First of its kind IT Help Desk debuts at the Pentagon
The 844th Communications Squadron has reimagined IT support for Air Force personnel. The squadron’s new help desk dramatically cuts resolution times—from days to minutes—while achieving remarkable efficiency gains and near-perfect customer satisfaction.
Located on the Pentagon’s A Ring and staffed by skilled IT professionals, the innovative facility features two key components: an IT peripheral vending machine and a smart locker for securely dropping off and picking up higher-value equipment like laptops. Both the vending machine and smart locker are firsts for an on-site help desk built and managed by Leidos for a government facility.
“As technology advances, person-to-person interaction has grown more distant,” explains Steve Hull, president of the Digital Modernization Sector at Leidos. “This project restores that personal interaction and allows folks to go directly to somebody.”
The newly bannered Fix IT Help Desk represents just the first of three such sites in the Air Force National Capital Region, with additional locations at Joint Base Andrews and Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling soon to follow. These help desks herald a new era of efficiency for IT modernization and support, helping users focus on mission-critical work while saving time and Department of the Air Force resources. The path to this innovation started with a complaint.
From Frustration to Innovation
In early 2022, Michael Kanaan, then director ofoperations for the Air Force Artificial Intelligence Accelerator at MIT, posted what would become a viral open letter on social media. “You tell us to ‘accelerate change or lose,’” Kanaan wrote, referencing Air Force leadership’s call for digital transformation. “Then fix our computers.” His post struck a chord across the services, detailing the daily frustrations of military personnel facing sluggish IT systems causing frozen computers and emails taking over an hour to send.
The plea reached the highest levels of Air Force leadership. Secretary Frank Kendall acknowledged the issues, stating, “We've got to get better.” The 844th Communications Squadron took the directive to heart, seeing an opportunity to revolutionize how it delivers IT support to enable Air Force and civilian personnel to return to their missions with minimal delays.
A goal that would address the frustrations would be to create a one- stop-shop experience for all Department of the Air Force users, but with additional features to support the unique needs of the military. A solution would also need to transform IT support from a process that could take days into one measured in minutes.
With this vision as inspiration, an implementation team looked to innovative models in the private sector, specifically the Apple Genius Bar concept, which Leidos and its partners had successfully adapted for NASA facilities.
A Smarter Paradigm for IT Help
The Fix IT Help Desk represents a dramatic departure from the typical public sector IT support experience. Operating from 6 AM to 6 PM, the facility aims to resolve most issues within 15 minutes of a customer's arrival. If a quick fix isn't possible, the team can immediately provide replacement equipment, dramatically reducing downtime compared to traditional support methods. The innovative smart locker extends support beyond regular hours, providing 24/7 access to shift workers and weekend staff. Users receive QR codes via email to access their equipment from the secure locker, enabling them to pick up or drop off devices at their convenience. At the same time, the separate vending machine provides instant access to commonly needed items such as keyboards, mice, and card readers without requiring a formal procurement process.
“Gone are the days of bringing your computer in and waiting a month for parts and replacement,” Hull says. “The focus is on getting people back to their mission-essential work as quickly as possible.”
Delivering Mission-Critical Results
Since April 2022, even in its proof-of-concept form at another location in the building, the help desk has resolved over fourteen thousand issues and prevented tens of thousands of lost productivity hours for the Department of the Air Force. The walk-up service has doubled technician productivity, increasing the ticket closure rate from one to two per hour.
Customer satisfaction ratings have reached an impressive 99.9%, with the beta test phase characterized as “wildly successful” in project documentation. The help desk has reduced back-office work orders and incidents by 25%, while the average resolution time has dropped from three days to just 30 minutes.
These recent renovations have enabled Leidos to continue delivering mission-critical IT help desk support. We look forward to providing continued technology enhancements and efficient service delivery throughout the duration of this program.
Steve Hull
Digital Modernization Sector President
The new help desks represent a repeatable offering for Leidos, with potential benefits for customers across all government services, from medicine to education as well as the military. Most importantly, they directly address the frustrations that sparked the “Fix My Computer” movement while saving users and their organizations time and money, increasing their efficiency. In short, the help desks promise to transform IT support from a bottleneck into an enabler of mission success.
As the Air Force continues its digital transformation journey, the Fix IT Help Desk stands as a testament to what's possible when frustration meets innovation—and when leadership commits to fixing the fundamentals that enable the mission.
