a federal public defender. Then ultimately, when she resisted providing a gun permit to someone who’d been convicted of domestic violence, was fired for doing her job. And that’s really what it’s all about.
Terry Gerton Is this something new, or is this an escalation of a trend that we’ve been seeing over time?
Paul Kiesel I really think it’s something new. This really is an unprecedented experience where you have members of the Department of Justice who are either being fired or resigning over simple policy rules that are within what they’re supposed to be doing. They’re not outside the box. They’re working within the box that’s been created for them by the Department of Justice, and yet they’re being told to do something else. And their only option is to resign, if not be fired.
Terry Gerton With the loss of 5,000 people, what does that mean for the organizations, for the Department of Justice’s ability to actually carry out its mission?
Paul Kiesel I think probably Todd Blanche’s fireside chat he did some months ago, where he acknowledged that they were losing lots of career Department of Justice attorneys and saying that, quote, we are at war — his words, “we’re at war” — and we need young lawyers who are prepared to lose a lot, but fight. And I think the problem is we’re losing institutional history. We’re losing career prosecutors who were there for the right reasons. And so this is going to take years, if not well over a decade, to ultimately hopefully rebuild what was there in the first place.
Terry Gerton The letter focuses on the Civil Rights Division, but it also talks about a broader pattern of politicizing the Department of Justice. What does that really look like in practice? How do you see that playing out?
Paul Kiesel In practice, I think what’s happening is that people are being told that what they need to do in order to follow the dictates of the Trump administration is X, Y and Z. And in order to be loyal to the president of the United States, they need to engage in certain acts that are politicizing by suggesting that they are Trump’s attorney. There’ve been a number of federal judges who’ve not ruled favorably to the administration, and the president has not been shy about blaming someone that he quote-unquote appointed and is no longer being loyal to the president. And look, when you take the oath to be a Department of Justice attorney or a judge, you take an oath to the Constitution, not to the President of the United States.
Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Paul Kiesel. He’s the founder of Kiesel Law and of Speak Up for Justice. Speaking of becoming political, we’ve also seen the resignation of acting U.S. Attorney Alina Haba after the court ruled her appointment unconstitutional. So how does that play out into the bigger picture of the pressure on the Department of Justice and the judiciary that you just mentioned?
Paul Kiesel Alina Haba is a perfect example of where they attempted to bypass congressional approval. So the president can appoint a temporary U.S. attorney in a particular jurisdiction. In this case, it was New Jersey. So Alina Haba was appointed the acting U. S. attorney in New Jersey. Well, the Senate never acted to confirm her appointment; in other words, her appointment no longer becomes valid “unless”. And the “unless” is there’s an escape valve: If the judges of the district in which the U.S. attorney overseeing vote to approve and maintain that U.S. attorney, then in fact, the U.S. attorney remains in place. Well, the judges, the federal district judges in New Jersey, I believe it’s in Essex County in Newark, New Jersey, voted not to maintain Alina Haba as their U.S. attorney, which would essentially mean she’s out. She’s no longer acting. She has got to be removed from that position. Rather than accept the decision of the fact that the Senate didn’t approve and that the judges did not vote for, they challenged the non-appointment of Alina Haba as the U.S. attorney to the Third Circuit. And ultimately the Third Circuit said, no, no good, you cannot be the U.S. attorney. And ultimately she packed up her bags and left. But that is just symptomatic of not following the rules that have been laid out constitutionally for the appointment and the confirmation of the U.S. attorney. That’s happened in a number of different jurisdictions around the country, in fact even California, Los Angeles, has the same problem with its U.S. attorney as happened with Alina Haba. So it’s an ongoing story.
Terry Gerton So when the concerns raised by this letter about the Civil Rights Division specifically and about the Department of Justice more broadly actually come into play, how does it affect everyday Americans? Where do they see it? Where do they feel it?
