Interview: Setting standards for information-sharing

摘要

When he was a student at the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1975, master parachutist Dale Meyerrose got the news no Air Force cadet wants. He was not, in the view of the Air Force, qualified to fly airplanes. On the academy's career day, "I had such a bad attitude that I walked up to the first table and said, 'Sign me up,'" Meyerrose said. He had landed on the communications electronics path. By 2005, Meyerrose was director of communications architectures for the North American Aerospace Defense Command and Northern Command in Colorado. Back in Washington, Congress and the Bush administration had established an umbrella organization -- the Office of the Director of National Intelligence -- to smooth the intelligence bungling that contributed to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, then the office's principal deputy director, suggested Meyerrose to the White House for the job of chief information officer. The Senate confirmed him, and Meyerrose got to work on the information portion of the U.S. plan to revamp its intelligence community. Meyerrose spoke to Editor Ben Iannotta about his information-sharing initiative, the presidential election and the issues that a new administration will need to address.