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Who Will Replace Retiring Boomers? Possibly Other Boomers

Opinion
Apr 05, 20082 mins
IT Leadership

Every good IT management team is talking about the coming wave of retiring Baby Boomers. Well I just came across a report that might help. The Partnership for Public Service released an interesting report back in January entitled: “A Golden Opportunity: Recruiting Baby Boomers into Government.”

The report, contains some startling numbers, such as “the federal government will need to hire an estimated 193,000 individuals to fill mission-critical positions in such areas as public health, accounting, and engineering.” 

The major premise: “Government has a golden opportunity  to attract talented, experienced workers to federal service, but that agencies must take more action to effectively appeal to this cohort.” 

Why? Their survey suggest that older workers actually view the government with more skepticism than younger workers do.  

This report challenges much of my current thinking about the coming exodus of government workers. Might experienced professionals who had 30+ years of IBM or EDS experience join the federal workforce?  Yes, this issue is just as relevant for state and local governments as well.

Imagine this, a retired technology guru plays 18 holes of golf in Florida, before he/she connects to the Michigan state government office for a half day of work. Could this be a new working model?

I certainly think this report makes many sense, and it has major implications for governements around the US and the world.  What are your thoughts?

dlohrmann

Daniel J. Lohrmann is an internationally recognized cybersecurity leader, technologist and author. During his distinguished career, Dan has served global organizations in the public and private sectors in a variety of executive leadership capacities, including enterprise-wide Chief Security Officer (CSO), Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) roles in Michigan State Government. Dan was named: "CSO of the Year," "Public Official of the Year," and a Computerworld "Premier 100 IT Leader." Dan is the co-author of the Wiley book, “Cyber Mayday and the Day After: A Leader’s Guide to Preparing, Managing and Recovering From Inevitable Business Disruptions.” Dan Lohrmann joined Presidio in November 2021 as an advisory CISO supporting mainly public sector clients. He formerly served as the Chief Strategist and Chief Security Officer for Security Mentor, Inc. Dan started his career at the National Security Agency (NSA). He worked for three years in England as a senior network engineer for Lockheed Martin (formerly Loral Aerospace) and for four years as a technical director for ManTech International in a US / UK military facility. Lohrmann is on the advisory board for four university information assurance (IA) programs, including Norwich University, University of Detroit Mercy (UDM), Valparaiso University and Walsh College. Earlier in his career he authored two books - Virtual Integrity: Faithfully Navigating the Brave New Web and BYOD For You: The Guide to Bring Your Own Device to Work. Mr. Lohrmann holds a Master's Degree in Computer Science (CS) from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and a Bachelor's Degree in CS from Valparaiso University in Indiana.

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