November 13, 2025
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As federal agencies reopen after the longest government shutdown in history, leaders across government are preparing for a complex return to normalcy. But according to Brig. Gen. Greg Touhill, USAF (Ret.)—former Federal Chief Information Security Officer, the biggest challenges ahead aren’t just technical. They’re strategic, human, and deeply tied to communication.
Touhill explains that cyber professionals reentering their agencies will immediately begin activating disaster recovery procedures, the same playbooks designed for cyberattacks, natural disasters, power outages, and major operational disruptions. These plans revolve around three core assessments: hardware, software, and “wetware”—the people responsible for making everything run.
On the technical front, IT teams must evaluate what’s changed during the shutdown: which patches were released, which systems missed maintenance windows, and how long systems will operate under elevated risk conditions before those updates can be safely deployed. Hardware inventory must be checked against potential degradation or configuration drift. But it’s the human side, Touhill says, that may present the most unpredictable challenges.
The timing of the shutdown created unusual workforce turbulence. Many federal employees reached the end of their service on September 30 due to retirement programs, while contractors may have been reassigned or affected by their companies’ financial pressures. When agencies reconvene, some teams may look dramatically different from the ones that walked out the door weeks earlier.
That’s where leadership—and communication—become essential. Touhill stresses that successful recovery starts with clarity about mission priorities. Too often, he notes, different business units have conflicting assumptions about what should come online first. Ideally, those decisions are made in advance as part of business continuity planning, but no plan survives first contact with a real crisis. Leaders must quickly reassess, align, and communicate expectations up, down, across, and outside the organization.
“Communication is multidirectional,” Touhill says. Leaders must explain their intentions to senior executives, direct guidance to their own teams, collaborate horizontally with peers, and coordinate externally with suppliers, partners, and customers. In a disrupted environment, the smartest leaders are those who ask for help—up, across, down, and out. “Asking for help is a sign of wisdom, not of weakness,” he emphasizes.
Touhill also highlights four technical metrics that help agencies understand their resilience: recovery point objective (acceptable data loss during downtime), recovery time objective (how long it should take to restore critical systems), work recovery time (verifying systems function correctly), and maximum tolerable downtime (the total allowable interruption). These measures offer a quantifiable way for agencies to gauge their preparedness and cost out the investments needed to withstand future disruptions.
But disaster recovery is more than restoring servers. Leaders must consider workforce morale, customer confidence, and organizational reputation—all of which can suffer during prolonged disruption. Cybersecurity, Touhill reminds listeners, is a business function as much as a technical one.
As agencies resume full-speed operations and contracting ramps up, Touhill’s message is clear: resilience depends on preparation, communication, and the courage to collaborate. In uncertain times, the strongest organizations are those that recognize the value of asking for help—and know how to ask in every direction.