The Lurita Doan I Know

Today the Washington Post reported that Lurita Doan, the GSA Administrator, will testify this coming Wednesday in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about recent reports of her involvement in the politicization of the GSA. The charges are serious and, if substantiated, she would be removed from her position in violation of the Hatch Act.

Before I discuss this latest scandal, I want to share my personal experience with Lurita Doan. I will warn the reader that I have a positive opinion of Lurita, and I ask that you take my bias into consideration when you read the following. Though we differ in our political views, I have immense respect for Lurita.

Lurita became the first female GSA Administrator on May 31, 2006. Before becoming GSA Administrator, she was the founder and sole owner of New Technology Management, Inc. (NTMI), a small federal contractor located in Reston, Virginia. She sold NTMI before becoming GSA Administrator.

I started working at NTMI in November of 2002. I worked there for four years. For part of my tenure there I led the technical staff in designing and developing a large-scale software application that helps detect and eliminate fraud for a large government agency.

During my time at NTMI I came to admire and respect Lurita. In a bit of coincidence it turned out that she and I attended the same college, ten years apart. Lurita is one of the most dynamic and charismatic people I have ever known in my life. She may also be the most driven and hardest working person I have had the pleasure of knowing. She has been a mentor to me and has been very supportive of me during my time at NTMI. In my long career in the IT industry, she is one of the few CEOs I have met who earned my respect for her honesty, her hard work, and her ability to communicate effectively and build rapport at every level in the company. I am grateful to have known her and have learned much from her.

Lurita is also nothing if not blunt. She will tell you what she thinks and has a very low tolerance for excuses. When she is in a room with you, she commands and demands attention by the sheer force of her personality. Her bluntness has made her many enemies in her short tenure in the government.

Those of us who worked at NTMI knew that Lurita was a long-time supporter of the Republican Party and the Bush Administration. In fact, she was one of the speakers at the 2004 Republican National Convention. She has also met with Mr. Bush as a woman small business owner in 2004 and was cited by Mr. Cheney in his speech at the Small Business Administration in 2003. So, it did not come as a surprise when she was nominated for the position of GSA Administrator.

However, unlike companies like MZM (which I wrote about yesterday) and their meteoric rise, NTMI’s business did not benefit from Lurita’s Republican Party ties. A look at NTMI’s contracts will show the less than stellar performance by the company over the last six years. I should know – I slaved over preparing many responses to RFPs only to be outbid by companies offering a better price or with more experience or leverage. NTMI’s fortunes dwindled when the company graduated from 8(a) status (the graph of NTMI’s revenue trend here will leave no doubt when NTMI graduated from 8(a) status). NTMI struggled, like other government contractors (with the exception of MZM and other shady outfits), to compete for bids in full and open RFPs against much larger and well established companies such as SAIC, EDS, CSC and others. It was an uphill battle in this competitive environment and NTMI suffered as a consequence.

Lurita has been a champion of women and minorities in business. Her appointment to the post of GSA Administrator was supposed to be a step forward for advancement of minorities and women in government. It was widely expected during her Senate confirmation that she would bring her energy and her drive to the GSA after a scandal-ridden period in the agency’s history.

Lurita replaced Stephen Perry as the GSA Administrator. Mr. Perry, you will recall, resigned in October 2005 in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal. Mr. Perry resigned two weeks after David Safavian, Perry’s chief of staff, was arrested for obstructing justice and his connections to Jack Abramoff. I should note that it was during Mr. Perry’s tenure that companies such as MZM, with no experience or revenue, mysteriously obtained multi-million dollar blanket purchase agreements.

Lurita was expected to clean up the mess at GSA:

Investigations in 2003 revealed the agency’s procurement organizations, particularly its Federal Technology Service regional shops, had parlayed their reputation for quick turnaround with few questions asked into a scandalous misuse of technology contracts.

…

Doan, who stepped in more than half a year after Perry quit on Oct. 31, 2005, was expected to clean up the mess. She seemed primed for the job.

 

Doan exudes energy. She leans forward to emphasize points. She gesticulates. She visibly reacts with displeasure or pleasure. Her voice grows animated. She groans audibly when she hears something or encounters someone she doesn’t like. She is not shy.

 

But within weeks of her Senate confirmation, she picked a fight with NASA over the future of its Scientific and Engineering Workstation Procurement. She was accused of saying that the GSA inspector general’s staff "terrorized" regional administrators. She angered an already irritated Defense Department by resisting limitations on using Defense dollars.

…

Despite her energy, some of Doan’s efforts have backfired. The Office of Management and Budget renewed NASA’s governmentwide procurement contract and told her to "avoid unnecessary discordant publicity on this matter." Late last year, she capitulated to the Pentagon on how quickly its funds must be disbursed.

She picked the wrong people to pick a fight with in trying to eliminate government waste. She may have also made some political enemies inside and outside GSA who were accustomed to the Bush Gravy Train:

Contracts specific to a department or function of government, such as the Navy’s Seaport, a 2004 IT contract, and the Homeland Security’s Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge Solutions, an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity technology acquisition, compete with GSA. For years, agencies other than GSA have run technology contracts open to all agencies. Doan contends they waste tax dollars.

 

"We just don’t want duplications," she says. "If it’s a unique requirement that’s being supplied by a particular [agency’s governmentwide contract], that’s fine." Otherwise, procurement should go through GSA, Doan says. Only GSA covers its costs by collecting fees as opposed to using appropriated funds, she asserts. Other agencies might say they’re not using appropriated money to support contracts open to all, "but unless you absolutely carve out your costs for your rent, you carve out your costs for the air you breathe, practically . . . then there’s an added burden to the taxpayer," she says.

I always suspected she would make powerful enemies with her style. She picked a fight with the biggest guy in the schoolyard – the Defense Department contracting office. It was probably a matter of time before she was pushed out.

Immediately after her tussle with DOD and NASA, articles appeared in the Washington Post about her falling out with the GSA IG and her attempt to offer a $20,000 contract to a long-time friend. Now the scandal has gone into overdrive because White House political staff were coaching GSA political appointees in a videoconference that was presided over by Lurita. This latest scandal reeks of the same politicization of the government that the U.S. attorney scandal reeks of. Given the central role GSA has played in the Jack Abramoff scandal and in the Duke Cunningham/Gonzogate scandal, it rings true that the White House is involved in across-the-board politicization of government.

I am disappointed that Lurita is alleged to be involved in the latest scandal. I eagerly await Congressman Waxman’s hearing this Wednesday to learn more. I do hope the investigation does not stop at Lurita. I expect, like in Gonzogate, that the Congress will hold the White House accountable and not be satisfied with being thrown scraps. With her blunt style and her immediate attack on government waste she is ripe to be thrown overboard by this White House as scrap.

Finally, I wrote this diary, from a personal point of view, partially because I saw an alarming diary on Daily Kos that called Lurita an unconscionable name. I hope, as we continue to ferret out corruption in the Bush Administration, that we do not lose sight of who we are and what our mothers taught us.

Thanks for reading, and now let the flaming begin.