New Image for Mapping Agencies

EXECUTIVE MEMO

New Image for Mapping Agencies

hile most federal departments are tearing down agencies in the name of reinvention, the Defense Department is building a new one: the National Imagery and Mapping Agency.

NIMA, as it will be called, will consolidate all government imagery and mapping resources. It is expected to start up Oct. 1.

The Defense Mapping Agency, with its 7,500 employees, will form the core of the new agency. Also joining NIMA will be about 1,500 employees from the CIA, the Central Imagery Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office and the National Reconnaissance Office.

Navy Rear Adm. Joseph J. Dantone, deputy director for military support of the National Reconnaissance Office, was named director of the NIMA implementation team. Dantone is expected to be promoted to vice admiral and named chief of NIMA when the transition is complete. Deputy directors on the implementation team include Leo Hazelwood, CIA's deputy director for administration, and Annette Krygiel, director of the Central Imagery Agency.

The new agency will have program and budget authority as well as research, development, acquisition, exploitation and production responsibilities for imaging and mapping.

As the largest Defense reinvention laboratory under the National Performance Review, the Defense Mapping Agency already has made great strides restructuring its operations, which should ease its transition to NIMA.

Since it was tapped as a reinvention lab in 1994, the agency has cut its headquarters staff by 50 percent and reduced policy documents by 40 percent. Where there were formerly 11 levels of management between a customer and an agency worker, there are now three. Those employees formerly assigned to the eight eliminated levels have been reassigned to customer support and production operations. In January, Vice President Al Gore gave DMA one of his Hammer Awards for its reinvention efforts.