Steven Cooper

elding the myriad databases and computer systems of 22 federal agencies and retraining Homeland Security Department employees to use the revamped technologies is like "trying to change the tires on the car while it's moving 70 miles an hour," Steven Cooper told a House subcommittee in October.

But Cooper and his team have made some progress on that task. Last fall, they completed the first version of the department's "enterprise architecture," a document that describes the existing information systems and lays out a scheme for consolidation. The architects identified more than 700 software programs at work within DHS. Cooper has pledged to reduce that number substantially by December 2005.

The department's first CIO, Cooper joined the White House Office of Homeland Security in March 2002 and began putting together the data systems months before DHS was even born. He sought a post in homeland security after seeing the devastation of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, when he happened to be attending a conference in New York City. "As a result of that experience," he says, "I set out to contribute in some way."

Cooper's IT staff is integrating new and existing databases to make more useful information available to decision makers, and is placing particular emphasis on sharing information with officials outside the department at the federal, state, and local levels. The prospect of more information-sharing, however, raises the hackles of civil libertarians, privacy advocates, and others who don't trust the government to respect individuals' privacy. Critics have tried to block some Bush administration information-sharing initiatives, and they are keeping a close eye on Homeland Security IT.

Cooper, 53, came to the White House from Corning, where he was the CIO and executive director for strategic information delivery. At Corning, he became known as an innovator and something of a risk-taker. Previously, he was at Eli Lilly. Cooper's 20 years in the private sector, including jobs with contractors Computer Sciences, Maxima, and CACI, gave him some experience working with the federal government. A native of Washington, D.C., Cooper graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University.