Frank Baitman is the new chief information officer at the Department of Health and Human Services.

John Teeter, the HHS deputy CIO, confirmed Baitman started in mid-February.

“We are getting him up to speed and in motion at HHS and I’m sure he’ll do a fantastic job,” Teeter said. Baitman replaces Mike Carleton, who retired in July after 35 years in government. Teeter had been acting CIO since Carleton retired.

Before coming to HHS, Baitman was an entrepreneur-in-residence at the Food and Drug Administration. Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel said Baitman was part of a pilot to see how this concept could work.

“This program intends to, in a non-conflicted way, rotate private sector people in to government, say for six months, to act as a coach or a mentor on a project and to bring a new perspective,” VanRoekel said at the AFCEA Bethesda breakfast in February.

Baitman worked with the FDA to fast-track low-risk medical devices.

Before coming to the FDA, Baitman was the CIO at the Social Security Administration for two years. He left in 2011 after a major reorganization of the agency’s upper management.

While at SSA, he focused on improving customer service, in part by promoting online authentication, developing a plan for a new data center and moving low-risk applications to the cloud.

Baitman also was the co-chairman of the federal CIO Council’s Accessibility Committee.

Prior to working at SSA, Baitman spent his entire career in the private sector working as president of Petards and for IBM.

Also on Friday, the White House announced that Todd Park, most recently the CTO at HHS, will take over the federal CTO role vacated by Aneesh Chopra last month.

RELATED STORIES:

Park appointed next federal CTO

HHS’s Carleton set to retire after 35-year federal career

More changes at SSA: CIO resigns; OPM’s Zielinski returns

Baitman wants to bring SSA into the e-business world

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