Patrick Schambach

or some managers at the new Homeland Security Department, dealing with mundane issues such as how to get office supplies or telephone numbers has been a headache. The new department has found it difficult to ramp up its support systems fast enough to ensure that all parts of the emerging organization can hit the ground running.

But for Pat Schambach, chief information officer and chief technology officer at the Transportation Security Administration, now part of the Homeland Security Department, working under time pressures in a new, high-profile agency has been a way of life for more than a year now.

Schambach joined TSA in February 2002. By August, the agency had awarded a $1 billion contract for information technology products and services to Unisys Corp. Unisys enlisted more than 30 other companies, both large and small, to be members of its team for the IT Managed Service Program. It covers the full range of TSA's hardware, software, communications and cybersecurity needs.

The acquisition approach Schambach is using, called managed services, is a form of outsourcing. It focuses on results and gives the contractor some latitude in choosing the most appropriate technology to achieve the agency's objectives.

For Schambach, the lack of an existing IT infrastructure at TSA may be both a blessing and a curse. He doesn't have to work with outdated technology that is too deeply embedded to be discarded, as happened in his previous IT management jobs with the Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

On the other hand, he has to make every IT selection from scratch, without relying on precedent. One way he has dealt with the latter challenge is to decide upfront that all the systems at TSA will be Web-based. Most of the technology will consist of standard commercial products, rather than custom-built systems.