One on One with Arc Aspicio's Lynn Ann Casey

Casey: Yes, certainly having a secretary with that level of understanding of immigration policy and border enforcement would be great. It would definitely ease the transition for sure.

Consulting: What kind of work does Arc Aspicio do?

Casey: We do core management consulting and a little bit of IT consulting. So we do some Web design and social networking technology, and we do communications related to how the Department of Homeland Security communicates with, for example, passengers, or related to emergency response, emergency management. We work exclusively with the Department of Homeland Security.

I worked for Accenture [for more than a decade], and as I progressed in my career and worked more with law enforcement and with customs I realized that I was just really passionate about this area. And then 9/11 happened. I had already been working with the agencies that were the precursor to the Department of Homeland Security so it was a logical continuation of the work I had been doing before. It was really a mission and a passion I had before 9/11. The government was doing a lot more after 9/11 implementing new policies, new ideas. And with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, it opened up a huge amount of opportunity. We have been asked to work in other places and we really decided that focusing and becoming real experts in the homeland security mission actually provides a lot of value to the government. They want that expertise, they need consultants to understand exactly what their policy challenges are so that we don't have to come up to speed every time we have to do a new project for them.

Consulting: Are you working with other consulting firms for DHS?

Casey: From a traditional management consulting perspective, we come across Deloitte a lot. They work with a lot with the Department of Homeland Security. [We come across] Sapient; Booz Allen [Hamilton] is huge—they're probably the biggest management consulting firm working with Homeland Security. We work on projects with all those companies because a lot of companies have to work together—either work on contracts together [where] we team together, or we have separate contracts but we need to help integrate what the government is doing. So we end up working with each other a lot.

Consulting: Anyone from another firm working for DHS jump ship to Arc Aspicio?

Casey: Well, we've hired people from Accenture, DSC, Northrup Gruman. So we've definitely hired from other large companies that work with the government.

For us, we actually hire people with a consulting background because, as a small company, we have more senior people who need to come in and hit the ground running from day one. We don't have the luxury of being able to train people who are right out of school. We have to bring in really seasoned people who have worked with Homeland Security before. So when we recruit, we recruit form larger companies who do this kind of work for the government.

Consulting: How does President-Elect Barack Obama's views of technology affect your work?

Casey: President-Elect Obama has talked about having a chief technology officer, and he talked about continuing the dialogue that he's had with the voters in his new role, and I think getting citizens involved with the government every day is really an exciting prospect. I think if they're going to be using a lot this social networking technology and still communicating with citizens via e-mail or with blogs or with new other social networking technology—maybe they will still continue to use YouTube and Facebook to get people more active and involved in the government—I think that would be incredibly exciting.

Since one of the things that we with do with Homeland Security is Web design, it definitely impacts what we do from a consulting standpoint because there will be more projects to implement the social networking technologies for the government. I think it's a great opportunity for the citizens to understand more what's going on day to day and how some of the policy decisions really affect them. And that could be really exciting.

Consulting: Did the election affect your current contracts?

Casey: No, and it probably won't have an effect on contracts until probably I would say at least into the summer. So it will take a while for the new administration and their key appointees to come in, so it really won't be affecting contracts I would say until maybe August because the new administration can't make changes that quickly. The government just doesn't move that fast. They're going to be more focused on policy issues up front, and you won't see those policy issues being implemented as projects until at the earliest next summer probably.

Consulting: How would the transition have been different if the same party had stayed in power with a Sen. John McCain win?

Casey: Either way it was going to change. So perhaps with President-Elect Obama, it will be a little bit more of a change, but I really think it would have been a pretty significant change if Sen. McCain won has well.

Consulting: Why is that?

Casey: I just really would have expected the Republicans to bring in a lot of new blood and have a lot of change as well. Certainly in the department we work in, in Homeland Security, and even in some of the related departments, like the Department of State and Department of Justice, there was definitely a weariness in the administration that was in. They had been working so hard; they had accomplished quite a lot in these areas, so I think it's a logical time for a lot of the political appointees to leave at any transition, in any adminstration's transition. And of course the political appointees serve at the pleasure of the president so the president could ask them to stay on. But I think it would have been significant either way.