Leadership at Scale: Gary Washington on Modernizing Federal IT and Managing Change

Proud to have Gary Washington on today's show. He is a former Air Force member, longtime federal IT leader, and former USDA CIO (eight years), now Chief Strategy Officer at ACT-IAC. Washington recounts his career across agencies including Treasury, HHS, FDA, OMB, and USDA, and explains how military discipline shaped his emphasis on documented plans, accountability, and trust. He discusses common resistance to change in large organizations, USDA’s shift from decentralization toward centralization, and implementing the White House-driven IT Modernization Centers of Excellence through inclusive, business-driven governance, performance measurement, workforce education, RPA training, and results such as deactivating 37 data centers and consolidating networks and end-user support.

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Transcript

Yohanna: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. Welcome back to The Buzz. I am here with Gary Washington. If he's new to some of you, where have you been? Today's conversation is about leadership at scale, what it really takes to modernize institutions that millions of people rely on every day. Gary Washington has spent decades inside that work from the Air Force.
Yohanna: To the highest levels of federal IT leadership. How you feeling? Gary, thank you so much for talking to me. 
Gary: I feel great. And thank you so much Han for this opportunity to talk to you. 
Yohanna: Good. Let's start from the beginning. 
Gary: Um, well, uh, I am Gary Washington. I grew up in Washington DC and I lived in the, um, the DMV and then I, um, went to the military for 10 years.
Gary: Uh, to the Air Force and, um, did that, uh, was in private industry for maybe four or five years. And then, um, I started my journey in the, uh, in [00:01:00] public service and the federal government. You know, I've been at many agencies. I've been at a TF Treasury, H-H-S-F-D-A-O-M-B. Um, I've been at NRCS APHIS and I was the CIO for USDA for eight years.
Gary: So, 
Yohanna: and now you are the Chief Strategy Officer at ACT iac. What attracted you to join ACT iac and how do you plan to, I guess, leverage your federal experience to influence government industry collaboration? 
Gary: Well, I, I, I, uh, I was introduced to ACT IAC through recruitment efforts for the partners program in two, I'm a partner from 2006 after we graduated from the partner program.
Gary: I just, to the extent that I could, I just continued to stay involved and, and have some kind of role in ACT was the president for ACT for three years. I, I think ACT IAC is an outstanding, no nonprofit organization that provides industry and government with the [00:02:00] opportunity to partner and collaborate, you know, address challenges across the IT space, whether it be industry or federal government.
Gary: I, I've, I've known Dave Wintergreen for a while now, and, um, kinda watched his career as A-D-O-D-C-I-O. So when we started having discussions about this role, I was honored that we had the discussion and it was something that I could do. I, I felt like I could be successful at it. And working for somebody like Dave is great and at IAC has a great staff.
Gary: I've worked with a lot of them for many years. This was a great transition for me, um, as I retired in November. 
Yohanna: How did your early military experience shape your approach to the public sector and to, you know, technology transformation? 
Gary: Well, it it, it gave me a, a structured way of doing things. I'm a big believer in organization and discipline.
Gary: You know, I, I think you start with a plan. You know, you gotta have a documented [00:03:00] plan and, uh, you have to work that plan. And I'm a, I'm a strong believer in that, and that really helped me throughout my career. Going from the military to private industry to, to the, uh, federal government. I learned a lot about responsibility and accountability also.
Gary: You know, so, you know, you have to, um, say what you want to do and do what you say. 
Yohanna: Yeah. That's how you build trust. 
Gary: Yeah. Yeah. 
Yohanna: I like how you, how you say like, you gotta have a plan. My, my mom always said put pencil to paper and you'll see how things actually work. 
Gary: You 
Yohanna: know? 
Gary: Yeah, yeah. There, there are some that think plans are useless and actually they're not, I don't think they are.
Gary: You have to let people know, you know, what you plan to achieve and how you are plan to do it. 
Yohanna: Yeah, absolutely. I wanna understand what, what was the main motivation for that transition from the private sector into government service? 
Gary: Well, the real reason I went from private industry to the the government is because the company that I [00:04:00] work for, they, I guess, folded.
Gary: But working those few years in private industry, uh, did a lot for me. But going to, I mean, I, I love public service, so going to the federal government, um, was a change, but it wasn't, you know, some dramatic change. You know, I got used to it very quickly. 
