Lani Hay's life sounds as if it were straight out of an action movie. She has served as an intelligence officer and aviator in the Navy; she holds a top-secret security clearance; she has worked at the Pentagon; and she hosts dinner parties attended by senators and movie stars. Hay, the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, is also the 35-year-old CEO of Lanmark Technology, a Vienna, Virginia-based government contractor that provides technological and administrative support to more than a dozen federal agencies. Hay's company, which she founded in 2003, now employs 200 people, the majority of whom are dispersed among various government agencies. Annual revenue is more than $15 million. Hay spends her days meeting with politicians, advising the military, and looking for ways to make the government run more efficiently.
The first time I went to Capitol Hill, I was overwhelmed. I was also baffled. I wondered, What exactly does the chair of Appropriations do? And do I call his chief of staff for a meeting, or is there a scheduler? I made a lot of calls and asked a lot of questions. Now, I usually have at least three meetings a week on Capitol Hill with Congress members or with key people from the current administration. My clients are government agencies such as the Department of State and the U.S. Army.
On most days, I wake up at 4 a.m. and have to force myself to go back to sleep until 6 a.m. I take my Chihuahua and two teacup poodles for a walk. And then I go for a run along the Potomac River. That's my daily meditation.
I have a protein shake for breakfast and work for a while at home, responding to e-mails, before heading to the office. My commute is about 20 minutes, and I use that time to make phone calls. Sometimes, I'll do a conference call, or I'll return calls from the day before. I also call my executive assistant, Vicente Garcia, to get the day's rundown. I just hired him in July. As I've gotten busier, things like making courtesy calls or sending flowers on someone's birthday have fallen by the wayside. I need someone to help me stay on top of that so that people know I appreciate them.
I usually schedule meetings for the morning. Part of my job is making sure that members of Congress understand the importance of supporting my clients' work. For instance, my company helps the Defense Intelligence Agency with its biometrics-enabled intelligence project. This project updates our terrorist watch list to include the use of retina scans and fingerprints in addition to names. Right now, the U.S. is tracking the bad guys this way only in Iraq and Afghanistan. The DIA wants to expand it to cover the entire globe.