Throw Out Your Typewriters. Start Necessary Movement.
What I learned from leading Arlington National Cemetery's digital transformation.
Nick Miller led Arlington National Cemetery's digital transformation as CIO from 2010 to 2013 following Army service in Iraq and Afghanistan. He then spent six years at In-Q-Tel and six years at AWS Marketplace helping healthcare, non-profits and government organizations access commercial technology.
In 2005 I celebrated Christmas and New Year’s at one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in Iraq. The generation that went to war after September 11th is in our 30s, 40s, 50s now. We carry the weight of injuries, lost friends, and lost youth.
We also know we lost soldiers to an enemy using cell phones while our institutions took years to field basic technology that could have saved many.
In June 2010, I found myself at Arlington National Cemetery, where our nation’s fallen are put to rest. I was 30 years old, only a few months removed from 24 months in Iraq and Afghanistan, having just dropped out of a PhD program bound to teach at West Point. I was scared, concerned, and confused about my future. Now I was watching us bury the best of my generation—and discovering that Arlington Cemetery’s antiquated systems simply weren’t up to the task.
Families discovered that the graves of their loved ones might be mismarked, misplaced, or missing altogether—headstones pulled from the earth and left mud-caked along a stream, paper records saying one name while the headstone said another. All this on our nation’s most sacred ground.
As a veteran, as an American, that reality was both heartbreaking and infuriating. It was a failure of leadership and of systems that had been left in the past. The root cause was painfully simple: a 150-year-old institution conducting 7,000 funerals a year was still largely running on typewriters (yes, really), 3x5 cards, and tattered paper maps. Senator Mark Warner said it best: “We are one fire, one flood from the records being lost.” Congress was considering taking Arlington from the Army.
I was privileged to lead Arlington’s digital transformation to bring modern technology to military families and the cemetery’s more than 4 million annual visitors. We moved operations off millions of pages of paper records, filing cabinets, typewriters, and fax machines. We had to throw out technology that had been retired decades earlier by industry. In the process, I found personal healing by throwing myself into a valuable mission. I also learned four enduring principles that I hope can guide leaders today.
We can and did do better then, when our nation’s fallen and their loved ones needed it most. We can still do better now.
1. Start Necessary Movement. Choose Direction Over Precision.
Army procedures teach every soldier: “Receive the mission, issue a warning order, make a tentative plan, start necessary movement.” Movement matters more than perfect planning.
At Arlington, we didn’t have the luxury of waiting 12-18 months for requirements. Families were calling every day. 7,000 funerals a year could not wait. We started by understanding real pain—parents wanting assurances their children were in the right place, families unable to find relatives, visitors lost across 624 acres. Then we moved quickly with strategic intent:
We prioritized the visitor experience by launching a mobile app, ANC Explorer, so visitors could use the phones already in their pockets to navigate and honor their loved ones, even when the enterprise’s standard was still BlackBerry.
We used available commercial technology, accepting its limits, instead of spending years building aspirational custom geospatial infrastructure specific to cemetery operations.
We focused on clean data through digitized workflows and distributed stewardship across the organization instead of delaying digital operations while a centralized team created a pristine database from paper.
The lesson: in high-stakes missions, movement with clear and strategic intent beats elegant plans that never reach the people who need them.
2. Executive Leaders Must Drive Speed Through Personal Ownership
“Our objective is simple. Transform the entire acquisition system to operate on a wartime footing . . . to rebuild the arsenal of freedom.” —Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (2025)
On my first day, I went to the Secretary of the Army’s office and met with his executive leadership team—an Army captain in a room with the equivalent of the Army’s senior executives. The Deputy CIO made it clear the mission mattered more than bureaucracy: “Both feet on the gas. Keep it between the white lines. Call ME if you need help.” He backed that up by clearing obstacles himself instead of hiding behind layers.
When some argued to delay launching ANC Explorer until every record was perfectly validated, leadership decided families couldn’t wait—we launched with safeguards and improved from there. Developers worked round the clock with special focus on Section 60—the Iraq and Afghanistan burials—to ensure we got those records right before launch. We listened to feedback and improved in the open.
