Joyce L. Myers, CDO of MTSI, considers herself more of a ”builder” digital officer who’s architecting additions to an already successful foundation. In this episode of The Data Fabric Show, Joyce tells Kaycee her approach to building upon the strong foundation of an employee-owned defense contractor with a 31-year history. She explains how MTSI recognized the need for better data organization as they continued to grow, comparing their situation to an entrepreneur with too many files in cabinets who can’t find what they need. Joyce discusses the unique challenges of implementing data governance and AI solutions within the constraints of the public sector and defense industry, where security and protection of proprietary, sensitive, and classified information are paramount concerns. This security context creates additional complexity when adopting GenAI tools, requiring careful consideration before implementing solutions that might expose sensitive data. Topics discussed: - The architectural challenges of integrating data governance as the first CDO in a 31-year-old employee-owned defense contractor, requiring a ”builder” mentality to preserve institutional knowledge while implementing modern practices. - How defense-specific security constraints create unique implementation pathways for GenAI, requiring careful validation processes and air-gapped environments that balance innovation against protection of classified information. - The implementation of a trust-driven data quality framework that transforms ”garbage in, garbage out” to ”goodness in, goodness out.” - Strategies for enabling secure self-service analytics within highly regulated environments, emphasizing documented iterative processes that capture decision context for future governance and compliance requirements. - The evolution from tightly-controlled ETL processes toward a more agile data fabric approach that creates a sandbox environment for experimentation before formalizing pipelines. - The comprehensive metadata context needed to create effective data products in defense applications — capturing not just data lineage but decision authority, classification levels, and intended analytical purpose. - Applying NASA’s mission-focused organizational alignment to defense data teams, where every contributor understands how their component supports operational objectives regardless of technical specialty. - The development of an iterative data discovery workflow for security-conscious environments that preserves context while enabling business users to safely explore and refine analytical questions.