Talented, mission-driven professionals — some who left lucrative private-sector careers, others tracking lifelong roads of public service to serve — are now being pushed out of the very institutions they fought to improve. These weren’t side projects or token hires. They were seasoned professionals, some with decades of experience, brought in to modernize critical systems, close digital equity gaps, and help rebuild trust in institutions that have too often failed the people they serve. When we lay them off, it sends a clear message: Innovation is expendable. And people feel it.

This isn’t a story about loss. It’s about what it takes to say yes to service — and why the door into government needs to stay open, especially for those who’ve had to work twice as hard just to reach it.

A long road to “yes”

I came to this country as a Cambodian refugee. I didn’t grow up with a roadmap to public service. My family didn’t have connections in Washington, and we didn’t understand the unspoken codes of federal hiring. But we believed in this country — and I believed that government should be open to anyone willing to do the work. 

So I showed up. I waited months for onboarding. I filled out background checks that asked me to recall details from places I barely escaped. If you’re an immigrant or refugee, the clearance process isn’t just paperwork — it’s a trial of faith. You’re asked for documents you may never have had. You’re scrutinized for family ties to regions you fled. You’re questioned about timelines you barely survived. And all the while, you carry the quiet weight of knowing your origin story, not your ability, might be the reason you’re screened out.

And yet, we persist. 

Because we believed in the opportunity to serve. We know that this country doesn’t just need the most polished resumes. It needs lived experience, grit, and people who understand government — not just as insiders but as everyday users of its services. 

Because we believe that our experiences — our differences — are part of what makes this country stronger. We believe in the mission. And we’re willing to endure the gauntlet not for prestige or power, but for the chance to give back to the very system that gave us a second chance.

Because we believe this system doesn’t account for people like us — but it requires people like us. People with resilience, range, and a deep sense of mission.

And that’s why, even after all the waiting, the uncertainty, the second-guessing — I still said yes.

Not because it was easy. But because I believe the opportunity to serve — to shape the system from the inside — was too meaningful to walk away from. I knew that if I could make it through the door, I could help open it for others.

Why we still choose to serve

And I was fortunate because people believed in me. I had the opportunity to serve first at the Defense Digital Service (DDS), the Department of Defense’s “SWAT team of nerds,” where I worked on mission-critical programs like Project Rabbit in support of Operation Allies Refuge. Later, I returned to the department as the first-ever Customer Experience Officer and helped transform how our nation’s largest employer delivers digital services to those in uniform and those who support them.

The path wasn’t easy. But it was worth it.

What kept me going was the people: brilliant, mission-driven civil servants and digital leaders who believed that technology should serve the public, not the other way around. I was proud to stand beside them, bringing not just my experience from the tech world, but my lived experience as someone who knows what it means to build a life from nothing and still give back.

And now — even fewer seats at the table

As if the hiring process weren’t challenging enough, we’re now watching the table itself shrink.

Across government, layoffs, restructuring, and budget constraints are forcing talented, mission-driven professionals out of the very institutions they worked so hard to get into. Some of the most impactful programs, created precisely to bring in fresh perspectives and accelerate innovation, are being scaled back, defunded, or sunsetted altogether.

What’s worse is the ripple effect. Talented early-career professionals now see instability. Refugees and immigrants wonder if they were ever really welcome. Private-sector experts question whether the sacrifice is worth it.

This is more than just organizational reshuffling. It’s a loss of momentum and, for many, a loss of faith. We’re not just losing people; we’re losing trust, and that’s harder to rebuild.

The bar should be high — but the door should be open

I still believe in a high bar. These roles shape policy, security, and lives. They should demand excellence. But excellence and exclusivity aren’t the same.

Too often, our hiring systems reward familiarity over capability. They favor the polished, not the prepared. They assume that if you don’t speak the language of USAJobs or clearance investigations, you must not belong. That’s not merit — that’s legacy.

We can do better. We can build systems that uphold rigor and recognize resilience. That treats unconventional paths as assets, not risks. That makes space for the startup founder, the refugee, the self-taught technologist — the person who didn’t grow up imagining they’d work in government, but showed up anyway.

Final thoughts

Public service isn’t perfect. But it’s one of the few places where your work can outlive you.

