Award-Winning Women Lead the Way In Tech at the Department of Veterans Affairs

By Presidential proclamation in 1987, the Nation proudly celebrates March as Women’s History Month. Women create innovative environments with their knowledge, techniques, and skills. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Office of Information and Technology (OIT) seek more women leaders in our information technology (IT) landscape to represent and serve the Nation’s Veterans. With the population of women Veterans becoming the fastest growing demographic among Veterans, and despite technology being a male-dominated field, we recognize the opportunity to continue increasing the number of women developing the technology that serves them.

According to Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology and Chief Information Officer Kurt DelBene, “The mission of VA is second-to-none for technical people seeking a career where they are applying their skills to services that matter in the lives of Veterans, their families, their caregivers, and their survivors. Part of modernizing and making an organization that people want to join is to continue building an innovative, diverse, and inclusive workplace. Our goal is to be an on-ramp for women pursuing leadership roles by hiring, training, and promoting innovative and mission-driven staff so that they can succeed here and wherever their career takes them.”

VA will continue to focus efforts on recruiting, hiring, and maintaining an environment built on diversity, equality, and inclusion to bring the best IT talent to VA and wholly represent Veterans and the Veteran community we serve. Although historically, careers in technology are dominated by men, with women representing only approximately 26 percent of the field, OIT is positioned to be a leader in Government and a catalyst for the private sector in closing the gap on gender equality.

In the last year, women in OIT have streamlined processes and identified solutions to problems with astounding results within their organizations.

Tracie Loving is Director of the Office of Organization Development and Engagement in OIT and a recent Women in Leadership award winner. Her commitment to fostering a positive workplace culture that encourages employee development resulted in OIT being named a 2021 Best Places to Work in IT. According to Ms. Loving, “As an organization, we listen to the employee voice to cultivate an environment where everyone feels seen, heard, and appreciated.” To achieve Ms. Loving’s goal, OIT collects staff feedback through an office-wide Employee Engagement Survey (EES) and Department-wide All Employee Survey (AES) to assess and track individual workplace experiences related to communication, teamwork, career development, and workforce leadership. Once EES and AES results are aggregated, Ms. Loving leverages the data to identify positive factors that drive employee satisfaction or detect opportunities for improvement within OIT.

Employee of the Quarter highlights women’s achievements

As we seek to recruit more women to fulfilling careers in technology and make our organization a more attractive place for industry talent, we look to these women for inspiration, women who are making it happen here at OIT. According to Mr. DelBene, “In OIT, we’re fortunate to have a wealth of talented staff, many of whom are women leaders in IT. We celebrate those delivering on VA’s mission and look forward to welcoming new innovative and mission-driven women to our team.”  

In no particular order, we also highlight the achievements of the following women, recognized as Employees of the Quarter 2022 in OIT:

• Chris Mayo joined VA in 2021 and serves on detail to support the implementation of the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act, one of the most significant expansions of Veterans’ benefits and health care in VA’s history. Supporting PACT Act implementation is one of Chris’ favorite assignments in her extensive career, and she sincerely appreciates working shoulder-to-shoulder with professionals passionate about improving the Veteran experience.
• Ann Danowski is one of only two GS-11 Subject Matter Experts (SME) among GS-12 senior technicians, an IT Specialist within OIT. She is a member of OIT’s Access Management Specialties team, which develops emails and employee accounts for residents, interns, students, and trainees for all VA Administrations s, like the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) and Veterans Health Administration (VHA), and VA Central Office (VACO) Staff Offices. During periods of increased hiring, her team enables new employees to connect to the electronic systems required to perform their jobs. In response to a surge in hiring in VHA, Ms. Danowski, alone, completed 22,959 jobs in the ServiceNow system between May and June 2022.
• Laura Phillip is an InfoSec IT Specialist for the Compliance, Risk, and Remediation Compliance Readiness Directorate in OIT. Her work involves explaining IT security and privacy compliance requirements, analyzing audit findings from the Office of Inspector General (OIG), and facilitating solutions to improve OIT business partners’ ability to provide quality service to Veterans. Ms. Phillip filled a gap that many had overlooked. She completed 391 Plan of Action and Milestones (POAM) recommendations to OIT information system owners, creating 230 POAM items to address OIG audit findings. She strives to improve her professional knowledge to help her team best and maintains various active certifications, including Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Authorization Professional (CAP), and Project Management Professional (PMP), for which she regularly attends webinars and leverages VA’s wealth of training courses.
• Rachel Brown is a Program Analyst in OIT. She has worked at VA in various capacities before settling in OIT’s Compliance, Risk, and Remediation Service. The skills she’s learned through the years — paired with her diligent work to lead corrective action plans — have had a tremendous impact on OIT’s compliance posture, helping to reduce open Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommendations by 35 percent. Together, she and her team have validated 100 percent of GAO findings on high-impact systems for closure.
• Yvette Williams is an Inventory Management Specialist who managed 170,000 pieces of IT equipment totaling $64 million in value across the Department to support Coronavirus Disease 2019 surges and national programs. She is part of a team that manages, stores, and ships equipment Nationwide, all while maintaining excellent customer service. Ms. Williams is a Veteran with a background in logistics and has been with OIT for almost 10 years. She constantly strives for self-improvement and is pursuing a master’s degree in organizational development and often uses the knowledge from her classes to understand her team’s dynamics and become a better leader. In addition to her efforts for professional development, she is also an advocate for the success of those new to VA.
• Regina Pankowski began her career in Federal service working at the Architect of the Capitol, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Homeland Security. In May 2020, during the height of the pandemic, she transitioned to OIT, where she’s a Management Analyst. One notable achievement was streamlining the way her team captures and manages data. Ms. Pankowski reviewed several handbooks and workflow process documents as part of her virtual onboarding process. After taking an Excel class on pivot tables, she realized an opportunity to automate data reporting to save time and create data efficiency. She began building a pivot table to avoid time-consuming manual data collection. This tool has enabled the team to make process improvements based on historical trends and perform workload analysis captured in the data. She estimates that the pivot table system captures 10 different types of data sources in real-time and all in one place, improving her team’s overall efficiency. In addition to developing new systems and resources, Ms. Pankowski is always looking for ways to improve. She continues to take Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat training, which she considers very beneficial, especially as she becomes more familiar with the team’s workstreams.

Forge your path as a woman in technology

The outstanding achievements of women in technology and the contributions they bring to their teams and the Nation’s Veterans are tremendous, and we celebrate this month in special recognition. OIT will continue growing our representation of women in IT, and we welcome those who want to succeed in this field to apply for a meaningful career at VA. While private sector tech companies might be downsizing, VA is hiring. OIT continues its push to recruit, train, and retain a diverse, inclusive, innovative workforce through our current hiring efforts. We seek to fill vacancies for many positions and offer a comprehensive compensation package, including generous leave, retirement matching, and more. Plus, employees maintain a 40-hour work week and may find remote positions available in addition to alternative work schedules. Visit the USAjobs website to learn more about an exciting career in technology with OIT and the benefits of positively impacting the lives of Veterans, their families, and their caregivers.