As the U.S. Army addresses a sweeping scandal involving records keeping and other problems at Arlington National Cemetery, they're turning to Washington-area tech companies for help.
The Northern Virginia Technology Council on Friday announced it is working with the Army on a pro bono basis to assess information technology issues that led to poor recordkeeping, wrongly marked graves and other problems that have tarnished the hallowed national landmark.
Under the agreement, 15 members of the technology council volunteered to assess computer and IT issues at the cemetery and recommend improvements.
Included in the assessment program are locally based companies and organizations ranging from contracting giants Booz, Allen, Hamilton and CACI to theConsumer Electronics Association (CEA).
The scandal at Arlington began to surface in June, when an Army report found that cemetery officials apparently squandered more than $5 million that was supposed to pay to upgrade and computerize burial records and information about grave locations.
An Army investigation found that the cemetery's longtime managers were still keeping records on 3-by-5 index cards in some cases - something that the former Arlington officials acknowledged at a Senate hearing last week.
At one point in the hearing, Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown held up an iPad as he angrily addressed the ex-managers.
"We've got cell phones … we've got (iPads and other computers) and you guys are still using 3-by-5 cards?" a bewildered Brown asked.
The agreement between NVTC and the Army was brokered by Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, who announced at a Capitol Hill press conference Friday that the Army had accepted the offer.
"This is corporate citizenship at its best," Warner said.
A former wireless industry executive and investor, Warner has close ties to the region's technology industry. When he learned about the problems at the cemetery - a place he drives by each day on his way to Capitol Hill - he naturally began to think about the potential of technology to help, said Warner spokesman Kevin Hall.
"He comes out of the northern Virginia IT community," Hall said. "And he knew the NVTC was one of the largest groups of its kind in the country."
Bobbie Kilberg, president and CEO of the NVTC, said she and members of NVTC's board - many of whom run big Defense IT contracting companies - were discussing the Arlington scandal at a meeting in June and trying to figure out what they could do to help.
"The members of our board were just horrified," Kilberg said. Coincidentally, "litererally not 20 minutes later … (Warner) called and told me he thought NVTC would be the perfect vehicle to make a pro bono offer to help."
Under the agreement, the 15 NVTC member companies will do a complete assessment of what went wrong with recordkeeping and what needs to be done to bring computer systems up to modern-day standards.
Group members plan to meet with Army officials beginning next week, Kilberg said. Completing the assessment may take several months.
"We're going to take a total look at what they have, what they don't have and what it takes," to fix it, she said.
Every one of the companies got involved because they care about Arlington and because their leaders were disgusted by the revelation of problems at the cemetery, she said.
"They were simply horrified … they were simply on fire about what happened there and they wanted to do something to help."