In Step With: Gary Washington, Chief Architect, Food & Drug Administration
As a native son of the Mid-Atlantic, Gary Washington, who serves as the Chief Architect of the FDA, has the DNA to make a success of his position. Raised in Southeast Washington DC, Gary joined the Air Force right out of high school and spent ten years immersed in networks, mainframes and databases.
Control systems and the U.S. Air Force NCO Leadership School. After leaving the Air Force, Gary then went on to a 6-year stint in the private sector followed by a return to the Federal Government.
“I like the path that I chose,” said Gary. “The military taught me management and leadership; the private sector gave me a perspective into interacting with many different people and agendas. The private sector also exposed me to working with the government, which I find even today tremendously useful, knowing both sides of the equation.” Gary’s subsequent education includes a B.S. in Business Administration from Strayer University and a Master Certificate in Program Management from George Washington University. He has also attended the Federal Executive Institute.
An admitted introvert, Gary cites communication skills as a key element in making a success of his position as the FDA’s Chief Architect. “The current government initiatives of eGov (reinventing government from a technological base) and the FEA (Federal Enterprise Architecture, the OMB’s mandate that all agencies conform to a specific set of EAs) are pretty revolutionary at their heart. The government is reaching out to many people, focusing on synergies. That means that a certain part of my everyday work life is centered on talking to people and helping out. For me, communication skills - speaking, writing, presenting - are critical.
“The FHA (Federal Health Architecture) Food Safety Working Group that I lead is a great example of people working together”, Gary added. “We are creating a target architecture to govern issues around the food import processes. This is a straightforward example of the eGov initiative at work, where health issues for Americans become a primary Line of Business within the federal government.”
Gary’s private sector experience also contributes significantly to his ability to execute as the FDA’s Chief Architect. He functioned in positions as diverse as Systems Analyst, Network Administrator, System Architect and Program Manager, on his way up the management “food chain”. Working with broad implementations of technologies like Tivoli and Peregrine in the Health and Human Service’s (HHS) first agency-wide IT Asset Management initiative gave him a birds-eye view of architectural and meta-modeling issues.
“Everyone is my customer and whatever we produce has to have value and quality. We are focused on being business-driven and to communicate really well. I have found that building consensus, while challenging at times, is a cornerstone to real leadership,” Gary said.
So much so, perhaps, that Gary is the recipient of an award recognizing his Federal Health Architecture work recently endowed through the current Bush Administration. What does the future hold for Gary Washington? “I aspire to move beyond my current role as Chief Architect,” said Gary. “I want to stay in government but I am always keeping my eye on the next step. I believe in the value of OMB Chief Architect Dick Burke’s FEA initiative and I’ve experienced its positive impact first-hand. We need to focus more in resourcing Enterprise Architecture-it’s a great management tool and its importance needs to become more institutionalized within all our government agencies.”
by Jessica McMahon
