Q&A: Mary M. Irvin
GIF 2010 Volume: 8 Issue: 1 (February)
Mary M. Irvin
Director
Source Operations and
Management Directorate
NGA
Previously, Irvin served as director, Office of Geospatial- Intelligence Management (OGM) and led NGA’s activities in the management of resources that constitute and support the NSG. She oversees the development of NSG strategic planning and concepts, functional and program guidance, and architecture analysis. She also led the NSG requirements process, which identifies, coordinates and formally documents GEOINT requirements for validation by DoD’s Joint Requirements Oversight Council and ODNI’s Mission Requirements Board. She is responsible for the assessment of GEOINT programs and functional performance within the national intelligence and military intelligence programs, and also oversees the planning, modeling and simulation for future GEOINT systems and capabilities.
Additionally, Irvin served as deputy director, Office of International Affairs and Policy. She also served as the director of NGA support at the National Security Agency. In this capacity, she was NGA’s senior representative to NSA and led a team of geospatial-intelligence officers in collaborative intelligence projects with the agency. From 2002-2004, Irvin served as the deputy director of the Office of Asia Pacific in the Analysis and Production Directorate.
Throughout 1996-2002, Irvin held several positions at NGA, including budget chief and chief of staff within the Financial Management Directorate, and served as the agency liaison to the assistant secretary of defense for command, control, communication and intelligence. In 1996, she was on the transition team that formed NGA, formerly the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, merging portions of several intelligence agencies and defense mapping.
Prior to the standup of NIMA, Irvin held several leadership positions with the Defense Mapping Agency (DMA). These positions included division chief for digital production, and various supervisory positions within the program management offices. Irvin began her career with DMA, writing sailing direction publications and performing bathymetric research for the Chief of Naval Operations.
Irvin has a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology from Boston College, and a Master of Science degree in technology management from the University of Maryland University College.
Irvin was interviewed by GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly.
Q: What is your role as director of the Source Operations and Management Directorate?
A: That’s an interesting question, because it keeps changing. I actually have two roles—leading the Source Operations and Management Directorate and serving as the delegated functional manger for source collection for the GEOINT community. Each role gives me the opportunity to work many issues, not only for the agency, but more broadly for the intelligence community, our civil users and for our military partners. Source is a dynamic organization, with many challenges. First, I need to make sure all sources of GEOINT are discoverable, accessible and useable. Regarding our geospatial data, I need to make sure it is accurate and current. We have so many disparate sources of GEOINT coming at us, whether from space, airborne, ground or open source. The only game in town used to be national overhead, but that game has changed. It really has given my team an opportunity to look at things differently, within Source, with opportunities both inside and outside the organization to influence and make a difference. Constant change is the name of the game, and that really makes my life entertaining. I’d be bored without a lot of challenges on my plate and, to be honest, I’m really having fun.
Daily, I really need to stay ahead of the pack. By “the pack” I mean all who are building GEOINT-related capabilities. I need to get out there, stay informed and make sure my team influences capabilities being developed—before we see them flying by the window. Occasionally we discover capabilities when they are well into development. We need to be in the game as the asset is being developed so we can ensure consistent standards and interoperability are part of the design. This is functional management in action.
Open GEOINT source is another frontier for us to manage. It is Source’s responsibility to make sure the information out there is discoverable. If we work this one right, we will be able to get much of the information we need from the open source environment for free. As a taxpayer this really interests me.
Q: How is the directorate organized, and where does it fit within the overall NGA?
A: As I said before, my responsibilities are to make sure that GEOINT sources are discoverable, accessible, exploitable and useable, whether it’s the raw imagery itself or geospatial data and information. A key ingredient that makes all of our work successful is the people. The talented workforce within the Source organization is formidable. We have a huge responsibility to ensure that the tradecraft—from collection to geospatial production—is shared with the community.
So how are we organized to make sure we succeed? Source is organized around some key areas: collection, geospatial data production, commercial partnerships, expeditionary support, functional management and strategies and business planning. I spoke earlier about collection. This business line has expanded tremendously, and the team of experts in Source who run this operation do a tremendous job of bringing the best asset to bear on a problem set. Source’s geospatial team, with a longstanding history in the “mapping business,” continues to produce what our partners need, while delving more heavily into the data itself—creating a more flexible environment for geospatial production.
In the commercial realm, we have been very busy. As you are aware, we are in the process of working with industry on the next leg of the commercial imagery journey. We are working over the next few months to execute our Enhanced View contract. This will allow us the opportunity to take greater advantage of an unclassified asset, making it easier to share with both our coalition partners and with our humanitarian support activities. We’re taking advantage of the commercial products with the Haiti crisis now.
