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August 4, 2011 By Brian Heaton
Steven L. VanRoekel, former managing director of the FCC, will be the next federal chief information officer, according to a statement released Thursday, Aug. 4, by the White House.
VanRoekel, who currently is the executive director of citizen and organization engagement at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) — which provides U.S. economic and humanitarian aid to people worldwide — will replace Vivek Kundra, who is leaving the federal CIO post this month for a fellowship at Harvard University.
In his role at the FCC, VanRoekel headed up the agency’s expansion into new technology and social media. He also oversaw the operational, technical, financial and human resources aspects of the agency. From 1994 to 2009, VanRoekel worked for Microsoft. His last post with the company was as the senior director for the Windows Server and Tools Division.
In addition to his position as federal CIO, VanRoekel will also serve as administrator of the Office of Electronic Government, of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
VanRoekel will have a number of challenges awaiting him when he gets on the job. While Kundra made strides in data center consolidation and moving to the cloud, state CIOs believe standardization, funding issues and clarity of communication between federal and state government IT personnel are items that still need to be addressed.
Brenda Decker, CIO of Nebraska, said vague or confusing initiatives coming from the federal government was a regular occurrence in the course of IT business between the states and Uncle Sam.
“That’s one of the things we tried to work with Vivek on,” Decker said. “I think he was making some headway, but not as much and as quickly as everyone wished he had.”
VanRoekel's first day as federal CIO is Friday, Aug. 5.
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This is a grand opportunity to review the Administration’s IT policy goals. While it is obvious that the government should try to spend less money, Kundra has lead us down a path of uncertainty. A seemingly well intentioned policy, the drive towards Cloud computing has too many unknowns. For instance, how secure is our private information going to be in a Cloud? Additionally, I can’t see how developing numerous Clouds could possibly save the government money, especially considering that federal IT is driven by specific agency needs and customization. How can you customize a Cloud?
they have spent so much money before creating expencive IT insfrastructures and now they they all going to be lost in a CLOUD ! and again more tax payer money lost!