One on One with Arc Aspicio's Lynn Ann Casey

Arc Aspicio is one firm that will be directly affected by the upcoming transition of power. That's because Arc Aspicio works directly with—and only for—the Department of Homeland Security, which, until now, has never gone through a presidential administration change. What changes will DHS, and by extension Arc Aspicio, see and feel? Consulting asked Arc Aspicio founder Lynn Ann Casey about her thoughts on the topic. Consulting: Is Arc Aspicio seeing changes even before the presidential transition?

Casey: I think the changes have already started because preliminary nominations have come out; the transition team's on the ground. DHS has been planning it for a while, and so have the other agencies. It's been a topic for about nine months now, but there are interesting things swirling already; there's definitely a lot of pending changes. It doesn't affect us day to day but at a strategic level, it's starting to affect or change things.

It would be nice to have a border state governor [like Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano] to be homeland security secretary. There are about 200,000 people who work in the DHS. The bulk of those people have something to do with the borders, either immigration or customs or enforcement related to the border. So having someone who understands border issues, lives in a border state, understands immigation challenges, the impact of the economy… is fascinating.