Now onto expeditionary support: What is that all about? We have been supporting the troops, and that doesn’t change. What I put into place was an element that has a laser focus on support to the crisis operations—whether in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region or closer to home in Haiti. The team oversees all Source operations related to these events.
I mentioned earlier that I am the delegated functional manager for Source collection. A group of folks in Source manage this activity at a very high level, extending beyond the limits of Source to the greater GEOINT community. Keeping all this activity straight is the responsibility of the strategy and business planning team. This group keeps us focused on satisfying the goals and objectives in our strategy, using metrics to keep us on course. We have a terrific communications team that keeps us on message—one message.
Q: What do you see as the chief policy and technological issues that you have to contend with in your work with industry?
A: One area that we struggle with is security classification and accreditation. I know that there is concern by industry that the government process is long and tedious. Yes, it is. Government bureaucracy and policies do cause things to move more slowly than industry would like. As industry partners, you can help us by focusing on security from cradle to grave, embedding it into the processes, and developing new capabilities with security classification and accreditation issues in mind. Interoperability and standards are another concern. We struggle with this issue not only with our industry partners but also across the GEOINT community. We need to build with minimal standards in place to make certain that interoperability is achieved.
Q: What initiatives do you have underway for improving the directorate’s work with industry?
A: I already mentioned our EnhancedView initiative. Let me focus on a few more. One is the Transforming Operations and Production to Services Cooperative Research and Development Agreement. The focuses are on business processes and services as an activity, and looking at innovative business processes for collecting open source information. We have a lot of opportunity with open source, which as I see it is a truly untapped resource. Another initiative is with the Global Geospatial Intelligence [GGI] contract. This contract area is not new. It allows for NGA to work with industry in geospatial production. Where we have changed a bit is that we are now inviting the GGI contractors to sit in on foundation-based operations sessions with our community partners. The intent here is to allow for a better understanding of the geospatial needs of the community.
Q: What is the role of the Geospatial Open Source Management Authority?
A: The GOSMA gives us an opportunity to facilitate the transition to an end-to-end global open source architecture, making sure that open source GEOINT is readily available to the user. GOSMA led to the development of the open source strategic implementation plan. It sets the stage for us, with goals and objectives in place, to really change the way we operate. Open source has always been used, but through the GOSMA and its implementation strategy, we can “officially” sanction its use. There is a lot of publicly available information out there. If we are able to sift through it all and find some solid information, it will save us from having to create it ourselves. We christened the GEOINT Open Source Center of Excellence this past year. We work in concert with the DNI’s Open Source Center in a complementary fashion. Our 2010 goal is to teach analysts to “fish”—to teach them to go after open source GEOINT as part of their daily operations. I really believe there is a lot of earth yet to be plowed in the world of open source.
Q: What is your view of the current state of persistent surveillance capabilities, and where would you like to see them develop in the future?
A: We’ve talked about this a lot, most recently at the GEOINT Symposium in San Antonio. What is persistence? Is it the ability to loiter or is it where you bring all available assets to bear against a specific point of interest? There are different ways of looking at this issue, because you can persistently go after an issue by using a variety of capabilities, or you develop a platform that individually loiters. I always go after the holistic approach, which is to bring all assets to bear against a problem. You get more creative with your solutions that way. In the long run it’s more effective and more efficient. From a community perspective, we need to broaden the view and see how a variety of assets can more effectively be used to tackle some tough problems.
Q: What are some other programs and initiatives you have underway?
A: There are a couple of activities I’d like to discuss. One is an activity focused on source assessment and integration. It’s a communitywide effort led by Source that assesses non-programmed GEOINT sources for potential use in the GEOINT puzzle. Once assessed, and the asset is deemed useable, we do what we can to bring it into the fold. To date we have assessed over 50 airborne capabilities. Another initiative is Rapid Delivery of Online GEOINT. We are working with our commercial imagery partners to provide time-dominant delivery of commercial imagery for those who need it. It is unclassified and ortho-rectified so you get situational awareness and currency, in a shareable form for the warfighter and in support of humanitarian support.
I do get concerned with the volumes of GEOINT coming at us. If I may steal a quote, we will soon be “swimming in sensors and drowning in data.” How do we capture what we need, going after only the relevant pieces and letting the rest go? Industry can help us get there. So what keeps me up at night is making sure we get the right GEOINT to those who need it, making sure they know it exists, and it is accurate, current and accessible. ♦