I didn’t come from the system, but I was trusted to help improve it. I built things that mattered. I brought urgency where there was inertia. I advocated for the user when no one else was in the room. And I did it all with the perspective of someone who never expected to be let in and never took the opportunity for granted.

Keep the bar high. But keep the door open.

We can’t afford to lose them.

And we can’t afford to lose what they still have to offer.

This piece isn’t a eulogy. It’s a message to leadership: Don’t confuse short-term disruption with long-term disqualification. The people who were laid off aren’t gone — they’re watching. They’re weighing whether government will still make space for builders, reformers, and outsiders. If we let this moment pass without intention, we risk shrinking the very table we worked so hard to expand.

The post We came in believing. We left in silence. appeared first on DefenseScoop.

Now, following the official release of DOD’s new Fulcrum: IT Advancement Strategy on Tuesday, the Chief Information Office-led team that shaped it is moving to mobilize an enterprisewide commitment to the four, integrated directions the blueprint is organized around.

“I’m going to spend the rest of this calendar year making sure that we put in place the right governance structure to help oversee synchronizing the department to move out and deliver in these lines of effort,” Principal Deputy Chief Information Officer Leslie Beavers explained.

In an exclusive interview with DefenseScoop to preview Fulcrum ahead of its publication, Beavers shed light on Pentagon leadership’s vision for carrying out this next-generation IT strategy and what its realization could really look like for DOD.

“It was really important to crystallize the department’s vision into what success looks like, which is what we are attempting to do here in Fulcrum because I am trying to get program managers across the department — not just within the CIO organizations, but in all the different weapon systems program offices — to make decisions a little differently, to make them with the user experience in mind, to make them with interoperability as a priority first and really defining what success looks like, and giving them that vision,” she said.

Lean Six Sigma

CIO leaders aim to expedite DOD’s evolution from a hardware-defined to a more flexible, software-defined enterprise through Fulcrum, which builds on the flagship 2019 defense modernization strategy.

“This is really representing a maturation of that strategy. We were at the five-year point [in] the tech industry, the modernization journey — that’s why it’s not a new strategy. It’s an advancement of the previous strategy. It’s taking into account the new technologies that have been developed and, kind of, the changing world situation and how we are just providing that kind of refreshed vision for how we need to move out in the department in the next five years,” Beavers told DefenseScoop.

Unlike heaps of prior federal strategies, she deliberately ensured that this one wasn’t nicknamed with an abbreviation.

“I didn’t want an acronym — another DMS [for defense modernization strategy], or something like that. That just doesn’t inspire you to, like, want to read it,” Beavers said.

She opted to host “a little competition” amongst DOD colleagues to encourage a creative name for the new guide.

“Whoever came up with the name that I chose, I took to lunch. There were over 40 people involved in writing this document, by the way, from across the department. So this isn’t just Leslie-, or even CIO-team generated. This is a Department of Defense team-generated strategy. And because Fulcrum is at the pivot point between the national security strategies and the defense strategies, how do we translate those strategies into specific actions to take within the department to deliver those capabilities? That’s why Fulcrum really resonated with me when it was one of the proposals,” Beavers explained. 

In the interview, she emphasized that professionally she intentionally pursues a “Lean Six Sigma” managerial approach.

“You start with the customer experience first, and what are you trying to deliver for the end user or the customer? In this case, it’s the warfighter — and my experience over the years with being a reservist and having a lot of connectivity challenges is one of the main reasons why I’m here. So starting with, what does it feel for the warfighter? How we function from a warfighter perspective is most important,” Beavers said. 

In her view, the U.S. combatant commands are Fulcrum’s primary end users.

“We are very closely partnered with the Joint Staff, J6. I look at them as our main conduit into the combatant commands. And when I say ‘warfighter,’ I’m thinking of everybody, from at the combatant command headquarters all the way out to the soldier, or the Marine sitting on an island, isolated somewhere,” Beavers said. 

Broadly, the Fulcrum strategy is structured around four lines of effort that the document states represent “a strategic shift that embraces technology as a mission enabler.” They include:

• LOE 1: Provide Joint Warfighting IT capabilities to expand strategic dominance of U.S. Forces  and mission partners.
• LOE 2: Modernize information networks and compute to rapidly meet mission and business needs.
• LOE 3: Optimize IT governance to gain efficiencies in capability delivery and enable cost savings.
• LOE 4: Cultivate a premier digital workforce ready to deploy emerging technology to the warfighter.

