New DDC head faces staffing challenges

ALBUQUERQUE

There is a little known Navajo-owned corporation operating and working in the highly sensitive and technical information technology field – Diné Development Corporation, or DDC.

At its helm is Austin Tsosie.

Tsosie, 44, was recently named chief operating officer of DDC and its five subsidiaries. Before taking over the corporation, he was the president of DDC-ITS, a subsidiary of DDC, from 2012 to 2016.

Tsosie, who grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, says he brings for more than 23 years in the information technology to his new job. After completing his undergrad in computer science with an emphasis on networking at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, in 1997, he started his career as a computer programmer and web administrator. In 2002, Tsosie earned his Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Dallas in Irving, Texas, where he currently lives with his wife and four children.

Tsosie said before he was named DDC’s CEO, he did project and portfolio management work for Boeing, American Express, Disney, and other major household names. He was doing that work when a recruiter from DDC called him and asked him if he was interested in working for the Navajo-owned IT corporation in 2011.

He accepted the offer and joined DDC-IT Services, Limited Liability Company, or LLC, in November of 2011 as its general manager. At the time DDC-ITS was a one-person company. It gradually grew to 79 employees.

In addition to ITS, Tsosie will oversee three other subsidiaries: NOVA Corp.; DDC Construction Services, LLC; Diné Source, LLC; and Business Resource Intelligence Center, or BRIC. With the exception of NOVA, which has offices in Window Rock and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, all of the companies will be headquartered inside the corporation’s 50,000-square-foot data center, located east of the Isleta Amphitheater in Albuquerque. Each company primarily deals in federal contract work, specifically for the Department of Defense, Department of State, the Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, except for Construction Services, which Tsosie hopes will do more projects with uranium mine reclamation and water on the reservation.

Since dealing with the military, Tsosie said it’s been a challenge to hire Diné workers for DDC’s many IT-based job openings.

Tsosie said three obstacles have prevented him and DDC from hiring a Diné with IT, computer engineering, or computer networking skills.

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