In 2010, Martha Johnson, new Administrator of the General Services Agency (GSA), advanced the Zero Environmental Footprint (ZEF) initiative-a sustainability initiative to render GSA's activities environmentally neutral, agency-wide. She and her leadership team initiated a high-profile renovation project-dubbed the Extreme Challenge-at the agency's headquarters-one which sought to consolidate all GSA employee office space in the Washington, D.C. region into a single federal building. Doing so would require nothing short of a major organizational change effort within GSA, one which, if successful, could potentially serve as a model for other U.S. federal agencies looking to transform the way in which government employees organized themselves within modern office spaces. A year later, the agency approached a crucial moment in its evolution as a number of key leadership and organizational change questions needed to be answered: Could GSA execute on the vision put forth by Johnson's senior leadership team? Were the steps taken to date the right ones in setting the tone and preparing the agency for success? And what additional steps or strategies would need to be undertaken to ensure that the $5.5 billion investment in the Extreme Challenge would succeed, even as GSA pursued a longer-term vision of net zero impact through ZEF? The 13-min. video supplement includes 5 short segments exploring various aspects of the ZEF initiative. In it, Martha Johnson and her team describe their vision for the new office space and the challenges involved in changing the organizational culture at GSA. The videos also include footage of the old headquarters and examples of the new workspaces, as well some of the visual aids being used to increase staff engagement.

In June 2009, Martha Johnson was selected to lead the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), a federal agency headquartered in Washington, D.C that largely oversaw government procurement. After Johnson, a GSA veteran, was sworn into office in February 2010, she told reporters she was committed to holding the GSA to the highest ethical standards. In October 2010, ten months after she took office, four of GSA's Public Buildings Service (PBS) regions held their biennial Western Regions Conference (WRC) with the object of providing job skills training and encouraging the exchange of ideas among senior managers in the four regions. The conference, held at the upscale M Resort Spa Casino in Henderson, Nevada, just outside of Las Vegas, was dubbed "A Showcase of World-Class Talent" by GSA officials with the intention of matching the conference's theme to the Las Vegas location. In December 2010, just a few weeks after the conference ended, an investigation into the event was requested citing excessive expenses as well as possible employee misconduct. This case traces the investigation as well as the steps the GSA took during the following nine months to strengthen its leadership, improve organizational controls and address conference management. Case number 2087.0