The GovNavigators Show

Joel Hinzman: The Man Who Crashed the Internet (And Wired Congress)

• Season 4 • Episode 149

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This week on the GovNavigators Show, we're joined by Joel Hinzman, one of the most seasoned voices in government technology and policy, and a member of the GovNavigators Network. Joel has been walking the halls of Congress and the executive branch longer than most, and his career reads like a history of modern government IT. He helped move the House of Representatives onto the internet, put the Starr Report online (and yes, crashed the servers doing it), and spent years at GSA overseeing IT modernization and acquisition policy, before heading to Oracle.

In this conversation, Joel breaks down where Congress still struggles with technology, why AI is the next big test for Capitol Hill, and what the sweeping changes at GSA mean for companies trying to do business with the federal government. He also shares what he's up to now, helping clients navigate procurement, budgets, government affairs strategy, and how to actually turn lobbying relationships into business results.

Show Notes:

What's on the GovNavigators' Radar:

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Mar 27

SPEAKER_01

Welcome everyone to the Gov Navigator Show, a government-focused program that won't make you seasick. We're the Gov Navigators. I'm Robert Check. And I'm Adam Hughes. We hope to enlighten and enliven your week with news and insightful entertaining guests, all on the topic of government management.

SPEAKER_02

Enjoy today's episode of Gov Navigators brought to you by the creative geniuses behind the award-winning podcast Fedheads. So Adam, another week's gone by and the doors over at DHS remain shuttered.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. It's it's starting to be like a real thing now. Second shutdown for DHS this year, too.

SPEAKER_02

Although I had two girls depart the house on planes this week. Neither of them had the least bit of trouble getting out.

SPEAKER_01

Thanks to the dedicated public servants at the Transportation Security Administration.

SPEAKER_02

That's right.

SPEAKER_01

I miss them, but it's a hard grow fonder. You mean your girls, not the professionals at TSA, right? Okay, just checking.

SPEAKER_02

Anyway, we don't know when it'll open back up again, and I've not seen any thaw in the negotiations.

SPEAKER_01

No, it's not looking great right now. So although they're about to get a new secretary in a couple of weeks. So yeah, maybe that'll help.

SPEAKER_02

I noticed the markup is Wednesday. The mark the hearing is Wednesday and the markups on Thursday. Anyway, they're moving pretty lickety split on that nomination.

SPEAKER_01

Is he in that? Does he get a he can't vote right on his own nomination if he's on that committee? That's tough. That's tough. I feel like that's one in the bag. It's good to go if you could do that. That'd be nice.

SPEAKER_02

But the administration hasn't let up the a new executive order on cybersecurity came out. Yeah, it's not voluminous. Only the essentials. That's the theme.

SPEAKER_01

The bare essentials. The bare essentials, yes. I the the length and substance of the strategy does not necessarily mean that it's not a good strategy, but it is definitely a little light on details. They did say in the executive order that there will be forthcoming guidance from OMB and elsewhere about how to implement the strategy. Then why why put a strategy out at all then if you're not going to have some substance in the strategy? I don't know. I did appreciate its focus on fraud. True. Which, as we all know, the vice president is is heading up the new war on fraud in the federal government. So, and and we sort of say that tongue in cheek, but having senior level focus on an issue like fraud can do a lot to help make it more of a priority at agencies and can move the needle.

SPEAKER_02

So I don't know who is rolling things out in the administration, but cyber executive order seems like a big deal, but it was obviously overshadowed by the leap release of OMB circular A123. Shouldn't they have parsed those out a little bit?

SPEAKER_01

Maybe. Although I'm not sure what metrics you're using to say it was overshadowed.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Well, maybe in your in your worldview.

SPEAKER_02

A123 was released. Another focus on fraud. For those of you who don't know, which is none of you, A123 governs the internal control regime that agencies employ to ensure they're operating well, efficiently, and achieving their objectives. Another focus to on fraud, to make sure your controls are adequately preventing fraud so we don't have to go chase it. Yep. Which is always better. They got a little dig in at GAO. GAO publishes the Green Book. I know you know all this, Adam. Of course. Which which it sets the standards by which internal controls are designed and then audited. But OMB said you don't need to pay attention to that. That's because that's a GAO. Don't don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain. Didn't miss a chance to poke him in the eye.

