Data Driven Government

September 25, 2019 – Washington, D.C.

David C. Williams was sworn in as the second independent Inspector General (IG) for the U.S. Postal Service on August 20, 2003. Williams is responsible for a staff of more than 1,100 employees — located in major offices nationwide – that conducts independent audits and investigations for the largest civilian federal agency that has $67 billion in annual revenues, a workforce of 671,687 employees and contractors and nearly 32,528 facilities.

The office is under the general supervision of the nine Postal Service governors and is not subject to any other Postal Service supervision.

In his last position, Williams served as the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Aviation Operations at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) from August 2002 until August 2003, where he managed the Aviation Inspection Program at federalized airports.

Williams has served as IG for five federal agencies. He was first appointed by President George Bush to serve as IG for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 1989 to 1996. President William Clinton next appointed him IG for the Social Security Administration from 1996 to 1998, and then as IG for of the Department of the Treasury in 1998. In 1999, President Clinton named him as the first IG for Tax Administration of the Department of Treasury, where he directed a staff of 1,050 to detect fraud, waste and abuse. In 2001 President George W. Bush named Williams the Acting IG for HUD, while he was also serving at the Department of the Treasury.

Williams served in the U.S. Army Military Intelligence and began his civilian federal career as a special agent with the U.S. Secret Service. Moving up the career ladder, he served as Director of Operations in the Office of Labor Racketeering at the Department of Labor; the President’s Commission on Organized Crime; and as Director of the Office of Special Investigations at the U.S. General Accounting Office. Williams is the recipient of the U.S. Bronze Star and the Vietnamese Medal of Honor for service in Vietnam.

A native of Illinois, Williams graduated from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, Ill., and received his Advanced Degree in Education and a Masters in Education from the University of Illinois in Champaign, Ill. He also attended the U.S. Military Intelligence Academy, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and the U.S. Secret Service Training Academy.

John Elder chairs America’s most experienced Data Science consultancy. Founded in 1995, Elder Research has offices in Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and Washington DC. Dr. Elder co-authored 3 award-winning books on analytics, was a discoverer of ensemble methods, chairs international conferences, and is a popular keynote speaker. John is occasionally an Adjunct Professor of Systems Engineering at the University of Virginia, and was named by President Bush to serve 5 years on a panel to guide technology for national security.

Jane Wiseman leads the Institute for Excellence in Government, a non-profit consulting firm dedicated to improving government performance.  She is also an Innovations in American Government Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.  She has served as an appointed official in government and as a financial advisor and consultant to government.

Her current consulting, research, and writing focus on government innovation,  data-driven decision-making and operational efficiency in government.  With the Harvard Ash Center, she supports a national network of urban Chief Data Officers to accelerate the use of analytics in local government.  With Harvard Ash Center, she created an open platform for government access to the best examples of government operational efficiency approaches, with case studies showing successful implementation.  She has advised the US cities funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies in their Mayors Challenge competition.  She has written on customer-centric government, data-driven decision-making in government, pretrial justice, and 311 for a variety of audiences.

Her prior consulting work has included organizational strategy, performance management and eGovernment strategy work for Accenture and Price Waterhouse.  Selected clients include the National Governor’s Association, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Criminal Justice Association, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the United States Postal Service, the State of Michigan, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the United States Department of Commerce.

Ms. Wiseman has served as Assistant Secretary, Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and as Assistant to the Director for Strategic Planning, National Institute of Justice, United States Department of Justice.  Ms. Wiseman represented the Justice Department on detail as a Staff Assistant for the US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee.  Ms. Wiseman holds a Bachelor of Arts in Government from Smith College and a Master of Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Ethan Chen provides overall leadership to CDER in streamlining electronic and traditional submissions and delivering solutions to enable rapid adoption of emerging electronic data standards. Since joining the FDA in 2012, Mr. Chen has led the several critical initiatives as the CDER Informatics Architect, including Data Management and Business Intelligence programs. Ethan has over 20-years’ experience in Data Management, Enterprise Architecture, Solution Development and System Integration.

Daniel Morgan is the first Chief Data Officer of the United States

Department of Transportation. As the CDO, he has overall responsibility for the Departmental data program and data compliance across the Department. He is responsible for establishing a clear vision of the data managed in DOT and the application of DOT data for decision-making. He serves as data strategist and adviser, steward for improving data quality, liaison for data sharing and developer of new data products.

Prior to assuming this role, Mr. Morgan spent 15 years as a management consultant, providing services to public and private sector clients in a variety of areas, including: open government, information technology governance, capital planning and investment control, enterprise architecture, and human capital planning.

Mr. Morgan holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Kris focus’s his energy on understanding the GSA data culture and cultivating and discussing ways to improve information management and data access across the agency.  This includes working with GSA leadership on fostering a data governance model that is driven by a Steering Committee, chaired by Kris, and includes senior executives from across all functional areas. Kris has helped GSA prioritizes resources, identifies enterprise data challenges, and to charter cross functional working groups to address data related issues. The working groups include data stewards and IT data strategy teams.  The data stewards are most closely associated with the Agencies enterprise applications and help address data quality and redundancy issues.  The IT data strategy team is technical engineers and program managers that build and maintain those systems and the data warehouses and data models that transform the data.  Together, these working groups have consolidated previously stovepipe processes and technologies and have created common procedures for sharing data across functional areas.