Yohanna: So, throughout your tenure in all of these federal agencies, what patterns have you seen in how large institutions adopt and resist?
Yohanna: Change. Is there a pattern? 
Gary: Well, I, I mean, I don't, I don't know. I mean, there's some commonalities, but depending on the mission I found depend, uh, has a, has something to do with their appetite for change there. There was a, throughout my career, you know, non-IT people get very comfortable with what's working 'cause they don't want it to break 'cause they want it to live on their mission.
Gary: But at some point you have to make improvements and modernize. You know, or innovate. So, you know, it's, [00:05:00] uh, it's, it's, it's, it's an education in itself. Trying to get through that process with non-IT folks. But resistance to change at some point is, is a common pattern. But I will say not the resistance is heavier.
Gary: Was heavier in other place than some places than others. Uh, I, I was fortunate at U-S-D-A-I had secretaries. That wanted to, uh, modernize and they wanted to use technology. Uh, and that wasn't always the case in some of my previous experiences. 
Yohanna: I think people outside of the, the government don't always grasp how decentralized agencies like the USDA really are.
Gary: Well, I, I, I would say USDA when I, when I became the CIO, it was very decentralized. 
Yohanna: Yeah. 
Gary: But. As time went on through my eight years, we centralized it to some, to a, to a great extent. And that was because of the leadership that we had and the things that we were asked to do. [00:06:00] We had, we had a business driven approach to doing this.
Gary: Uh, 'cause it's not just about it. You know, you have to have a reason why you're doing something And, um, you know, I, like I said, I've been very fortunate with, um, secretary Purdue, secretary Ack and Secretary Rollins too. So, you know, we've, we've, there was some, some unique opportunities for IT professionals to be, um, to be able to do some things that, um, a lot of other IT professionals would've never been able to do.
Yohanna: Okay. Yeah. So let's, let's talk about that. Let's talk about execution. You know, strategy sounds great on paper, but modernization lives and dies. Yeah. You know, with how it's being implemented. When you designed the IT modernization centers of excellence, what were the core principles you, you prioritized?
Gary: Well, I, I mean, to, to be honest, um, that was something that I inherited in its very, very, very early phases. Um, there was an initiative from the White House and, um, [00:07:00] they basically, um. Made USDA, the Lighthouse agency and what I had to, um, implement is our approach to, um, implementing five different centers of excellence.
Yohanna: Mm-hmm. 
Gary: And, and I, and I understood that we had to make this an inclusive process and make sure it is just not full of it people, but it was included. I mean, it was inclusive of people in the programs as well. 'cause it was impact in there. You know, their work, you know, we were basically changing their work.
Gary: You know, that was an experience in itself. You know, I had to design how we were gonna execute, work with the leadership on how we were gonna govern it, how we determine what success is. Um, you know, we had to implement vehicles for our programs to listen or have a say in what was going on. And everything.
Gary: So, and then we had to set things up to measure [00:08:00] performance. 
Yohanna: Yeah, that sounds like a lot. 
Gary: But we were successful. We implemented, uh, centers of excellence around data, uh, cloud computing contact centers. Um, we, um, uh, turn, we deactivated 37 data centers. So we, we, we, we, we accomplished a lot. We set up programs to educate the workforce as well on the, the new approaches.
Gary: Uh, because you just can't make changes without having a workforce that can support what your changing 
Yohanna: Yeah. 
Gary: So we, we did do that. We, we had a program around robotic process automation and we set up classes around that for our workforce and people in the, in, in the programs. So, you know what? We, you know what, what we did had never been done at USDA before.
Yohanna: It feels like transformation is just, it's a long game. 
Gary: It is. 
Yohanna: Sometimes people want something that's immediate and just visible, and [00:09:00] sometimes it'll take some time, you know? 
Gary: Yeah, yeah. 
Yohanna: Um, but some of the things that you did that were really good, that were immediate, 
Gary: well, these weren't immediate. This happened over a two to three year period.
Yohanna: Okay. 
Gary: But you're right. I think everybody wants. Something that happened right now. 
Yohanna: Yeah, 
Gary: there's a lot that goes into making sure that something is successful. You know, a, a modernization is effort or transformation effort is successful. 
Yohanna: So far during our conversation, you've drawn a clear distinction between modernization and innovation in your career.
Yohanna: I wanna unpack the difference because those terms get conflated. All the time. What does innovation mean to you as opposed to technology modernization? 
Gary: Well, I think you modernize with new innovations. 