Paul Kiesel They feel it where you’ve got indictment of James Comey and the indictment Letitia James, where the U.S. attorney wouldn’t act to indict, but ultimately a non-criminal lawyer was appointed by the president to assume the role of the U.S. attorney, Lindsey Halligan. And ultimately bypassing the rules, she got an indictment. A grand jury arguably indicted the two of them. And that’s what plays out. All of us, as Americans, are at risk. If we’re not following the rules that are in place, every American’s safety, every American’s security is at risk. When you begin to politicize the judiciary, you lose the guardrails that the framers of the Constitution put in place in the first instance. And those guardrails are not just being removed with a crowbar, they’re being run over by a tank.
Terry Gerton The Speak Up for Justice Forum that you head had a bipartisan panel last month of former U.S. attorneys that tackled some of these issues. What did you hear in that panel?
Paul Kiesel I heard concern, a broad concern of very respected, very well-regarded lawyers, expressing the concerns they have about where our country is going. When you’re politicizing the Department of Justice, when you’re removing the guardrails of our democracy, there’s real fear. Now, having said that, I’ll say that Gov. Christie, when I said, are you worried about American democracy when these things are happening? And he pushed back, and he said, no, I’m not worried. This obviously is not a good situation, but our democracy is flexible. Our democracy has survived other challenges in the past, whether it was Leo McCarthy or the Civil Rights Movement of the ’60s. We’ve survived those times. And he was optimistic, which makes me more comfortable knowing that optimism exists. Because I don’t want to be fear-mongering, but I want the country to realize the risks we have as a nation when we begin to engage in these sorts of activities.
Terry Gerton In that spirit of optimism then, what do you think needs to happen inside the Department of Justice and perhaps beyond to restore trust and protect civil rights enforcement?
Paul Kiesel I’m going to say in some ways it’s up to Congress and up to the courts. We need to push back on the administration’s consistent attempts to broaden the margins of what the president of the United States is actually permitted to do. Whether it is going into a sovereign nation — none of us who are aware what’s going on in Venezuela were comfortable with President Maduro. Hugo Chavez took down the justice system. A program we did several months ago had federal judge Javi Saldivia, who fled Venezuela under fear of imprisonment or assassination because of what was happening to the judicial system in Venezuela. So when you have our president bypassing Congress and simply going down to a sovereign nation and kidnapping or doing a rendition of a leader of another country, those are the kinds of guardrails that are built in that should not be happening in this country today. And we as a people need to react to it quickly, because the consequences can be dire and they can happen very fast.
Terry Gerton Does your spirit of optimism extend to congressional action on this matter then?
Paul Kiesel Well, it does. I mean, look, when you have Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had been a staunch ally of President Trump, who was kind of vicious in the way she approached members of Congress and members of the judiciary, when she’s called Marjorie Traitor Greene and she decides not to run again, her whole attitude has shifted. And so I’m hoping that other members, elected members who remain in Congress realize that we’re at risk, nationally and internationally and losing our democracy, they’ll push back. And maybe what’s just happened to Maduro will be that process because he bypasses Congress. And the Senate, I don’t know where that trigger, where that circuit breaker gets tripped, but I’m hopeful. If there’s members of Congress listening to this conversation, now is the time. We don’t have any more time to waste to demonstrate the three-tripartite measures of government that we have in this country. The legislative branch, the executive branch and the judicial branch need to act to protect our country.
Downtown Seattle. (GeekWire File Photo / Taylor Soper)
Tech companies are still signing leases in downtown Seattle — but it’s not enough to reverse a pandemic-era slide that pushed office vacancy to another record high, reaching 34.7% in Q4.
The latest numbers from commercial real estate firm CBRE underscore how hybrid work and shrinking office footprints continue to weigh on a tech-heavy market like Seattle. The vacancy rate is up about two percentage points from a year ago, and a fivefold increase from before the pandemic.
Downtown Seattle lost 257,879 square feet of occupied space in Q4, driven by tenant “rightsizing” and reductions in average space requirements, according to CBRE.
Tech companies are still boosting leasing activity in downtown. Impinj renewed and expanded into 73,638 square feet at 400 Fairview, while DAT Solutions (which acquired Seattle startup Outgo last year) and Docker both took sublease space at the Maritime Building along the waterfront — 51,777 and 33,757 square feet, respectively.
