CSC Voices: David Bogan Honored as “One to Watch” by CIO Magazine

Back in college, CSC’s David Bogan spent a summer designing the lights and sets for a season of Shakespearean repertory. Thirty years later, he continues to apply that experience to his work in IT, where positive feedback is the exception rather than the rule.

“Every day you put on a show for your audience, your customers,” he explains. “Their expectation is you’re going to do that show perfectly every day. And the day you don’t is the day they notice you.” Which makes Bogan’s selection by CIO Magazine as “One to Watch”—recognizing the leadership, innovation and value he has brought to CSC for more than two decades—all the more gratifying.

Recently appointed vice president of global solutions and technologies for CSC’s Global Infrastructure Services, Bogan thrives on challenges. CSC, he says, has been a perfect fit. “CSC is one of those companies where you more or less create your own career,” he says. “And I’ve reinvented mine at least five times.”

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In bestowing the “One to Watch” Award, CIO Magazine highlighted Bogan’s “Up-in-Five” project, which reduced the time it takes mobile consultants to connect to CSC’s network from 40 minutes to less than five minutes. While Bogan is honored to be recognized by his peers, he’s quick to credit his Consulting Group team members—particularly Deputy CIO John Macioci—as the ones who “went out and made it happen.”

With a degree in American Literature and Theology from Maine’s Colby College, Bogan turned from liberal arts to computer science, at the time a nascent technology. “When I started in IT in the late 1970s,” he says, “computer science as a discipline barely existed. We were still using punch cards—terminals and green screens were new at that time. So the ability to be instantaneously in touch through instant messaging was inconceivable.”

At his first job—with a small company that became the core of CSC’s Consulting Group—Bogan concentrated on programming, database design and performance engineering consulting, which led to helping companies reengineer their IT functions. He then spent nine years as the first CIO for CSC’s Consulting Group, followed by another 17 months as vice president and corporate CTO. His management style: trust but verify.

“Spend your time fixing the 20 percent who have issues,” he says of employees under his supervision, “rather than constraining the 80 percent who are doing just fine.” In his new position, Bogan says he’s excited about focusing on the client side again, helping to develop service offerings from an outsourcing perspective.

For the past six years, Bogan has donated his time to Black Data Processing Associates (BDPA)—a national organization that encourages African-American high school students to become involved in IT—writing a programming problem for the annual computer competition, along with serving as the competition’s chief judge. And he has a new passion—organ donation awareness. In October 2006 he donated one of his kidneys to a friend with a genetic disorder and now wants to educate other prospective donors. “It’s not as complicated as you might think,” says the man who keeps challenging himself both personally and professionally. “I was in the hospital for three days and went back to work after about two weeks.”