Yohanna: Okay. 
Gary: And I think innovations come from people actually having very, very new ideas or thoughts about how to apply something to what they do.
Gary: Uh, whether that be technology processes, policies, or, [00:10:00] or, or, or what have you. I think in the, in, in the scheme of things. You, you innovate before you modernize, you know? Um, so you know, you can modernize something with technologies, in my opinion. That are currently available, but when you create a new innovation, that's something that never been thought of before.
Yohanna: So that mindset becomes even more critical as like new technologies enter the picture. AI automation, data platforms. 
Gary: Yeah. 
Yohanna: These tools, they're powerful, but they also raise like real questions for the government. You know, like this is brand new, like, 
Gary: yeah. And at this point they're not new. 
Yohanna: Yeah. 
Gary: Um, you know, so, you know, we all know that AI is here and there's different forms of ai.
Yohanna: Mm-hmm. 
Gary: How are we gonna modernize using AI and what is the next new innovation that's coming out? 
Yohanna: And that's just, that's governance. That [00:11:00] brings us to kind of governance. 
Gary: Well, the successful implementation of all of that. I think you have to have strong governance. Now there's some people that will argue that idea, but, um, you know, you need to be able to manage that whole life cycle.
Yohanna: I don't wanna get you in trouble, but what's, what's an initiative or a policy that you wish kind of gained more traction when it comes to that kind of like governance and stuff? 
Gary: Oh, I, I'll, I'll tell you, um, as much as we did around artificial intelligence at USDA. I think we could have done more. 
Yohanna: Okay.
Gary: But it, it wasn't because of our leadership and it wasn't because of it, and actually it wasn't because of some of the programs in USDA. It's just in the process of things. People, culturally, mindset wise, they have to be ready for the change. So when somebody's not ready for that kind of change, they can cause some challenges 'cause they become resistant or they pontificate or whatever.[00:12:00] 
Gary: So you have to put extra energy into working with those people. 
Yohanna: You can have, you can have a lot of white papers, you can have a lot of seminars and training, and people are still gonna be like, you know what? No thank you. 
Gary: Yeah. Yeah. I mean you, I mean, and this is true. I mean, I know people that have been around 20, 30 years doing the same thing the same way.
Gary: And if you come up to them and you tell them, you know, Hey, I got something to make your job easier, you know. And they'll look at you like you're crazy and they'll say nothing. So you need to know how to deal with that. 
Yohanna: Yeah. Self preservation and like professional risks. 
Gary: Yeah. Yeah. Well, there, there is a risk professionally because if you don't change, you don't grow.
Gary: And quite frankly, you may work yourself out of an opportunity. 
Yohanna: Like that's all we we're all about. ACT IAC focuses on accelerating government mission. 
Gary: I love Act. Iac. 
Yohanna: Why do you love Act iac? 
Gary: I mean, I, I've been involved since 2005, 2006. I'm a [00:13:00] fellow. 
Yohanna: Yeah. 
Gary: And, um, I, I just think I, I. It is a, is a great organization.
Gary: It provides a lot of value if you choose to use it. 
Yohanna: Yeah. 
Gary: Um, you know, you know, we're, we're having some challenges right now, um, with being able to educate and inform people of the value that it brings. 
Yohanna: Yeah. 
Gary: But, um, I, I think, um, it provides a platform for, um, you know, enterprise or global communication. If you want to express your policies to private industry and government, you know, your priorities, you know, those kinds of things.
Yohanna: Shout out to our new, uh, membership campaign. 
Gary: Yes. Yeah, 
Yohanna: I've been talking to strangers all week. Like I was on the train a couple of days ago and I had my ACT IAC backpack, and somebody was like, oh, what, what's that? Company was like, oh, I work there. We're doing the membership campaign. I like gave up my business card.
Gary: I tell people about [00:14:00] ACT IAC all the time. Um, 
Yohanna: yeah, 
Gary: so I'm, I'm, I'm trying to get us as many members as I can, obviously. 
Yohanna: Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. Um. Um, I wanna know, what are the biggest strategic opportunities you see for public sector technology over the next three to five years? 'cause right now we know AI is, I, AI is here, but what else is happening that maybe we, we might not know?
Gary: I don't know if I'm gonna tell you anything that you may not know, but, um, I would tell you, I think there's some tremendous opportunities for, um. For IT professionals, whether they're in private industry or the federal government. Uh, it's not just really about ai, but it's about opportunities with data, um, opportunities around, um, securing AI solutions and data.