SPEAKER_01

Speaking of pissing matches, we've been commenting on and writing in the newsletter about the issues at the Department of War with Anthropic, and a new wrinkle has emerged in that, in that there is a bipartisan group of senators who have proposed to create a federal AI commission, hoping to have it advise and produce materials and resources that can help in sticky situations like when an administration tries to ban use of a specific company's tool as opposed to a more generalized policy statement about the use of AI.

SPEAKER_02

That's sort of what Sam Altman suggested recently. I also noticed they've lost some senior talent as a result of the said pissing match.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. No, and lots of lots of ripples of this. And and will be continued, obviously. Anthropic has said it will it'll pursue relief from these decisions in the Trump administration in court. And you know, not that that hasn't happened in other areas. The Trump administration is used to that.

SPEAKER_02

So but they'll get it all figured out.

SPEAKER_01

I'm sure eventually it'll be all buttoned up nicely.

SPEAKER_02

I can't wait to spend time with our guest.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, this is gonna be there's some great stories coming your way.

SPEAKER_02

Another episode featuring one of the great members of the Gov Navigators Net Network. This one might be the one I've known the longest, Adam. That's it. We should have we should have some stats like that on the website. Joel Hinsman most recently served as vice president of public sector and engagement at Oracle. Joel, thanks for coming on.

SPEAKER_00

It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02

So tell us, you know, give give our listeners a little walk down memory lane and and your storied career, because in my view, you're an institution. You've been walking the halls of Congress and the executive branch for a long time. You've seen the evolution of public policy around government management evolve in so many ways. So so give us the uh 411. Is that a can we use that expression anymore? Do people even know what that means? The kids don't, but I think everybody else does. Okay. Joel, go.

SPEAKER_00

All right. If we want to talk my background, I oh I fell into this in the oddest way. I graduated with two liberal arts degrees. I had a minor in poli-si, mostly English and communications. But I realized that graduating in the middle of a recession, I needed to make some money. So I ended up becoming a liberal arts guy who became a techie. And I was a systems administrator, a systems engineer at Boeing. Somehow I qualified for that, but I could fix computers. And at that time, the House of Representatives was looking for techies who liked policy. I'd worked on a campaign in the state of Maryland for Senate, an infamous one, which will remain nameless. And I started up, I got an offer to go to the House Veterans Affairs Committee. And that was exciting. I was their system admin. And when problems with the VA's IT systems came up, and they were working on VISTA and their electronic health record and everything else, they turned to me one day and said, We don't understand this. You are now professional staff. And that's how my policy career started. And I was on House Veterans Affairs for a couple of years, and then I ended up getting picked up by Bill Thomas, former chairman, and moved over to House Administration Committee, which is the committee no one knows about that runs the House and the Ledged Branch. And I um I had the fun job of moving the House of Representatives onto the internet, and we actually worked on that for a number of years. I got the Thomas website, which is now Congress.gov.

SPEAKER_02

That was a Ginders thing, right? He called it Thomas. Is that right?

SPEAKER_00

Funny how Thomas became the name of it. They it was a quote for Thomas Jefferson, and hopefully the chairman's not listening to this podcast. But uh, it's amazing that the chairman of the House Administration Committee had you know the Thomas website. Bill Thomas, Thomas, you know, yeah, who knows? And then I also uh what else got worked on getting cameras installed in committee rooms and getting committee hearings on the internet. It's your fault.

SPEAKER_01

It is my fault, actually. Joel, this is like some groundbreaking stuff. Like I actually didn't know any of this about you that you were you were at the the forefront of dragging Congress kicking and screaming into the technology age.

