Maria Roat, the deputy federal chief information officer, is retiring after almost 41 years in government.

Federal News Network has confirmed Roat will leave federal service on March 31.

“Maria Roat has had a remarkable career serving our country — first as a military service member, and then as a federal IT leader,” said Clare Martorana, federal CIO, in a statement. “The role of the deputy federal CIO is crucial in providing a cross-government view of agency challenges and identifying opportunities to scale secure technology and sound data-management practices across government. We are grateful for Maria’s many contributions to our team, and we’re excited to see where her journey takes her next.”

She has been the deputy federal CIO since May 2020 and has been a steadying presence since raising her federal sector profile as the first director of the Federal Risk Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) in 2013.

“Maria’s legacy of service in the military and in federal IT are incredible.  Her achievements are numerous, but she will be missed for her ability to bring out the best in people, her relentless focus on delivering results, and her unwavering leadership. It was my honor to serve with her,” said Suzette Kent, the former federal CIO during the Trump administration, who hired Roat at OMB. “As a CIO, she was frequently the first to raise her hand to pilot new things.  She was leader in ground breaking work with TMF, the Federal Data Strategy and Paycheck Protection Programs to name a few.  She was a great collaborator with industry by voicing clear expectations and solution needs.”

Before coming to OMB, Roat was the CIO at the Small Business Administration for more than three years where she turned a struggling technology infrastructure around by, as she has said numerous times, “burning the bridges behind her” in the move to cloud.

She also was the chief technology officer at the Transportation Department and worked at the Homeland Security Department for more than a decade in various senior technology roles.

Roat retired from the Navy and Naval Reserve after 25 years in 2007.

During her time at OMB, Roat helped steer several key initiatives, ranging from being part of the Technology Modernization Fund Board to pushing forward the pilot to test out governmentwide collaboration tools to promoting and clearing roadblocks to made moving to the cloud and other IT modernization efforts go more smoothly for agencies.

“I can’t thank Maria enough for her partnership and mentorship during my time at OMB. She brought a deep passion for innovation and an unwavering get it done attitude to working some of the government’s biggest challenges in recent years,”  said Jordan Burris, the former OMB Office of the Federal CIO chief of staff and now a senior director of product market strategy for the public sector at Socure. “Between the shift to remote work and initial government response to SolarWinds, she worked tirelessly behind the scenes to maintain stability across administrations. The government technology community has benefited greatly from Maria’s decades of service and dedication to the mission.”

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