Gary: You know, um, I know this administration has activities to, [00:15:00] um, share on an enterprise level where appropriate. Um, which, uh, is gonna be a game changer for a lot of people. Um, so, uh, I, I think, um, if you want to, uh, add tools to your skill, your toolkit, and, um, you know, you want to learn a lot of, um, new approaches, 
Yohanna: yeah.
Gary: Um, this is a good time for it. Professional especially, um, ones that embrace change. 
Yohanna: Okay. 
Gary: Uh, 'cause at the, at the end of the day. You know, um, the use of technology should bring, provide value, not just from a, um, a cost perspective, but from a quality of work perspective. So I, I think we have some opportunities to do that.
Gary: Um, and I think ACT IAC is a, um, is a platform to, um, you know, [00:16:00] get, you know, priorities, policy decisions. Collaboration opportunities, partnership opportunities out there on a wide scale. 
Yohanna: I like that you're, you're telling folks to, to get together. I think a lot of folks don't know where to start sometimes and like, joining an organization is a, is a solid place to start because we have events and we are introducing people to each other because we really want folks to.
Gary: Yeah, 
Yohanna: collaborate. Like how, I don't know if we tell people how to, but we do know that. I do know that we provide the opportunity for folks to do it, you know? 
Gary: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. 
Yohanna: For people listening who are either early in their careers or stepping into leadership roles themselves, I think your experience offers a really rare playbook.
Yohanna: Looking back, what are, what are the most proudest moments or what's something that you're proud that you accomplished at the USDA or any, at any of the other agencies that, that you, uh, that you worked at? [00:17:00] 
Gary: I'm proud about the Centers of Excellence. Um, I'm proud about we consolidated. All of end user support across USDA.
Gary: I'm proud that we consolidated 17 networks down to one. You know, um, I'm proud that we implemented a streamlined governance, IT governance decision making body that's business driven in USDA. You know, I've had some opportunities previously to, you know, implement a lot of digital solutions in the mission areas.
Gary: Um, and be a part of, um, lead groups enterprise wide. Um, I, I really think what helped define me was my experience at OMB. And learning, you know, firsthand learning how, you know, administration's agenda and policies get implemented government wide and having a role in that from an IT perspective. 
Yohanna: Yeah. 
Gary: And everything, the budget [00:18:00] process, that kind of thing.
Gary: So, I mean, my whole life has been continuous learning, you know, and it, and it changed, you know, like. My focus changed when I left FDA and went to OMB because it became more policy driven and more about, you know, government wide priorities, that kind of thing. And when I was at the FDA, you know, I got to, I got to create organizations and, and lead a lot of activities agency wide.
Yohanna: Yeah. And 
Gary: I got to participate in a lot of government wide activities. So it's been a lot of con continuous learning and I've matured through that whole process. 
Yohanna: That's good. 
Gary: So I would tell somebody new. You gotta have courage because change requires courage. 
Yohanna: Yeah. 
Gary: And you gotta be committed and you gotta be honest and transparent.
Yohanna: I think a lot of folks feel, or in, in my, in my conversation, in my life, I think folks believe that like, they're [00:19:00] gonna do it when they're ready. And most of the time you just do it scared. Like you have courage and you just, the courage is that you, you just do it. You just get, you know, you get her done.
Gary: Well, you can't do it when you're ready because you may not have the opportunity to do it when you're ready. 
Yohanna: Mm-hmm. 
Gary: You know, uh, some things, um, don't crop up when you're ready, you know? Um, you know, sometimes you just need to pull your pants up and say, Hey, you know, we just need to take this on. You know, we gotta get a plan together, get an approach, and we need to do this.
Gary: Yeah. 
Yohanna: Yeah. Yeah, I like that. 
Gary: Opportunities don't wait for you. 
Yohanna: Yeah. 
Gary: Sometimes you get your opportunities when you don't think you're ready and that's, you know, and that's the challenge. You need to be ready when your opportunity 
Yohanna: Oh yeah. For sure. 
Gary: You know, seeks you out. Okay. 
Yohanna: All right. So to close out, I wanna pull back from the titles and the roles just for a moment.
Yohanna: Um, when you look at [00:20:00] the work that you've done and the systems you've helped shape, what do you see as the most underappreciated challenge in government technology today? 