SPEAKER_00

It was me and uh DJ Smith and the speaker's office were working on it, and you know, it was sort of a fun job because it was so far behind and people are so resistant. I mean, I remember when I started up there, they were very worried about what would happen if we had email.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, they were happening like it would be bad, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And constituents are gonna email us. So, how in the world are we gonna respond to that? You're laughing, it's true, it's true, but it just it seems so ludicrous now in retrospect. It does, doesn't it? But yeah, that was a big deal, and actually make you know, be able to access the internet over email. It was, you know, it they were concerned about that. That was right when I was starting at the very beginning, and as it went along, I eventually got involved more in policy and also in politics. I ended up also being the coalition's director for the committee. I worked on census issues as well, and I also started working a lot with other committees on you know their initiatives, what they were doing. So I I had a great experience on the Hill. I was, you know, sort of in the middle working with leadership, other committee chairmen, etc. And then the Bush administration came along, and I had a friend, some folks I know who were moving over to GSA, and they asked me to come over to overlook their telecommunications contracts and IT modernization for the government. So, you know, small little jump, but kind of in line with what I was doing.

SPEAKER_01

I thought you were gonna say you had a great experience on the hill, and then you made the mistake of going to work at the General Services Administration. That's true too. So what as one GSA or to another, I I I feel you on that.

SPEAKER_00

Actually, I had no idea what I was getting into when I joined GSA, and I didn't realize just how in the middle of everything it was. Yeah, you know, just completely, yeah, that operational agency, one of the three management agencies. Of course, we always defer to OMB, Robert. Of course, yes, of course, absolutely, absolutely, and in fact, we felt like extended staff of OMB. Oh doing the Lord's work in the Devil's City, absolutely. So uh GSA, I worked on you know, IT modernization, congressional investigations. I had a lot of misuse of government funds pop up, and then I sort of fell into this. I was the congressional affairs person, but the only political person on the boards for the Federal Acquisition Service, the Federal Supply Service at the time, those eventually became FAS. And then Office of Government-wide policy. So I was handling all of those from the congressional side, but I was the only political involved with them regularly. And you know, they had far more political appointees now than they did back then, but it presented quite the number of issues, and then somehow one day I was walking down the hallway, and the person who was the acquisition advisor to the administrator turned to me and said, You're now in charge of acquisition policy. Congratulations. Just wrong place at the wrong time. Yeah, yeah. And so I, on top of everything I was already doing, I was also doing the political review of all acquisition policy ideas that were going to O and B or that get communicated through the interagency process. And I was signing off for GSA, working with the legal team and you know, the pan of acquisition as well. So I did that for what is it, three and a half years. And when it came time to decide if you were staying in or going out, I had a couple offers from the private sector. And after I think at the time I was handling 11 different congressional investigations, who knows how many pieces of legislation, policy changes, etc. And they were kind enough to come to me and go, hey, we want to move you up and give you a couple people. I said, I think I'm gonna go to the private sector, and so that's when I joined Oracle. What a great story, what an unbelievable career. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

It was go ahead, Adam. No, no, you go, you go.

SPEAKER_00

I felt like you were about to say no, I was saying it it was a lot of it, right place, right time, but also getting to work with a lot of great individuals. You know, when I was on the Hill at House Admin, I was working with all the different committees, all all the IT people, but all the IT initiatives that were going on. Got to work with CRS, the Library of Congress, and you know what they were doing on their digital transformation. The one story I'll tell you was when I crashed the internet. Do tell. I'd be happy to. So you'll remember way back when with the Clinton investigation and the Star Report.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, yeah, we go way back when I stood in line waiting for my copy in the rotunda of the canon building.

SPEAKER_00

So when we had the vote on the floor of the house to release the star report, I was standing behind the chairman, and when they the vote passed, I want to interrupt.

SPEAKER_02

Let me interrupt. Please. There may not, there may be people who don't know what the star report is.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah, that's for sure. Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. As because we're definitely dating ourselves. Kenneth Star report was an extensive report that led to the Clinton impeachment hearings. And Kenneth Star was a special counsel investigated into the Monica Lewitsky scandal. I'm sure folks have heard of that. A couple other, many other things. It's you know, about a foot high when it's finally printed out.

SPEAKER_01

You need to read something on the top shelf, you can just get right up on that.