Each of those lines is also supported by a series of strategic objectives that span Pentagon portfolios, which further detail the envisioned way ahead — and indicate clear, measurable mechanisms to trace teams’ progress.

“This really translates strategic vision into tangible actions that the warfighter should feel,” Beavers said.

Typically, government strategies don’t go “down to that level,” she added. But on Beavers’ part, this was purposeful — drawing from her unique background in the government and major corporations, like GE Healthcare and NBCUniversal. 

“[Often] in industry, the pervasive opinion is that if you don’t know your numbers, you don’t know your business. And in the [DOD], we know certain numbers. But I’m trying to really grow the kind of awareness all the way down into the organization — beyond just the CIO, or beyond just the senior leaders — to get after making tangible progress that they can tell the story on so that they can get the right resources to continue to grow,” the deputy CIO said. “These modernization initiatives and IT have not always been at the forefront of people’s minds as important things to fund, and they really, I think, should be.”

Notably, the launch of this new pathway and plan comes as the Pentagon and military are working hard to realize a number of next-generation initiatives, including but not limited to those to enable the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC), Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2), and an enterprise-wide cybersecurity approach based on the contemporary concept for zero-trust.  

“We’re facing a whole-of-nation threat, and it requires a whole-of-government, whole-of-nation response,” Beaver noted.

She continued: “So, I really want to foot-stomp that we’re only as good as our weakest link, especially in the cyber world. Taking to heart the cybersecurity and interoperability functionality — that — I need everybody to work on. This is not something that we can do by ourselves. Within the IT workforce, we’re less than 10% of the total workforce. We can’t do it for everybody, so we’ve got to have everybody pile on and help. If they are willing to give me a little bit of time and read Fulcrum, it’s a short read, but it would be very helpful.”

‘The Big Uglies’

Beavers’ unique professional experience spans decades and disciplines.

Her defense career began as an Air Force intelligence officer, and she ultimately retired as a reserve brigadier general. Before she took on this position within the Office of the CIO, she served as the director of intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance enterprise capabilities (ISREC) — where she led Project Herald, the under secretary of defense for intelligence and security’s Defense Intelligence Digital Transformation Campaign.

“That work absolutely influenced the Fulcrum work, because we just built on what we learned from Herald and scaled it up to the department. And so, we did have a lot of participation across the board,” Beavers noted. 

It took six months for dozens of DOD officials to develop, refine and agree upon the final version of the Fulcrum strategy.

“It’s lightning fast [for DOD],” Beavers said.

“I didn’t want a strategy that was in the silos. I needed something that was cross-cutting about delivering for the customer and that user experience, that customer focus is throughout the document. And to do that, you have to think of the outcomes. So, I started assembling that team in January. We really kind of rolled our sleeves up and had 40 people in a room working on it,” she explained.

Outside of her military career, Beavers’ leadership approach is also informed by more than 15 years of experience in multiple private sector industries — including as a vice president at NBC/Universal Pictures tasked with recovering 80 years of broadcast content destroyed in a fire.

“I tend to gravitate towards what I call the ‘big uglies,’ which is a quote that comes out of Disney’s Three Musketeers. Oliver Platt’s character says that when he runs into this guy in the dungeon, he’s like, ‘Oh, big ugly!’ and turns around and runs away,” she explained.

“But I’m the one that stands there and tries to sort out the big uglies and take on the areas that I think are foundational and really important, but maybe don’t get the attention that other kind of flashier options to work on,” Beavers said.

Though she did not refer to it in this way herself, one could argue that a Pentagon-central “big ugly” that influenced Fulcrum was the viral “Fix Our Computers” push.

“I think it’s a natural response. I would have done it without the Fix Our Computers campaign anyway, because I’m in the Fix Our Computers campaign — like, that’s what I’ve experienced. So we are, within the department, very aware of that challenge,” she said.

Now that Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks signed off on this new strategy, Beavers and her team are shifting to a phase where they intend to, as she put it, “mobilize the department-wide commitment to” executing on each of its four guiding inclusions.

