To 2000 And Counting

by James Yin

While teens across the country don't seem to think that Y2K is a very big deal, Mr. John Koskinen, Assistant to President Clinton and Chair of the Presidents' Council on Y2K Conversion believes that if he hadn't been brought in to do his job, many services, industries and other nightmares might have "dropped" along with the ball at Times Square.

No stranger to working in the government, Mr. Koskinen served as Deputy Director at the Office of Management and Budget from 1994 until he was appointed to the President's Council in February of 1998. Mr. Koskinen was previously responsible for the oversight of Federal regulation, Federal policies covering information, computers, procurement, and financial management.

The Chairman's office is right down the hall from Vice President Gore's office, which gives a visitor, such as myself, a feeling that this man is quite important. In my interview with Mr. Koskinen, I learned that for the past two years, he has established a readiness for the year 2000 with federal and state agencies, produced company guidelines for compliance, and galvanized a world wide effort to bring countries around the world up to technological speed. This last effort is the one he is most proud of, because he was able to bring 173 countries from all around the world together at the U.N. to create an awareness of the situation of Y2K.

All along, however, Mr. Koskinen has been met with - 'It's their problem, not ours' and he recognized a general tendency to procrastinate, because people felt that if they waited long enough, surely someone would create a silver bullet, and companies wouldn't have to waste money unnecessarily. Nonetheless, Mr. Koskinen forged ahead.