NSA Lacks Slots, Pay To Hire Top Tech Talent

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7536-2000Jul30.html

By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 31, 2000; Page A17

When it comes to work-force problems in the federal government, the
National Security Agency is a lot like the proverbial python that
swallowed a pig: A huge bulge of employees hired in the boom years of
the 1980s is moving slowly through the supersecret bureaucracy,
leaving little room for anyone new to come into the system.

This is exactly what NSA wanted throughout the Cold War. It stressed
loyalty and eschewed layoffs as it remained largely a mystery to the
outside world, intercepting electronic communications all over the
world, breaking enemy codes and encrypting the nation's most sensitive
communications.

But now such paternalism is clouding the very future of an agency that
is uniquely threatened by a new assortment of hard-to-intercept
communication technologies and unable to quickly respond. The NSA is
short on newer workers with cutting-edge high-tech expertise.

"We have a huge problem, with the age of the work force and the very
little hiring that we're doing behind that," said Deborah A. Bonanni,
the NSA's chief of human resources services. "To try to completely
churn and turnaround this work force without having a reduction in
force is a very difficult problem. There is no silver bullet for
that."

It's actually even more complicated than that. While the agency
doesn't have enough positions to offer new workers with cutting-edge
computer skills, competition with private industry is fierce for those
it is trying to fill.

"We're getting people in, but for engineers and computer scientists,
we're roughly $5,000 to $8,000 below entry-level salaries [in the
private sector]," said Bill Cottrell, deputy director of the NSA's
Office of Employment. "We're trying to sell the mission. It's
attracting people. Are we where we want to be? No."

Depending on level of education, entry-level engineers can earn from
$41,927 to $59,094 at NSA; a computer science specialist, from $38,481
to $49,615; and a mathematician, from $38,481 to $62,680.

And while competition is stiff for people coming out of college, it's
even more intense for the agency's own mid-career computer scientists,
who are suddenly resigning in large numbers, lured away by companies
that have no trouble increasing their $60,000 to $70,000 salaries to
$90,000 or more.

"We're losing some of our best computer scientists," Bonanni said.

To free up space for hiring young people with modern skills, the
agency is continuing to offer early-out retirement incentives and
$25,000 bonuses. Beginning in 1993, those incentives were open to all
as the NSA retrenched after the Cold War--a work force that once
numbered in excess of 40,000 employees has contracted by almost a
third since then.

But now, only those employees with outdated skills are eligible for
early outs and separation bonuses--computer scientists need not apply.

Within the past several months, the NSA has also begun denying
internal transfers to those with critical skills--it used to encourage
a computer scientist, for example, to work as an intelligence manager,
but no more.

There is no easy way to offset the salaries computer scientists are
now being offered by the private sector, just as government salaries
make it next to impossible to to bring mid-career computer scientists
and innovators from private industry into the agency.

"No matter how many things we try--and we have some very good programs
that we offer--there's a certain point at which it becomes impossible
to compete with huge salaries and stock options," Bonanni said.

The NSA's recently announced decision to turn over to private industry
the development and management of most of its nonclassified
information technology in a single, 10-year contract will have major
work force implications.

Worth as much as $5 billion to the eventual winning bidder, the
contract will eliminate by 2002 the jobs of 1,200 to 1,500 NSA
employees and an additional 800 contractors now working in
nonclassified network management and security, workplace computer
systems, telecommunications and network development. All of the
affected federal employees, however, will be guaranteed jobs at
equivalent salary levels by the winning bidder.

But the agency's review of what to outsource and what to keep in-house
could eventually involve mission-critical technologies that involve
new ways to intercept digital communications or break encryption
software.

With its work force evenly divided between support and "core"
employees, the agency wants to realign itself so that 60 percent of
its people are working at "core" functions. All current hiring
involves only core personnel.

"We have," said Bonanni, "some real strategic decisions we have to
make."

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