But the data shows how Seattle’s commercial real estate market continues to struggle amid remote work and broader pressures including tech layoffs and companies using AI to operate with leaner teams. CoStar reported in November that Seattle recorded the slowest rent growth among the nation’s largest markets over the past year.
Data from CBRE.
Meanwhile, the Eastside is showing early signs of stabilization, fueled in part by Microsoft’s new leases in Redmond and Amazon’s continued buildout in downtown Bellevue. Both companies are enforcing return-to-office policies.
Several technology companies have signed new or expanded leases on the Eastside in recent years, including OpenAI, Snap, Anduril, Shopify, Snowflake, Walmart, and Chewy.
“Notably, a growing number of new-to-market entrants … are choosing the Eastside over Seattle, drawn by Bellevue’s modern office inventory, business friendly climate and skilled technology workforce,” Broderick Group wrote in a new report.
Despite the positive signals, Broderick cautioned that vacancy is unlikely to fall sharply in the near term. Downtown Bellevue’s vacancy rate stood at 25.4% at the end of Q4, up from 16.8% a year ago.
The secretive National Reconnaissance Office has announced a new top official. William Adkins was appointed principal deputy director of the NRO on Monday. Adkins previously served as professional staff on the House Appropriations Committee. He’s also a veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency and had been detailed to the NRO to manage technology development projects in the late 1990’s.
Congress breathes new life into the Technology Modernization Fund. House and Senate appropriators agreed to give funding to the Technology Modernization Fund for the first time in four years. Lawmakers on the Financial Services and General Government appropriations subcommittee allocated $5 million for 2026 in the bipartisan deal struck over the weekend. Congress had zeroed out any new funding for the TMF since 2023. Two other centralized IT funds also received support from Capitol Hill. The Federal Citizen Services Fund is slated to receive $70 million and the IT Oversight and Reform Fund is getting $8 million.
The Pentagon has rolled out a new artificial intelligence strategy that seeks to transform the department into an “AI-First warfighting force.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the department will invest heavily in AI compute infrastructure, from data centers to systems at the tactical edge. The strategy directs the chief digital and artificial intelligence office to enforce the Pentagon’s “Data Decrees” to make all DoD data interoperable, visible and trustworthy. Military departments and defense agencies will be required to establish and maintain federated data catalogs that expose data assets and system interfaces across all classification levels. Hegseth also directed the department to use special hiring authorities and talent programs to bring in AI talent.
A new bill will require the Pentagon to assess whether its current efforts to recruit, train and retain cyber talent are working. The Department of Defense Comprehensive Cyber Workforce Strategy Act of 2025 tasks the Pentagon with developing a new cyber workforce strategy. The lawmakers want the Pentagon to assess remaining gaps in implementing the DoD’s 2023–2027 Cyber Workforce Strategy, and identify which elements of the current strategy should be continued or dropped. Congress is also requesting detailed workforce data, including the size of the cyber workforce, vacancy rates, specific work roles and other data related to personnel system metrics. The Pentagon faces a shortage of approximately 25,000 cyber professionals.
The state and local cloud security program known as GovRamp has new leadership. Tony Sauerhoff, the chief artificial intelligence and innovation officer for Texas, is the new president of the GovRAMP Board of Directors. He replaces JR Sloan, the Arizona CIO, who served in that role since 2021. Sauerhoff also served as Texas' chief information security officer and previously worked for the Marine Corps and Air Force. In addition to Sauerhoff’s appointment, GovRAMP announced its 2026 board and committee leadership.
Lawmakers look to put more money behind plans to offload unused federal office space. House and Senate appropriators want to give the General Services Administration more than $1 billion to carry out new construction and repair the federal buildings it already owns. Lawmakers said they’re concerned about a multi-billion-dollar maintenance backlog for these buildings. GSA will likely need much more funding to keep its buildings from falling into disrepair. The new GSA administrator said the agency is looking at a $24 billion maintenance backlog, and said that is likely an undercount.
