Changing the World - Booz Allen Hamilton

found that national capabilities to
fight or prevent a cyber-attack are
significantly lacking. Although the
threat of such an attack is intensifying,
the report notes, the information
technology talent needed to
combat it is inadequate. The study
recommends, among other things,
the naming of a White House cybersecurity
coordinator and federal
funds for cybersecurity training
throughout the government.
Government workforce
Booz Allen and the Partnership
for Public Service, which promotes
improvements in the government
workforce, also teamed up on the
study “Unrealized Vision: Reimagining
the Senior Executive Service,”
or SES. The research found that
the 7,000-strong SES, made up of
elite career executives who are supposed
to rotate among government
agencies and bring their leadership
skills to the supervision of 1.9 million
civilian employees, has been in
large part a failure. The study recommends
ways to ensure that SES
members renew their attention to
strategic leadership.
Tricia Ward /
Women as
Security Leaders
> In 2008, when Tricia Ward was elected vice president
of the San Diego chapter of Women in Defense (WID),
a national organization that supports the advancement and
recognition of women in national security, she was already
leading Booz Allen’s multimillion-dollar Space and Naval
Warfare Systems Command account. “I wondered if I would
have enough time, but I was very interested in getting involved
with Women in Defense at that level,” she says.
A retired US Navy senior chief who is a senior associate in
San Diego, Ward was the founder and chairperson of a local
WID Symposium featuring prominent women from the military,
the government, private industry, and academia. “The agenda
addressed a range of leadership challenges,” says Ward,
whose goal for the event was threefold: to increase awareness
of WID, to grow and diversify the chapter’s membership,
and to raise money to start a mentoring program and establish
a scholarship fund. Booz Allen was the title sponsor.
She accomplished all three objectives, and February 2010
marked the event’s second year. Today, Ward is vice president
of WID’s national board of directors.
2009 annual report | changing the world 49