The result wasn’t a perfect product, but the feedback we received speaks for itself. One caller said simply: “Thank you. Years ago I came to visit Ira Hayes and was unable to locate the grave site. I was finally able to find Ira Hayes.” (World War II veterans and Marines will recognize Ira Hayes from the iconic flag-raising photo on Iwo Jima.)
The lesson: if executives do not personally champion speed and absorb risk, the organization will default to comfort and politics, not mission.
3. Enable Your Innovators: Shared Learning Over Central Planning
On paper, Arlington’s transformation looked “wrong” to traditional governance: no big program office, no five-year architecture roadmap, no fully validated requirements list. On the ground, it looked exactly like other successful technology products: small teams, tight feedback loops with stakeholders and customers, decisions made close to the mission.
We unlocked innovators at every level. I was 30 years old, fresh from deployment, given the privilege to lead. Every organization has dozens like me; the question is whether your culture enables them to act.
Everyone understood the vision, clean data requirements, and urgency—enabling rapid decisions across the organization, not just at the top.
Culture shifted from ‘we can’t’ to ‘yes, here’s how’—systematically removing blockers and enabling action at scale.
The lesson: if you want responsible speed, you cannot centralize every decision. Build shared clarity, then trust your people to move.
Your innovators—your engineers, your product teams, your operators closest to customers—already know what needs to change. The question is: will your processes allow them to act on that knowledge?
4. Embrace Partnerships. Lead With Humility.
When the crisis broke, it would have been easy to hide behind bureaucrat-speak: “the work is inherently governmental—only the government can do this.” Instead, leaders opened the doors. The Northern Virginia Technology Council, industry partners, veterans groups, and technology companies all contributed expertise through a pro-bono assessment and ongoing collaboration.
The partnership model—government mission clarity, industry execution speed, outside perspectives—became a force multiplier beyond what any single team could achieve alone. Not every recommendation was adopted, but every conversation helped refine the path and avoid reinventing wheels others had already built.
The lesson: humility is not weakness. It is recognizing that the mission is bigger than any organization, any process, any individual. That wisdom makes transformation possible. Partnerships make it a reality.
Where Are Your Organization’s Typewriters?
When I tell people Arlington was using typewriters in 2010, they laugh. It’s the natural response to such an absurdity. But today’s organizations are running on their own typewriters. They’re maintained by institutional inertia—the defaults that choose comfort and control over the continuous innovation the age of AI demands:
Waiting for perfect information instead of moving with clear direction
Delegating transformation to committees instead of leaders personally owning speed
Centralizing every decision instead of trusting people closest to customers
Going it alone instead of listening and building partnerships across sectors
Arlington’s transformation didn’t happen because we chose better. Congress forced it. Then the Army moved decisively, installed new management, and demanded change.
You don’t have to wait for tragedy.
For governments and corporations facing fierce competition, adversary innovation cycles, and missions that can’t afford delay, the stakes are too high to wait. Your systems will break catastrophically or your competitors will win.
Those who internalize the lessons above can guide their organizations to success and victory: Start necessary movement. Leaders personally own speed. Enable your innovators. Build partnerships with humility.
Will your leaders make these choices before they’re forced to?
Our Best Days Are Ahead
Over the next three years, my team retired the typewriter, launched one of the government’s first mobile apps, and helped restore public trust in the management of Arlington National Cemetery. The technology now supports more than 20 other cemeteries, and the Army retained the privilege of administering Arlington.
On occasion, I now use the same technology to virtually view the West Point gravesite of my grandfather, Sergeant Major (Ret.) Thomas Ciurczak, whose funeral I was unable to attend due to my deployment to Afghanistan.
Generations before us rose to their moment. In 1940, FDR called on America to become the Arsenal of Democracy and we retooled an entire industrial base. Today, the generation that deployed after September 11th is rising—alongside entrepreneurs building at AI speed, technologists unlocking commercial innovation, and leaders across sectors who refuse to accept failing institutions.
We’re not waiting for permission. We’re not waiting for perfect plans. We’re moving with strategic intent, unlocking innovators, and building the America worthy of those we laid to rest at Arlington.
Our best days aren’t behind us. They’re ahead. And we’re building them now.
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