The latest spending package for fiscal 2026 directs the General Services Administration to improve public-facing service delivery. Lawmakers want GSA to make federal websites more accessible to people with disabilities. The spending package also calls on GSA to help agencies improve their public-facing benefits and services through AI tools. But the spending deal doesn’t put any new funding behind this goal.
The Department of Homeland Security is flush with funding for new drone technologies. Now DHS is establishing an office to lead those purchases. DHS’ new Program Executive Office for Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems will oversee strategic investments expected to total in the billions of dollars in the coming years. This week, the office plans to finalize a $115 million counter-drone award to help secure America250 and FIFA World Cup events. And late last year, DHS began accepting proposals from the counter-drone industry for a $1.5 billion contract vehicle.
Microsoft’s headquarters campus in Redmond. (GeekWire Photo / Taylor Soper)
Microsoft’s decision to renew a large swath of office space in Redmond is emerging as a key stabilizing force for the Eastside office market near Seattle.
That’s one takeaway from a new report by commercial real estate firm Broderick Group, which highlighted Microsoft’s renewal for 396,228 square feet at Redmond Town Center, just north of the company’s main headquarters campus. The deal was one of the largest office transactions on the Eastside in 2025.
Microsoft confirmed the new lease when contacted by GeekWire. The tech giant also confirmed a report from the Seattle Times that it is reoccupying space at the Millennium Corporate Park location in Redmond, where it has about 480,000 square feet. The company had previously offered that space for sublease.
While Microsoft was responsible for some of the region’s largest space givebacks last year — including a 750,000-square-foot reduction at The Bravern in Bellevue — the latest commitments suggest the company is holding onto its remaining footprint as it begins enforcing a new return-to-office policy. This past September the company announced that it would implement a three-day in-office requirement, starting across the Seattle region in February before expanding to other U.S. locations and eventually globally.
Both Microsoft and Amazon — and their respective in-office policies — appear to be playing an outsized role in determining how quickly the Eastside’s office recovery takes shape, even as overall vacancy reached 21.8% in the fourth quarter.
Amazon, which last year increased its own in-office policy from three to five days a week, continues building out major projects in Bellevue, including Bellevue 600, The Artise, and West Main. The company employs more than 12,000 people in Bellevue as part of what it calls its “Puget Sound headquarters” which also includes its Seattle campus. Amazon cut 14,000 workers in broad layoffs in October, with 2,303 corporate employees in Washington state.
The light blue bars show vacancy rates growing from 5.8% in 2019 to 2.8% in 2025. (Broderick Group chart)
A growing roster of technology companies has also signed new or expanded leases on the Eastside in recent years, including OpenAI, Snap, Anduril, Shopify, Snowflake, Walmart, and Chewy.
“Notably, a growing number of new-to-market entrants … are choosing the Eastside over Seattle, drawn by Bellevue’s modern office inventory, business friendly climate and skilled technology workforce,” Broderick’s report noted.
Despite the positive signals, the firm cautioned that vacancy is unlikely to fall sharply in the near term. Downtown Bellevue’s vacancy rate stood at 25.4% at the end of the year.
The report also noted that more than 1% of the Eastside’s office inventory has been removed through office-to-residential conversions.
A government watchdog found that the Defense Department has never formally evaluated telework and remote work programs against agency goals. DoD officials, however, reported “perceived” benefits and challenges. The Government Accountability Office said without formal evaluation of these programs, DoD cannot determine whether these programs help meet agency goals. While defense officials told GAO that their use of these flexibilities improved productivity, efficiency, and recruitment and retention, some officials said that telework reduced opportunities for collaboration and information sharing and decreased morale. The watchdog also found that the data on the number of teleworkers and remote workers DoD previously reported is likely inaccurate.
