It was on a sun-soaked corporate patio four years ago in New Mexico where Greg Woods took the first phone call that led him to Washington to take part in Vice President Gore's National Performance Review. At the time he was a ranking executive in an up-and-coming high-tech firm and his plans did not include a job with the Clinton administration. But two weeks later he was driving cross-country to apply his private-sector technology expertise to online government service delivery.
Woods who last month assumed the role of chairman of the Government Information Technology Services Board said he has given up trying to guess where life will lead him let alone trying to enact any sort of personal master plan.
Although Woods is willing to let his life simply unfold his approach to ensuring that the government rewires itself to provide electronic services to citizens is different. He is extremely focused on realizing the plans set forth in the Clinton administration's Access America Initiative which he claims still has a high degree of presidential support despite a personnel cut of 250 NPR employees from an office that used to employ 300 people.
Woods said he has working in his favor a tremendous arsenal of talent within the GITS Board group and a personal pledge of support from President Clinton. In 1993 Woods wrote the executive order on customer service which was placed before Clinton for his signature. "President Clinton then said to me `Every place in here where it says "the president shall " this president will ' " Woods said.
"And it is the job of the GITS Board to see to it that Access America is fulfilled " he added. "It comes down to a simple conclusion that by the Year 2000 anyone who wants electronic access to the federal government will have it."
Woods who now carries the title of deputy director of the NPR said that at every turn he has been given what he needs to accomplish the administration's electronic service delivery goals. "We've got the backing and the toys " he said. "All we have to do now is turn this into something Americans can use."
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