When Defense Digital Service Director Brett Goldstein took the helm of the Defense Department-specific branch of the U.S. Digital Service in 2019 as its second director, the coronavirus pandemic and its consequences would have been impossible to imagine.
A year and a half later, DDS is supporting Operation Warp Speed, the government’s effort to facilitate the development and distribution of a vaccine for COVID-19, with a primarily remote workforce that has virtually onboarded around 30 new employees. Nextgov caught up with Goldstein this week to talk about 2020 and the road ahead.
These excerpts from the conversation have been edited for clarity.
Nextgov: As this year wraps up, what has 2020 been like for DDS?
Brett Goldstein: So 2020 has been a bit of a different year for all of us. At the beginning of the year it was a remarkably normal year. We were growing the team. I would never really call our projects normal, but we had the normal portfolio diversity. I was a road warrior. That was very normal.
As we get to the end of the year, things have pivoted where obviously we're in the heart of COVID. We have a primarily remote team. And the great thing behind that is two pieces: one, we went to remote capability without missing a beat. And that's something that I'm really proud of. Two, we've grown the team substantially during COVID. And within the DOD that's not normal, to be able to remotely swear people in, onboard them, get them hardware, deal with getting them up to speed on all these issues. So we've not only sort of hit our stride in this but we've grown.
From a project perspective, we've pivoted a good chunk of the portfolio to supp ..
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