Steven Cooper

hen the Homeland Security Department opened for business on Jan. 24, its employees' e-mail was up and running, along with Web sites for external and internal users.

That achievement was the work of Steven Cooper and his team. Cooper, the department's first CIO, joined the White House Office of Homeland Security in March 2002 as senior director for information integration and special assistant to the president for homeland security.

Melding the business systems of 22 agencies and retraining all 170,000-plus employees to use their common systems is no simple matter. But it may be the least challenging part of the CIO's job.

Cooper's IT staff is pulling together new and existing databases to make more useful information available to decision-makers. Creation of the Homeland Security Department will have been in vain if the newly joined agencies cannot benefit from each other's knowledge and exchange information with others at the federal, state and local levels, Cooper told an industry group last fall. He has launched efforts to share law enforcement, public health and emergency services information.

However, the prospect of more information-sharing across government raises the hackles of civil libertarians, privacy advocates and others who don't trust the government. These citizens have sought to block some Bush administration initiatives to share intelligence information in the interest of homeland security, and they are keeping a close eye on Cooper's work.

Cooper came to the White House from Corning Inc., where he was CIO for the corporate staffs and executive director for strategic information delivery. Previously, he was IT director at Eli Lilly & Co. His 20 years in the private sector gave him some exposure to the federal government at contractors Computer Sciences Corp., Maxima and CACI.