ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Frank McDonough had a distinguished career in the federal government working in the Department of the Navy; Department of Health, Education and Welfare; Department of Treasury and the U.S. General Services Administration.
At GSA, he oversaw the acquisition of information technology and telecommunications for the entire federal government for years. This included approving agency's acquisitions, reviewing agencies management, acquisition, and use of IT and telecom and creating numerous other programs to mitigate risks and train program managers and acquisition officials. He served as Deputy Commissioner and in several other titles just under the Administrator of GSA.
He created many government-wide programs to improve the acquisition and management of information technology across the government as well as improve the acquisition, program managers and technical workforce.
During his career at GSA, he:
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Created and chaired the United States Federal Interagency Committee for Information Resources Management.
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Built the Trail Boss program that graduated 1,300 Federal major system managers to manage the 100 million dollar systems in the government.
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In coordination with 20 universities, he organized the 1000x2000 program to develop 1,000 of the next generation of senior IT managers for the U.S. government by the year 2000.
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Authored numerous reports on topics to improve the acquisition and management of IT such as “Grand Design,” “Service to the Citizen,” and “The Age of Computers in the Federal Government vs the Private Sector.”
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Organized the first five North American Day discussions between senior Canadian, Mexican, and United States officials.
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Served as the United States delegate to the G8 Government Online Program.
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Established the Information Technology Resources Board (ITRB) to review major troubled systems in the US government and to provide guidance for corrective action.
In addition, he initiated the US' relationships with many other countries and represented the US with several international IT organizations. He was the Chair of the International Council for IT in Government Administration (ICA) for two years and created the programs for international IT conferences through ICA for five years. ICA is a 29-member non-profit association representing countries in Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas. He was honored as one of few Honorary Life Members.
Frank was a mentor to many within GSA and across government who went on to have very prestigious careers.
Since 2010, Frank taught mid-career graduate students in Mexico City for the University of Texas-Dallas.
Frank has long been an expert in the future of government as it relates to digital government. He has published papers, authored the “Spring Training for the Major Leagues of Government,”and blog posts. He was a regularly requested speaker on the management of IT in government.