“To do that, I’m going to highlight at least one area within each of the LOEs to champion and make sure that the governance processes that I oversee align with driving progress within that area. And so I’m working with the team on that, but [Mission Partner Environments, or MPEs] kind of very top of the list. The cyber workforce is top of mind,” she explained.

Officials involved are also generating even deeper, specific metrics that will be an annex to the overarching plan.

“So for example, if you’re saying, ‘Well my cloud implementation is pretty good, but I want to work on my cyber workforce stuff, what are the metrics? What should I be doing to develop that?’ So that will be coming out,” Beavers said.

Another in-the-works resource that will soon accompany Fulcrum is an associated implementation plan meant to firm up a distinct framework for carrying out the DOD’s fresh strategic vision.

“Then I’ll pick a few flagship efforts to champion, personally, to demonstrate for the department how to do this. Within the DOD, we’re pretty resourceful — and the whole ‘improvise, adapt and overcome’ [notion] is part of our DNA. When you do have these kinds of flagship efforts, other people will pile on. And so I’ll be looking for that to start happening. I think that’ll take another six or eight months before I’ll start seeing a pile on, but that’ll be my next benchmark,” Beavers told DefenseScoop.

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“This office will establish a data-driven approach, informed by network and user device performance data and continuous customer feedback, to improve the [Defense Department’s] user experience (UX),” Principal Deputy DOD CIO Leslie Beavers told DefenseScoop in an email on Tuesday. 

Broadly, the office’s staff will work to “develop strategic guidance, assess DOD’s performance, and align business objectives with user needs,” she said. 

Boosting customer experience across the department’s sprawling IT enterprise has become a top priority for Pentagon leadership over the last few years — including Beavers and Sherman, who first acknowledged plans to launch this new CXO office back in August 2023.

Six months prior, in Feb 2023, an investigation by the Defense Business Board revealed that user experience with DOD information technology was largely average or below average. And before that, in early 2022, defense personnel led a viral social media campaign urging top officials to “fix our computers.”

In response to questions from DefenseScoop on Tuesday, a Pentagon spokesperson said: “I can tell you this is not a direct result of the ‘fix my computer’ memo, but is a result of the Defense Business Board recommendation and the CIO leadership team’s years of experience in both the commercial and government [realms].”

The official confirmed on Wednesday that Savan Kong was tapped to lead the new CXO Portfolio Management Office, in a permanent capacity. According to his official bio, Kong previously served as a digital service expert for the Pentagon’s Defense Digital Service (DDS) organization, general manager at the tech startup Rebellion Defense, and as the first employee at the real estate giant Redfin.

On Tuesday, Beavers spotlighted some of the office’s early aims.

“Key near term initiatives include updating the Digital Modernization Strategy to better align with the Strategic Management Plan and current IT and Cybersecurity approaches, updating performance analysis programs and processes, and providing targeted programs with process improvement assistance,” she told DefenseScoop. 

Updated on Jan. 24, 2024, at 11:45 AM: This story has been updated to reflect that Savan Kong was tapped to lead the new CXO Portfolio Management Office.

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In October, the service’s Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George first told DefenseScoop about how he’d charged a team of Army Software Factory technologists to prototype such a tool — dubbed then “My Army Post” — in a bid to improve soldiers’ and their families’ lives with support from technology. 

Following that, the Army now “requires development of an enterprise mobile application that portrays a responsive, user-centric solution to address the specific challenges and demands faced by soldiers, dependents, retirees, Department of the Army Civilians, and installation visitors entering and exiting military installations,” and is tailored for each specific post, according to a new contracting document.

“An initial version of the mobile app, ‘My Army Post,’ was developed by the Army Software Factory (ASWF). It is undetermined if this requirement will incorporate use of ASWF efforts or if a new app will be requested to be developed by industry. Feedback from industry could assist in shaping any related technical requirements,” officials wrote in the sources sought synopsis. 

That 7-page document outlines a variety of features that Army leadership envisions for the final product, including information about local housing, spouse employment and child care options; senior commander messaging capabilities; map navigation and real-time gate traffic alerts; and more.

Officials confirmed that “this requirement may be set aside for small businesses or procured through full and open competition, and multiple awards may be made” based on responses they receive to this request. 

