Amy Gleason, the little-known federal data cruncher who was recently named the Department of Government Efficiency's acting administrator, has at least one thing in common with Elon Musk: a fanatical commitment to work.
Even before becoming a "special government employee" and DOGE's public face, Musk was known for flaunting his work ethos, even sleeping on the Tesla factory floor.
As a Florida-based healthcare executive, Gleason, 53, earned the nickname "the green dot" for being online on the work messaging system well past midnight, and then again at dawn, a former colleague told Business Insider.
"She is a nice, sweet person, but she's just a superhuman when it comes to work product," said Travis Bond, the former CEO of CareSync, a Tampa-area medical technology startup where Gleason worked as chief operating officer and chief strategy officer until it folded in 2018.
"I'm surprised, but I'm not surprised," Bond said of Gleason's new role, the latest in a career that has combined interests in nursing and technology over three decades.
"She very good at taking large, complex systems and pushing them to efficiency," he said.
Gleason did not respond to requests for comment on this story.
In 2015, the Obama administration named Gleason a "Champion of Change" for her work at CareSync, noting that she was inspired to help families "better coordinate care and improve health outcomes" after her daughter was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder.
The company was previously the subject of controversy.
The cloud-based medical record firm launched in 2011 after officials in Hardee County, Florida awarded a $2.6 million job-development grant to its predecessor, LifeSync Technology.
Public records list Gleason as a witness on paperwork for the grant. LifeSync Technology later operated under the names Continuum Labs and then CareSync.
A 2013 Florida state auditor general report criticized the process through which the grant was awarded, finding that the company "had not been sufficiently determined to be financially responsible and fully capable of fulfilling its obligations under the grant."
"The 2.6 million dollars didn't bring any economic benefit to Hardee county," according to the report.
That year, a Hardee county grand jury report criticized local development officials as awarding the grant without sufficient review beforehand, or monitoring afterward. "There is much to be learned from the CareSync project and much incentive to not let this process repeat itself in the same way in the future," the report said.
No charges were filed.
In 2020, Gleason was named as a defendant in a creditor's action against CareSync brought in Hillsborough County, Florida.
She was not a major part of the creditor's suit. Court papers claim that she once broke her leg and drank beer while using a scooter in the office; Bond told BI the detail was bunk.
The company and its insurer ultimately paid $1.4 million to settle the case. Gleason, who was paid over $200,000 a year at CareSync, waived her claim to over $100,000 in severance as part of the deal, court papers show.
Attorneys for both sides did not return requests for comment left by email and phone.
Gleason graduated from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 1993, according to a review of her LinkedIn profile. She worked as a data cruncher for the United States Digital Service from October 2018 until December 2021.
Gleason was one of five federal specialists who marshaled the coronavirus data stream from labs and hospitals during 2020 and 2021, helping create reports and databases relied on by state officials and the public.
"I got to work beside her every day for almost a year," Gleason's then-boss, Dr. Deborah Birx, the former White House coronavirus response coordinator, recently told CNN.
Birx called Gleason a "really competent, hardworking, focused woman who understands the value of data."
After stints in the private sector, Gleason was working for United States Digital Service again, now rebranded the White House DOGE office, when she was tapped for the DOGE acting administrator job.
Gleason is apolitical and unflappable, and will hold up well in the high-pressure, controversial new job, Bond told BI, predicting that she would "crush it."
"She's extraordinarily calm under pressure," he said.
"She was right under Dr. Birx during COVID, and I think that's where she earned her battle stripes," making the slides that Birx presented to the public, he said.
"She's typically behind the scenes, but everybody goes to her."
