The finalists for WashingtonExec’s 2024 Pinnacle Awards were announced Sept. 20, and we’ll be highlighting some of them until the event takes place live, in-person Nov. 21.
Next are GSA’s Jessica Marine, digital experience lead, and Andrew Lee, business management specialist. They are finalists in the Government Information Technology of the Year category for the GSA’s Charge Card Management program. Here, they talk about recent achievements, share career advice and more.
What key achievements did you have in 2024?
Following the launch of the minimally viable product, the team developed and rolled out features based on user feedback and need. Utilizing a login-less approach for the GSA SmartPay training website removed the need for users to reset forgotten passwords. This has resulted in a 90% decrease in help desk calls.
In Fiscal Year 2024, the ability to search for an entity’s 889 representation with the GSA SmartPay 889 Representations Tool saved procurement staff over 21,000 hours of time. A customer provided this feedback about the tool, “This GSA SmartPay 889 Representations Search and PDF of the 889 Representations Form is genius level effective.”
What are your primary focus areas going forward, and why are those so important to the mission?
The program is focused on:
- Maintaining a high standard for accessibility and serving as an example for all government websites,
- Ensuring that our websites are well-secured, addressing customer needs, and
- Continuing to develop features to address current and emerging customer needs.
This includes further design updates to improve content access for the GSA SmartPay program website, enhancing reporting and automation functionality for the GSA SmartPay training website, and including a mechanism to collect customer feedback for the GSA SmartPay 889 Representations Tool.
Together, these continued efforts support our mission by ensuring customers are able to efficiently access information needed for their duties.
What is your best career advice for those who want to follow in your footsteps?
Andrew: Don’t be afraid to try something new! This work was not in my anticipated career trajectory as a non-IT trained professional, but the exciting opportunity presented itself. Thanks to that chance, we identified an amazing intra-agency team to collaborate with, which included members from our partner development team, internal program team, contracting team, and our agency security team. It was definitely not comfortable at first, and we faced challenges I hadn’t experienced in my career; but the work was exciting and our agency leadership, portfolio leadership, and my program management was completely supportive. It was fun knowing we were doing something innovative and impactful.
Jessica: Be a lifelong learner! Try new things and take on new challenges.
Fun Fact: What is something about you that most people do not know?
Andrew: I am an avid cyclist and bicycle mechanic. My daughter and I take martial arts classes together several times a week, and it’s been great bonding time together!
Jessica: My first job was selling hot dogs at a hot dog cart. I also love to grow plants, but I have a black thumb and can’t keep anything alive.