Gary: I, I don't think people really appreciate the challenge of managing change. 
Yohanna: Hmm. Okay. 
Gary: You, you just can't like wake up one day and say, Hey, I want to implement this.
Gary: You know, um, you, you gotta think about your customers. You gotta think about the culture of your organization. I mean, you gotta think about how you're gonna fund it. And then if you get your money, you need to think you, you need to be able to account for how you spent your money. 
Yohanna: Yeah. 
Gary: You know, you need to talk to your customers about the benefits of what you're doing.
Gary: And notice nothing I'm talking to you about right now has anything to do with technology. You need to prepare your workforce. 
Yohanna: Mm-hmm. 
Gary: You know? Um, so you need to measure your performance and stay on track. You know, you need to create [00:21:00] opportunities for feedback. 
Yohanna: You have to be open to that feedback too.
Gary: You have to be open to the feedback. 
Yohanna: Mm-hmm. 
Gary: You can't get in your, you can't get in your feelings. 
Yohanna: Yeah. 
Gary: I think those kinds of things are underappreciated. You know, um, when you're going from the old to the new, you can't go to the new without addressing the old 'cause. You're just adding on new costs, you know?
Gary: So those are things I think are, are underappreciated. 
Yohanna: The soft skills. They're probably, yeah, they're probably underappreciated. 'cause they have that title soft, like who you call it soft. They're soft, soft, soft. And they're really difficult. They're hard, difficult skills, you know? 
Gary: Right, exactly. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Gary: They're hard. That's harder than implementing technology. Yeah. 'cause you're dealing with human beings. Yeah. 
Yohanna: Yeah. I think the human being is, is the most complex technology. 
Gary: Yeah. And leadership is not a popularity contest. 
Yohanna: Mm. That's a big one. 
Gary: Sometimes you gotta tell people what they don't want to hear.
Yohanna: Yeah. 
Gary: And you have [00:22:00] to be committed to it. 
Yohanna: Mm-hmm. That's when that bravery comes in. 
Gary: Yeah. Because I, I'm not gonna say throughout my career, I was always a popular guy, you know? Yeah. I mean, I'm nice to people, but I will tell you the truth. 
Yohanna: Yeah, 
Gary: absolutely. When you wanna hear or not. Yeah. 
Yohanna: Yeah. That's what we need.
Gary: Yeah. 
Yohanna: Tell me the truth. How have I, how, how has this conversation been so far? I think the, 
Gary: well telling you the truth has been fine 
Yohanna: so far, so good. 
Gary: But one thing I will say though, if I could just throw this in there. I am, I am very committed to X iacs approach to developing our new leaders. 
Yohanna: Yeah, 
Gary: like the partners, the Voyagers.
Gary: Luminaries, the associates, those kind of things. Yeah. 
Yohanna: Yeah. Shout out to Sarah. I know the, the conversations that I've had with Sarah, her brain, the way her brain works, that's a technology in itself. The technology in Sarah's brain. I'm gonna, I'm gonna edit this out and send it to her. She does an amazing job of like [00:23:00] thinking outside the box, thinking about that It does.
Yohanna: You know how like how to match people up because, and I can, and I can say this because when I interview our associates, when I interview some of our voyagers, they say like, oh, I had an amazing time. Oh, Sarah did this. Sarah did that. If it wasn't for this program, I don't know. You know, I wouldn't have known how to strategize my career.
Yohanna: Yeah. And my future or whatever. So I know that she's doing a really good job because it's impactful and people, you know. Talk about it, 
Gary: Sarah. Sarah's, Sarah's awesome, but they're gonna need people to mentor them after they leave the programs. 
Yohanna: Oh, yeah. Yeah. 
Gary: Because trying to navigate, um, career progression is, is, is difficult.
Gary: It's even more difficult now than it was before. 
Yohanna: I don't doubt it. That's time. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time. Gary. Is there anywhere that people can, can reach you online? Are you, are you active on LinkedIn? 
Gary: I'm active on LinkedIn. My email is gWashington@actiac.org. [00:24:00] Alright. Thank you, your Honor.
Yohanna: That's great. Thank you so much. This has been such an insightful conversation. Thank you for sharing your journey and experiences with us. And to our listeners, if you are interested in learning more about ACT IX Professional Development Program, be sure to check out act iac.org/professional development.
Yohanna: Until next time, keep learning, keep growing, and we will see you in the next episode.