SPEAKER_00

Get you up there. And yes, that so it was very famous at the time. Lots of revelations. There were, you know, it's and it's the first time they ever really released something on the internet. Yeah. That deep, investigative, that sort of thing. And people are lined up to get it. Well, at the time, just before the release, I was I was a staffer who then walked out to the speaker's lobby after the vote and met up with the special counsel's representative. And then the two of us hopped on the subway, went over to the Rayburn building, we had it on a disc, and we stuck it on the internet with the help of the clerk's office. And we proceeded to crash the internet as every news organization was trying to get a copy of the star report. It totally clap and crashed the house servers. And so at the you had journalists who could access it through the house intranet, intranet, but not through the world wide web.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And we're reading it online. Now, the best part of this story was after I met the special counsel and we're riding over to the Rayburn building, he turned to me and said, You're gonna put this on the internet. And I said, Yes, yes, we are. He goes, Well, what if we got it wrong?

SPEAKER_01

You're like, What am I supposed to do with that question?

SPEAKER_00

I go, that's not my problem.

SPEAKER_02

That's right. That's right. Yeah, tools. And so I said, This is coming out one way or the other. Yeah, it it's and so yeah, because my recollection is is it was so hard to get online that people were really interested in the hard copy, and every office got a single copy. So we had to stand in line, get our copy, and then there was like a line of reporters waiting to look at it.

SPEAKER_00

It was so in the basement of the house, both parties have their you know, conference operations where they have these giant printers to get out documents at the time. It wasn't as electronic, they're about the size of you know, they look like aircraft carriers and about the size of a room, yeah, a long room. And so they're printing those off like crazy, and then putting them in three-ring binders and handing them to every office is how that was going. Because the CBO didn't have it yet.

SPEAKER_01

For you, for you young folks out there, too. I try I have a hard time convincing my children of this when we talk about it, but this is like the dawn of the internet. This is people are dialing up through their phone to get access to data, and it was slow and clunky and awful. So having that many people want it, this was a big deal to have that much effort put in trying to get this that you shut down crash servers overnight.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah, because the only people who had fast business, yeah, were offices.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, no one had a high-speed line at home. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of dial-up back then. So in in recognition of this, the clerk gave me one only they only printed a hundred full copies of the entire thing through GPO, and I have one of those sitting in my base. Actually, no, on a bookshelf with all my other political memorabilia here at home.

SPEAKER_01

In case you ever, you know, you have trouble sleeping one night, you can go back and review the review the highlights.

SPEAKER_00

I I want to get it signed. Unfortunately, I never did, but I wish I had. So, Joel, this okay, so go ahead.

SPEAKER_01

This me this leads me to to this question, which is we've just spent a good amount of time going down memory lane talking about these sort of massive changes, not just in Congress, but in society. It feels like we're sort of at a at an inflection point with that again with AI, but I'm interested in your take on on how you see Congress and what Congress has been doing over the last few years. And are they farther behind than they were when you were setting them up with email and the internet? Or tell a little bit about your your viewpoint on that from technology in Congress right now.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, technology and Congress could use a major upgrade. If you look at Congress, you know, Congress, the way it's set up, it's an impossible situation from an IT point of view. Because in the House, you have 435 plus independent organizations. Each member can run their own operation, they get to choose what they have, etc. That makes supporting it exceedingly difficult and setting up central services for them exceedingly difficult. You know, it it's the same with the Senate. The Senate has a little more unification through the sergeant at arms. This is way too technical for anyone who ever needs to know any of this. But having been in the middle of it, but yeah, they're far behind. They're trying to embrace it. You know, it's certainly better than it used to be. You can access hearings on YouTube, you know, it's easier to get transcripts. Congress.gov is an impressive website now. You know, what you can do on that and how you can track everything. Yeah. But I think now embracing the AI and you know using more technology is something they've always struggled with. And they've got a ways to go. Yeah. And and Congress, you know, the other part is you have small staffs trying to support huge projects at the committee level, you know, at the member level. It's you know, the resources are limited there.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and I feel like the staff is smaller than it used to be, and they don't stay as long either. That's um very true. Well, and you and you're reminding me too, when I started in the Senate, one of the first things I was supposed to do was redo Center Comrades' website. And it I think it was the year before I was there, they the sergeant at arms had rolled out there's only three, you can't just go out and get your own website backend software. Not that there was a ton of great options back then either, but they had they had done a shared service where that you could pick from one of three providers, and they had a nice little thing on the internet where you go in and you pick one and you're good to go. All paid for centrally, like the office didn't have to pay for it. So, but that was 2009, and it had just started with that.

