Arizona Governor Jan Brewer today named Chad Kirkpatrick (pictured) as the director of the Government Information Technology Agency (GITA), and Donald E. Cardon as director of the Department of Housing.

"These individuals will be tremendous assets to their respective agencies and to the state of Arizona," stated Brewer. "Mr. Cardon brings with him expertise and innovation that will prove invaluable to Arizona citizens coping with the current housing climate. Mr. Kirkpatrick is widely respected and recognized in his field and possesses a unique blend and broad range of technical and leadership skills."

Kirkpatrick's appointment as director of GITA, places him at the helm of an agency created in 1996 to serve as Arizona's official entity for strategic planning and coordination of all state information technology. He will oversee day-to-day operations of: IT coordination and planning, IT project review and monitoring, and maintenance of e-government.

Kirkpatrick comes to GITA from Wells Fargo where he has served since 2003, most recently in the role of vice president and business systems manager of Compliance Services MIS (Management Information Services). While with Wells Fargo, he created the "MIS Roadmap" to assess the current MIS environment, identify MIS goals and develop an action plan to align technology and business needs. He was also responsible for:

• Fully automating the business process for regulatory compliance testing, managing the information security process for the Phoenix location
• Developing an innovative data analysis program to proactively identify potential regulatory issues, tracking corrective action and delivering critical information to the compliance team
• Working with the finance, operations and marketing teams to develop the next generation of reporting and leading corporate efforts to create common data definitions and corporate reporting standards.

Kirkpatrick has won two leadership excellence awards: team leadership and the annual excellence in action award as well as 19 legendary service awards. Kirkpatrick has also served as chairman of Americans for Prosperity Arizona, a group that he helped grow into one of Arizona's largest grassroots organizations. He also built up and turned around finance and IT teams for two Fortune 500 companies.

Kirkpatrick received his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and went on to earn his Master of Arts in Applied Economics from The American University.