The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) announced Tuesday that David De Vries, the Principal Deputy Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Department of Defense (DoD), will become OPM’s new permanent CIO in August.
De Vries is joining OPM following over 35 years at the Defense Department. He joined the DoD CIO’s office in May 2009 as Deputy CIO for Information Enterprise before moving up to Acting Principal Deputy CIO in May 2014 and permanent Principal Deputy CIO in March 2015. At DoD, he helped transition to department’s information technology (IT) into a single, secure department-wide architecture similar to the current OPM plan, the office said.
De Vries succeeds former OPM CIO Donna Seymour, who resigned in February following months of complaints by Republican members of Congress in the wake of the OPM hacks. Lisa Schlosser, formerly deputy federal CIO at OPM, has been serving as acting CIO following Seymour’s resignation (Defense Daily, March 18)
“I’m elated that David has decided to join our team here at OPM. David has decades worth of the technical and management experience necessary to hit the ground running as we continue our technology transformation efforts, and work with our partners at DoD to stand up the National Background Investigations Bureau (NBIB),” Beth Cobert, Acting Director of OPM said in a statement.
“Dave will be missed by DoD, but DoD isn’t losing his expertise. As DoD and OPM continue to improve current IT systems and begin the development of the new IT services and environment to support the NBIB, he will play a key leadership role, ensuring integration between OPM and DoD,” Terry Halvorsen, the DoD CIO, commented.
Halvorsen highlighted how De Vries can help continue collaboration efforts between DoD and OPM.
“Dave will have the ability to bring expertise from DoD into OPM, and ensure that DoD understands how lessons learned from the new IT can be applied within DoD and the other Federal agencies. This will be a win that improves IT information sharing across all federal Departments and agencies.”