The Defense Department is putting additional safeguards around the research it funds. The Pentagon is telling the military services and defense agencies to review fundamental research awards to ensure there is no foreign influence, intellectual property theft or any other form of exploitation that could threaten the security and economic interests of the country. A new memo from Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael establishes additional oversight requirements to protect government funded research. Along with the reviews of awards, DoD will establish a department-wide Fundamental Research Risk Review Repository to improve information collection and sharing across all components. It also will develop automated vetting and continuous monitoring capabilities to help detect and mitigate foreign influence risks.
The Labor Department recovered more than a quarter billion dollars in back wages for American workers last year. That’s the most money the department’s Wage and Hour Division has recovered in a single year since 2019. Those back wages went out to nearly 177,000 employees. On average, that's more than $1,400 per employee. The department has launched new tools aimed at helping employers stay informed of their obligations.
The Air and Space Forces are "aggressively" implementing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s acquisition reforms. The services are replacing program executive offices with new organizations called portfolio acquisition executives. The Air Force has already redesignated five program executive offices as portfolio acquisition executives, including those overseeing Command, Control, Battle Management and Communications (C2BMC) and Nuclear Command, Control and Communications (NC3). Meanwhile, the Space Force has designated its first tranche of mission areas to be overseen by portfolio acquisition executives, including space access and space based sensing and targeting.
Cohesity became the 22nd company to sign up for an enterprise software deal under GSA’s OneGov program. Under the agreement, GSA said agencies can buy Cohesity’s cybersecurity data protection and replication tools at a discount of more than 72% off the company's GSA schedule price. Agencies also have access to other Cohesity offerings, such as its FedShield tool bundle at discounted prices. The prices are good through September 2027. GSA’s contract with Cohesity is the third OneGov deal with a cybersecurity firm since December.
Clearer numbers on the federal workforce are coming into view from the Office of Personnel Management. A new OPM website contains a far more detailed and modernized view on the federal workforce, compared with its predecessor, FedScope. The new platform also reaffirms the significant reshaping the federal workforce experienced over the last year. OPM’s numbers reveal a major drop in workforce size, a decline in federal union representation and far fewer telework hours.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons is offering retention bonuses to correctional officers and other frontline positions, in an effort to address staffing challenges. The size of the pay incentive depends on the employee’s position and the staffing level at their facility. The retention bonuses will take effect in February, and will be reviewed annually, according to the agency. But federal union officials are urging a more permanent pay fix for the BOP, which has faced years of significant understaffing.
The Social Security Administration is rolling out nationwide systems in the coming months that will impact how the agency triages its workload to employees. Someone applying for SSA benefits in California could soon be speaking to an employee in Maine. The agency is rolling out systems in March that will allow employees to tackle a nationwide inventory of cases. SSA employees say they’re used to processing claims submitted locally and that these changes could make their work much more complicated. The agency lost about 7,000 employees through voluntary incentives last year.
Clearer numbers on the federal workforce are coming into view, after the Office of Personnel Management launched a major update to one of its largest data assets on Thursday.
A new federal workforce data website from OPM aims to deliver information on the federal workforce faster, with more transparency and more frequent updates, than its predecessor, FedScope.
“This is a major step forward for accountability and data-driven decision-making across government,” OPM Director Scott Kupor said Thursday in a press release.
OPM’s new platform also reaffirms the significant reshaping the federal workforce experienced over the last year. The latest workforce data, now publicly available up to November 2025, shows governmentwide staffing levels at a decade low. According to OPM’s numbers, the government shed well over 300,000 federal employees last year, impacting virtually all executive branch agencies. When accounting for hiring numbers, there has been a net loss of nearly 220,000 federal employees since January 2025.
Data on federal employees’ bargaining unit status has also shifted significantly under the Trump administration. OPM’s new data platform shows that the share of the federal workforce represented by unions dropped from about 56% to about 38% over the last year, as a result of President Donald Trump’s orders to end collective bargaining at most agencies.
And agencies reported a 75% decrease in telework hours between January and October 2025, due to Trump’s on-site requirements for the federal workforce, which the president initiated on his first day in office.
The new website is the result of a major update to OPM’s legacy data asset, FedScope, which had been in need of significant modernization for years. In a report from 2016, the Government Accountability Office recommended that OPM update the FedScope platform and improve the availability of workforce data.
