Ryan Cali fishes for technical debt — and smallmouth bass

Ryan Cali is the new chief enterprise architect in the Office of the Chief Information Officer at PEO EIS. In that role, he is responsible for serving as the lead solution architect and engineer, developing technical solutions and providing quality assurance. He also acts as EIS’ technical debt collector — making sure the organization makes the right application and infrastructure decisions now to avoid negative business impacts later.  

Cali came to EIS after doing highly specialized information technology work for several industry vendors and the U.S. Marine Corps. Like another recent EIS recruit, Cali is a resident of the great state of West Virginia. He recently answered questions about his background, interests and plans. 

Q. Where were you born and raised? 

I’m originally from the Finger Lakes region of New York. When I graduated from high school, I went to college for a semester and then joined the U.S. Marine Corps, serving for five years as a special intelligence systems administrator specializing in signals intelligence.  

Q. How did you learn about PEO EIS, and what made you take the job? 

I learned about EIS as a contractor at Ernst and Young when we were pursuing business with the Army. At the time, Mike Chappell was my boss, and now he’s my boss again! The main reason why I took the job at EIS is because I was getting tired of the contracting world and wanted to do something on the government side due to my prior military service. I wanted to see what government civilian life is like. Thus far, there has never been a dull day! 

Q. What does your typical workday look like?  

My main focus each day is to review the technical implementation of projects and programs. Some of them are huge. I serve as a sounding board for program managers to let them know if there’s a better way of doing things. One initiative I’m supporting is Neighborhood Watch, so I’ve been reviewing the technical implementation of log collection. I want to ensure that if we’re taking on more work, we’re not taking on more technical debt.  

Q. What are some other projects you’ll be working on? 

Besides Neighborhood Watch, there’s a new effort to do DevSecOps within the PEO and at ASA(ALT). I’m heading up that effort within the CIO office. I’m also helping with our PEO’s role in UDRA [Unified Data Reference Architecture].  

Q. What do you enjoy doing in your spare time? 

When I have free time, I like going hiking or kayaking. That’s why I live in Harpers Ferry as opposed to Northern Virginia. I mostly go kayak fishing in the rivers nearby. I live at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac, so I fish both of them equally.  

Q. Any particular books, blogs, podcasts, etc. that you would recommend to others and why? 

I’m not a huge book reader, but our PEO Bill Hepworth recently recommended “Recoding America.” I’ve been perusing that book, and it goes through the nuances of where government has failed over the years because someone put something in place and didn’t fix problems until too late. Hindsight is always 20/20. The book is eye-opening on that front.