Notably, they also state explicitly that the “requirement will necessitate servers capable of handling Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) materials, Federal Employees and Contractors Only (FEDCON) shared with Department of Defense (DoD) contractors.” 

Those interested in providing feedback to the Army are asked to address 7 questions in their responses. Among other topics, officials want input on pricing and the contract types that could make the most sense for this pursuit — and on appropriate data and software rights. 

Responses are due by Dec. 6. 

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Broadly, DCSA is responsible for providing personnel vetting and protecting critical technologies associated with the Defense Department, and it operates as the U.S. government’s largest counterintelligence and security agency. Under that mission, the agency’s website serves as an integral public-facing portal for anyone who undergoes the federal background investigation and security clearance process.

DCSA’s roots trace back to the early 1970s, but it was restructured into its latest version in 2019 — the same point when DCSA.mil was launched. 

“Since then, the agency has changed and will relaunch the website with a newer look and feel. The new streamlined, user-friendly design will better meet the needs of today’s website users,” a DCSA spokesperson told DefenseScoop on Wednesday. 

The agency’s new and improved digital landing point is being developed and designed with increased functionality and navigation capabilities to improve and enhance the experiences of users who engage with its content and offerings. 

Some of the new features will include a sort function, better tagging of content and fewer layers of information. 

“The new site will be scalable, mobile-friendly, and will allow for easier access to newly developed personnel vetting and industrial security information systems our customers depend on. With the user in mind, the new site ensures the most frequently requested pages (such as e-QIP, or electronic questionnaires for investigations-processing) are easily accessible from multiple paths,” the spokesperson said.   

After conducting an in-depth review of everything it hosts online, DCSA took down all the materials that weren’t up-to-date, as part of this process.

“The majority of removed content was outdated, no longer relevant or has been superseded by more recent updates,” the spokesperson explained.

Officials within the agency expect to unveil the redesigned website during the last week of April.  

“Current users should plan for URLs to change and bookmarks to be updated,” the spokesperson said.

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“We’re refocusing on how we are achieving digital transformation. We’re taking a services-oriented methodology,” Pringle told reporters during a media roundtable at the annual AFA Warfare Symposium.

Formally approved and established on March 1, this new Digital Capabilities Directorate (DCD) is working to leverage best practices implemented by commercial companies to pave the way for more streamlined research processes and business operations, officials say.

The organization is fusing together formerly siloed elements of AFRL’s former Research Collaboration and Computing Directorate, as well as the lab’s former Business Process Reengineering Division and others. It also has roots that trace back to a temporary digital “war room” that was stood up to help drive innovation.

Much of the activities that were being conducted under those units will continue, Pringle confirmed. However, they’ll “be nested under this bigger capability that is more modern and aligned with how we operate in today’s world,” she said. 

AFRL officials involved in establishing the DCD are strategically working to help their colleagues “decouple” the data they rely on from the applications and tools they capture and model it in. 

“How do you think about that data as an asset of its own and manage it, so you can build that digital thread and know that you pick the same piece of data as the last person?” AFRL’s Chief Data Officer Andrea Mahaffey told reporters.

She noted that the lab is taking “very much an API-mindset approach,” referring to the term application programming interface — a software intermediary that essentially enables two different applications to communicate. 

“We don’t all need to be in the same tool, in the same platform or on the same network — we need the data to move across, and to get that data in the right hands of the right people,” Mahaffey said.

During the media briefing, AFRL’s Aerospace Systems Directorate Director Michael Gregg and Chief Enterprise Architect James Sumpter said the lab is utilizing a model-based approach and is being deliberate about balancing alignment, autonomy, automation, and agility in its in-the-works and existing architectures.

Officials said they are taking an iterative approach to innovation.

“We’ve got a big focus on architecting and building out the future of [information technology] for AFRL — and we call it the labverse. It’s an integrated digital infrastructure for science and technology,” Sumpter explained.

That virtual environment will host sensitive government workloads at impact level 5, officials also confirmed. 

Although the directorate and labverse associated with it are still nascent, AFRL officials hope to extend this experiment across the broader Air Force in the future. 

“We want to expand this as much as possible. So, that’s why we deliberately focused on managing our data first,” Gregg said. 

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