Users of OPM’s new public-facing website can filter the workforce data by geographic location, agency, age, education level, bargaining unit status — and much more.
Additional data that was not accessible on the legacy FedScope platform is also now readily available, including information on retirement eligibility, telework levels, performance ratings and hiring activities for the federal workforce.
Information on race and ethnicity across the federal workforce, however, is not featured on OPM’s new platform. That’s due to Trump’s executive order last year to eliminate diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) across government.
OPM had been working to update several of its workforce data assets since at least the end of the Biden administration. Federal News Network reported in early January 2025 that the agency was already in the process of building out its data management capabilities for FedScope and the Enterprise Human Resources Integration system (EHRI).
OPM, under the Trump administration, then announced plans last July to relaunch FedScope with “immediate enhancements.”
“OPM will continue releasing new data, visuals and features on the site each month and will iterate on the platform as user feedback is received,” OPM said in its press release Thursday. “This launch represents just the beginning, with regular updates and new enhancements planned on an ongoing basis.”
Updated guidance on federal telework and remote work from the Office of Personnel Management now emphasizes as much in-person presence as possible for the federal workforce.
OPM’s latest revisions aim to better align with the Trump administration’s return-to-office orders from January 2025. The new guidance, which OPM updated in December, now says federal employees should generally be “working full-time, in-person.” And while federal telework and remote work can be “effective” tools on a case-by-case basis, OPM said those flexibilities “should be used sparingly.”
Beyond that, agencies should also have procedures for verifying that employees are working on-site, full-time, unless given an exemption, OPM said. And in the limited cases where employees are teleworking, agencies should have a process to determine whether teleworking is successful, or if it should be revoked.
“While individual agencies are in the best position to define what it means to ‘ensure that telework does not diminish employee performance or agency operations,’ determinations should be based on metrics and clear performance standards, along with the overarching principal that work should generally be performed in-person at an agency worksite,” OPM wrote in the December guidance document.
OPM’s new document also details when telework and remote work are “acceptable,” and the role of agencies in managing federal telework and remote work policies. When developing their policies, for instance, agencies should consider IT security, performance management and work schedules, among other factors, OPM explained.
Overall, the guidance should help agencies create “telework and remote work policies that are consistent across the federal government,” OPM said.
Nearly a year after President Donald Trump first ordered a full return to office for the federal workforce, around 90% of federal employees are now working on-site full-time, according to OPM Director Scott Kupor.
“The reality is we’re in a re-baselining period,” Kupor wrote in a Jan. 2 blog post. “After years of operating at levels of remote work and telework well beyond pre-pandemic norms, the government needs to reset expectations, tackle issues like excess office space, modernize our tools, and rebuild confidence that we can deliver consistently no matter where we work.”
The new on-site numbers from OPM come after Trump, on his first day in office, ordered all agencies to terminate remote work agreements, and return all federal employees to full-time on-site work, with a few exceptions. The current 90% in-the-office rate, according to Kupor, leaves about 10% of federal employees who have been exempted from on-site requirements and kept their telework or remote work agreements.
Agencies have granted limited exceptions for certain employees with disabilities, qualifying medical conditions or another “compelling reason” to telework, according to OPM. The new guidance additionally exempts military spouses and Foreign Service spouses working overseas from on-site work requirements. But agencies can still revoke federal telework agreements if they appear to diminish performance, or if an employee has repeated unexcused absences, OPM said.
“The president’s memorandum correctly recognizes individual circumstances matter and made clear that agencies should review these to make reasonable accommodations where appropriate,” Kupor wrote in his blog post. “But — and I realize many people may disagree with this — commuting time alone is not grounds for an accommodation.”
For locality pay purposes, OPM reaffirmed that employees with telework agreements are considered to be located at their agency worksite, as long as they are reporting in-person at least twice per two-week pay period. Employees on remote work agreements, who are not expected to report regularly on-site, are considered to be located at their alternative worksite.
