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Exclusive: Fox News Digital sat down with SkillStorm CEO Justin Vianello. Justin Vianello explained what his company is doing to streamline the process, as the federal government faces employed workers and sometimes raises national security concerns.
The federal government struggles with staffing issues for key roles such as cybersecurity, technology and other highly skilled regions, dating back to 2001, according to the government’s Accountability Office. Vianello discussed how SkillStorm is trying to solve these issues.
“When you look at the procurement process and how it’s structured, there’s a huge delay,” Vianello told Fox News Digital. “So it can take years to reach the point where the solicitation is actually awarded. And ironically or paradoxically, posting that award, the agency predicts… a particular company will be able to deliver teams in 10 days.
Vianello explained that the current hiring process is “long” and “funny” and sometimes takes years rather than months, creating delays that require teams to mobilize and deploy properly.
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Fox News Digital spoke to Skillstorm CEO Justin Vianello about ways to improve federal employment. (Getty/Fox Digital)
“One solution to that problem is to actually allow ramp time that can be spent 2-4 months custom building a team with the right skills. This has the right certification based on the right place to quickly deploy the team and accelerate IT transformation and automation.
According to Vianello, the company has recently built a Performance Acceleration Center for Excellence, a learning management training system with a customized curriculum and content, and a Performance Acceleration Center for Excellence with “stable trainers” that is in a position to “rapidly increase and deploy people.”
“How can we leverage that infrastructure to build a solution for the federal government?” Vianello said. “Well, what we do is leverage that infrastructure to accelerate and train teams. And the way the model works is, both bring people into our program. We train them between 10 and 16 weeks. We pay them while we train them.
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US Capitol Building, Washington, DC, February 24, 2025 (Aldrago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
According to Vianello, the system means SkillStorm will “all risk in advance” and recover it by charging clients hourly.
“This is the perfect solution to custom-built technical teams, creating new talent for the net for the ecosystem and allowing these people to be deployed over time. But the government needs to change its procurement system to require people to be deployed within 10 days, but companies that have more than two, three or four months need to be able to build these teams.”
Another problem is telling Fox News Digital, Vianello said that the current employment process could be tied to security clearance and become a national security risk.
“It’s definitely a part of that, but if you look at some of the problems we face with our models and the market more generally, I think there’s a big problem here,” says Vianello. “Well, looking at the SkillStorm models, SkillStorm has an innovative, cost-effective solution for custom-built US-based technology teams for rapid deployment.
“Now we have a student debt crisis in this country, and what are we doing at the same time? We are offsetting the role of children to other countries, and using visa holders to take on the role of entry-level technology.
“Where will the new generation of AI innovators come from? This is a national security issue that is essential to driving innovation. Currently, there are 500,000 open cybersecurity roles as of January 2025. We are a domestic model that can support that gap in order to protect domestic security, like these apprentice models.”
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Former General Services Agency (GSA) head Emily Murphy had previously spoken to Fox News Digital about the GSA job streamlining government during the Doge era.
“The agency responsible for protecting cybersecurity and digital infrastructure has lost its talent battle with the private sector, and the slow, outdated process for onboarding liquidated workers is not consistent with the urgency of today’s threats.”
Murphy explained that the federal government needs a “new pipeline” “provided by project response experts trained with mission-specific tools and suitable for clearance.”
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“Skillstorm has deployed “Stormers” trained on specific technology platforms and is rolling out at a massive discount. This is a smarter and faster way to ensure the talent that governments need urgently.
Vianello told Fox News Digital SkillStorm that Government Efficiency (DOGE) has a similar goal to make government more efficient.
“I think Doge is focused on IT automation and IT transformations, and it does that on an efficient and cost-effective basis,” says Vianello.
“We believe that there will be more pushes to fewer full-time employees in the future, and that there will be a driving force towards efficient contractors by accelerating project delivery.
“How do you strengthen it for the solicitation process? Once the awards are made and the technology is implemented, how do you make sure it’s not outdated?
Andrew Mark Miller is a Fox News reporter. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email him with tips to Andrewmark.miller@fox.com.
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