ICE names Kern as its next CIO

Management

ICE names Kern as its next CIO

Kevin Kern comes to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement after spending most of his career in industry.

Jason Miller@jmillerWFED

May 6, 2014 8:31 am

2 min read

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement directorate in the Homeland Security Department reached into industry for its next chief information officer.

ICE announced yesterday that Kevin Kern, a former senior vice president and CIO at Unisys, will serve as the agency’s new CIO.

Tom DeBiase, the acting deputy CIO and chief information security officer, wrote an email to staff announcing Kern’s hiring.

“Mr. Kern is a proven and accomplished visionary and strategic leader in driving global transformation and performance in highly complex and difficult environments,” DeBiase said in an email to staff obtained by Federal News Radio. “He has over 30 years of experience and proven leadership in global operations and technology in various industries including high technology, healthcare, financial services and manufacturing. Mr. Kern led major organizational realignments and created an operations and technology operating model focused on alignment with simplified points of contact, improved product development capabilities and enhanced customer support. He has consolidated data and global command centers resulting in reduced cost and complexity, streamlined operations and improved performance.”

Kern replaces Thomas Michelli, who moved to become the deputy CIO at the Coast Guard in February.

Michelli is expected to replace Adm. Robert Day, the Coast Guard’s CIO, when he retires this summer.

Meanwhile, Kern comes to ICE, which has an IT budget of about $600 million, to manage its IT infrastructure and operations, which includes eight major projects. The Federal IT Dashboard shows the agency’s biggest program by cost at $189 million is its IT infrastructure that covers 14 different projects, including desktop services, local area network upgrades and more.

One of his main priorities will be getting its case management program called TECS back on track. ICE is expected to spend about $29 million on TECS in 2014.

ICE also is expected to name a deputy CIO in the coming weeks.

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