The new document also defines when “situational telework” is appropriate, stating that it should only be authorized for a “compelling agency need,” and as long as it does not “diminish agency operations.” Regardless of the reason, OPM said situational telework is temporary and approved on a case-by-case basis — not part of a regular telework schedule.
Appropriate uses of situational telework include when federal facilities close due to inclement weather, or when an employee has a short-term illness or injury, or a religious observation, OPM explained.
In opposition to the Trump administration’s return-to-office push, some federal workforce experts have argued there are significant benefits of hybrid work — or a mix of in-person work and telework. Many say the availability of telework improves recruitment and retention, as well as agency outcomes. Federal employees themselves have also reported enhanced performance and productivity while operating in a hybrid work environment.
In contrast, Kupor said he believes the workplace suffers when employees aren’t in the office — and that communication and collaboration are “sub-par.”
“Strong connections are a feature of strong teams; those connections are much harder to build virtually,” Kupor wrote. “Proximity is especially important for new employees who may need more training, supervision, and mentoring.”
— Steven Maheshwary, a former generative AI leader at Amazon, is now a go-to-market lead in strategic partnerships at Anthropic, the AI giant behind Claude and backed by Amazon.
On LinkedIn, Maheshwary described AI as “a catalyst for significant transformation and a raw energy that must be shaped, guardrailed, and democratized to be genuinely useful.”
“I believe Claude represents a distinct vision of what AI can be: powerful and capable, while remaining safe and aligned with human values,” he added.
Maheshwary was with Amazon for 12 years, most recently as head of growth for AI startups and foundation models on AWS. During his tenure, he also served as former Gov. Jay Inslee’s technology sector lead, working to grow Washington state’s tech and AI economy, and was a Fulbright grantee for the U.S. Department of State.
Irene Plenefisch. (LinkedIn Photo)
— Irene Plenefisch, a longtime government affairs leader at Microsoft, is retiring after more than 15 years at the Redmond tech company. Plenefisch, most recently a senior director at Microsoft, previously worked at SonoSite for 12 years.
“I have been proud to represent Microsoft, an important and amazing company, in its home state and around the country,” she wrote on LinkedIn, adding: “I’m not going to lie; the path for channeling all the energy, competitiveness and enthusiasm for being in the middle of it all is not completely clear. But I am confident in my decision.”
Nikhil Hasija. (LinkedIn Photo)
— Nikhil Hasija left his role as vice president of engineering at Okta. Hasija joined the security company following its acquisition of Azuqua, a Seattle startup he founded in 2011. Hasija also spent more than four years at Microsoft.
“I’m starting to think about what’s next,” he wrote on LinkedIn. “I’m increasingly drawn to problems centered on leverage, speed, and new ways of working. To everyone who made this journey worthwhile, I’m glad our paths crossed, and I welcome that again.”
Caitlin Rollman. (LinkedIn Photo)
— Caitlin Rollman is back at Microsoft as a partner product manager. She was previously at the tech giant for nearly a decade ending in 2020, leaving the role of principal PM manager for the Office platform.
Rollman said on LinkedIn that she got a call from Microsoft and was “offered the opportunity to build something new from the ground up, at a company I respect, with people I adore. I couldn’t say no.”
Rollman left Microsoft to work as senior director of product management for Highspot, a Seattle company that sells enterprise software to help make salespeople more efficient.
Last year she co-founded and was CEO of Talvita, an AI-native human resources management platform.
Brian Surratt. (LinkedIn Photo)
— Brian Surratt is now officially deputy mayor at the City of Seattle in new Mayor Katie Wilson’s administration.
Surratt spent nearly four years leading Greater Seattle Partners, a public-private sector initiative that seeks to attract investment, companies and jobs to the Seattle region. He also previously led the City of Seattle’s economic development arm and was a vice president at Alexandria Real Estate Equities.
Wilson was sworn in on Friday, becoming the city’s 58th mayor.