SPEAKER_00

So it's the same with the house, especially on constituent service and the other stuff, but it hasn't changed much since then.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, correct.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. And then when you look at the centralized systems, too, you know, the way the place operates and what's available to the members, it's not exactly up to date.

SPEAKER_02

So right, this is fantastic. We're about out of time, Joel. Tell us what you're up to these days.

SPEAKER_00

These days, I'm working with different clients on everything, uh, mostly all focused on government, everything from piloting through the government acquisition process, looking at how government is not only acquiring things, but modernizing. You know, this these changes at GSA to move to one government, one GSA has having a huge impact. And it's really changing the market, how agencies buy things. You know, the government's trying to move to a more centralized system. So I'm trying to help clients navigate through that. You know, we're also navigating through these budgets up and downs, and you know, diving into that and advising, you know, okay, it's probably going to get done, what's going to get done, you know, what's not, and also helping them think about where they need to invest, where opportunities are, et cetera. And, you know, trying to provide that as well. And then guiding them through their government affairs operation. I do a lot. Of consulting on how are you using your lobbyists, how are you using your government affairs shop, your coalitions, your associations, how are you thinking about employing them, et cetera, and trying to give them a more holistic view and how to leverage their assets to get to what they really want to achieve. A lot of folks will join associations or have a lobbyist who will help them, you know, go meet members of Congress, which is great. But how are you using that to achieve business goals is what I try and do. Well, they're lucky to have you. And we're grateful that you spent time with us. I'm I'm grateful to be involved with you guys. I'm excited about what you're doing. I'm excited about this network and enjoying the opportunity to work with you.

SPEAKER_01

Great. Thanks, Joel.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

So, Robert, amazing, amazing stories. And that's the kind of top quality stuff you get when you you're a member of the Gov Navigators Network. That's right.

SPEAKER_02

Stories like that get paid by the hour. That's right. Exactly. Okay. What's happening this week? Well, it's St. Patrick's Day. I don't know how my brogue is.

SPEAKER_01

So that's both the that's a national holiday, obviously, right? Everyone's off tomorrow.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, we're both Irish, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I'm a little Irish. You're a lot Irish.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, half Irish. And the other half didn't like being Irish, so but I'm driving conflict to be an Irishman. Especially gets me a few extra kisses. Yeah. But St. Patrick's Day is also coincidentally the day of AGA's Technology and Transformation Summit. You think everybody's just gonna be hammered at that?

SPEAKER_01

I mean, they're ending early, I hope. Gonna lose a lot of people on the last panel, is my guess.

SPEAKER_02

We'll have time to recover by March 19th for RSM's webinar on AI governance and responsible adoption in government. True. So we sort of talked about that already in the program. So worth watching. The PRAC Pandemic Response Accountability Committee is advertising an event Grantus Fraudus.

SPEAKER_01

Fraud and grant programs, I think. Okay, I got it now. No, I get it. I so they're not going to be like there's no jousting or gladiator events at this. I didn't say that. I don't know. Tien Deep and Bach in a gladiator outfit. That totally. He's a lot of fun. Yeah, maybe that's where it's going.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Well, a lot going on. Busy week. Oh, and the NCAA tournament starting. So March Madness, Thursday, Friday. It's a national holiday in my house, I'll tell you that.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, no one cares about that. March 27th is Act IX AI hackathon.

SPEAKER_01

You almost forgot. Good plug. Yeah. Lots to all that stuff will be in the show notes. So check it out, folks. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Gov Navigator Show, brought to you by GovNavigators. We sure hope you enjoyed it and learned something in the process. And didn't get CTIC. Right, of course. If you want to know more about us and what we're up to, please follow us on social media or visit govnavigators.com. Ahoy!