Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) announced it hired a permanent Chief Information Officer Tuesday.
- David De Vries, currently the Principal Deputy CIO at the Department of Defense, will join OPM in the coming weeks, according to an OPM announcement.
- De Vries spent 35 years at the Defense Department and the last seven as principal deputy CIO. He boasts a strong background in cybersecurity initiatives, which OPM will need given last year’s massive data breach and current efforts to modernize its IT systems.
Dive Insight:
De Vries will be pivotal to OPM’s continued technology transformation, IT infrastructure and cybersecurity improvement efforts, said Beth Cobert, OPM’s acting director. Part of that effort includes transitioning OPM information technology to a single department-wide architecture. It will also include working closely with the DOD to stand up the National Background Investigations Bureau (NBIB).
In January, the Obama administration said it would establish the NBIB to conduct background checks on federal employees and contractors, taking that responsibility away from OPM. NBIB’s IT systems will be designed, built, secured and operated by DOD. As the new OPM CIO, De Vries will help facilitate the IT and cybersecurity collaboration needed between the two agencies.
Lisa Schlosser joined OPM as acting CIO in March, but officials stressed at the time that Schlosser’s assignment would be short-term.