“Seattle has shaped my belief in what is possible when public service, community engagement, and economic opportunity come together,” he wrote on LinkedIn last week. “To step back into City Hall at this moment — when our city is focused on restoring trust and building civic pride, tackling our homelessness crisis, expanding housing and economic opportunity, and building a more affordable, inclusive, innovation-driven future — is both humbling and energizing.”
— Dr. Emma Rocheteau has taken the role of clinician scientist at Microsoft AI in London.
“Throughout 2025, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we’re at an inflection point where medicine and AI are finally coming together to solve some of healthcare’s toughest challenges,” Rocheteau said on LinkedIn. “To be able to contribute to this is a dream come true for me, and it represents exactly what I’ve been working towards for the past 12 years.”
Rocheteau joins Microsoft from NHS, the United Kingdom’s publicly funded National Heath Service. She was briefly a research intern for Microsoft in 2019 during which she focused on health intelligence.
Ashlee Drake Berry. (Casium Photo)
— Ashlee Drake Berry joined Seattle-based immigration tech company Casium as head of legal. Berry is leaving a role as principal corporate counsel at Microsoft where she focused on legal compliance in the hiring of immigrant and non-immigrant employees globally.
“This role has stretched me, challenged me, and given me the chance to work with some of the most talented and generous colleagues I’ve ever known,” Berry said on LinkedIn.
Berry previously worked on immigration employment issues at Vialto Partners and Envoy Global. Casium spun out of the Seattle-based AI2 Incubator in April 2024.
Sage Ke’alohilani Quiamno. (Photo courtesy of Quiamno)
— Sage Ke’alohilani Quiamno is now the communications and marketing lead at Yoodli, a Seattle startup that sells AI-powered software to help people practice real-world conversations such as sales calls and feedback sessions. The company last month announced $40 million in new funding.
Quiamno has been running a public relations consultancy over the past year. She was previously the global diversity, equity and inclusion leader at Amazon’s Prime Video and Amazon Studios for more than three years, ending in January 2025.
Quiamno was co-founder and CEO of Future for Us, an organization promoting professional development for women of color that was acquired.
Adam Stern. (Coltura Photo)
— Adam Stern, an environmental and clean energy leader, is co-executive director of the Seattle-based electric vehicle nonprofit Coltura. Stern, who resides in San Francisco, joins Janelle London in the shared role.
Former co-executive director Matthew Metz founded Coltura in 2014 to promote EV adoption through research, analysis and policy support. He is transitioning to a full-time role as CEO of EVQ, a public benefit corporation and tech platform that spun out of Coltura to support consumers and organizations in the purchase of EVs.
Matthew Metz. (LinkedIn Photo)
“While Matthew is stepping away from his day-to-day role at Coltura, his impact will continue to be felt for years to come — in the policies passed, the ideas normalized, and the momentum built toward a cleaner transportation future,” the nonprofit said in announcing the changes.
— Joseph Williams has stepped down from his post as interim director of the Washington State Broadband Office within the Department of Commerce. Williams, who has held leadership positions for government agencies and was with Microsoft for nearly a decade, said on LinkedIn that he’ll be sharing news of his next role later this month.
And in case you missed it, Commerce Director Joe Nguyen is leaving his post this month to become the president and CEO of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber. A new Department of Commerce director has not been named.
— Carter Rabasa, an entrepreneur, investor and former employee of multiple Seattle-area tech companies, joined Box as head of developer relations. Rabasa previously held similar roles at IBM, DataStax, and Courier. He was also with Twilio for more than five years.
— Invest in Washington Now, a nonprofit promoting tax reform, shared that Treasure Mackley is resigning as executive director, effective Jan. 9. Mackley was in the role for more than five years, helping pass the state’s capital gains tax. She previously held leadership positions with Planned Parenthood.
— The Washington Technology Industry Associationannounced five internal promotions, including Nick Ellingson, now vice president of innovation and entrepreneurship.
— Rhizome Research, a Seattle biotech startup, announced that John Proudfoot, a former U.S.-based director in the Medicinal Chemistry Department at Boehringer Ingelheim, has joined as a scientific advisor.
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