DorobekInsider: Energy Department CIO to retire after 45 years of public service

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DorobekInsider: Energy Department CIO to retire after 45 years of public service

The DorobekInsider has learned — and confirmed — that Energy Department CIO Tom Pyke notified his staff that he is retiring from that post. As he said...

Federal News Network Staff

January 22, 2010 1:15 pm

3 min read

The DorobekInsider has learned — and confirmed — that Energy Department CIO Tom Pyke notified his staff that he is retiring from that post.

As he said in his note, he just completed 46 years of federal service, including four years at the Energy Department. He also notes that 2010 marks 50 years since he started work as a summer student National Bureau of Standards, now NIST.

While Pyke has often been less visible then some other CIOs, he is respected in the government IT community.

Here is his note to staff:

It is with mixed feelings that I announce that I am going to retire from the Federal Government.

As of last Wednesday, I completed 46 years of Federal service, including the last four years here at DOE. This year, 2010, marks 50 years since I began work as a summer student at the National Bureau of Standards (now NIST). I will miss all of you! What a terrific team we have in the Office of the CIO! I am proud to be leaving the Department of Energy on a high note! Our IT capital investment process shows all green on the Dashboard. Our cyber security protection of systems and data is solid. And our IT service customer satisfaction is at an all time high. We have just received our highest customer satisfaction rating yet from the latest independent Gartner group survey of all of our customers. My last date at DOE will be February 26, 2010.

I wish all of you the very best in everything you do, here at the Department of Energy and in your personal lives!

Here is Pyke’s bio:

Tom Pyke
Chief Information Officer

As Chief Information Officer of the U.S. Department of Energy, Tom Pyke leads the Department’s management of information technology (IT), ensuring that the Department acquires and manages its IT resources so as to provide strong support for DOE missions, and at lowest cost. Mr. Pyke has led DOE in revitalizing its cyber security program and improving its IT capital investment review and enterprise architecture processes. The Department of Energy’s annual IT budget is $2.1 billion.

Before joining the Department of Energy, Mr. Pyke was the Chief Information Officer of the Department of Commerce, from 2001 to 2005. At the Department of Commerce, Mr. Pyke was a senior manager of information technology for over 30 years. As Commerce Chief Information Officer, he led major improvements in the Department’s IT security posture and IT planning and capital investment review processes. Previously, Mr. Pyke created and led the High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and became NOAA’s first CIO. He was also Director of the GLOBE Program, leading an interagency team to create an international environmental science and education program now involving over 21,000 schools in 110 countries.

Tom began his career at the National Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology), where he was Director of the Center for Computer Systems Engineering and then Director of the Center for Programming Science and Technology. He joined NOAA as Assistant Administrator for Satellite and Information Services, a post he held for six years prior to becoming NOAA Director for HPCC and then NOAA’s first CIO.

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He earned a BSEE as a Westinghouse Scholar from the Carnegie Institute of Technology and an MSE in Computer Systems as a Ford Foundation Fellow from the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of more than 40 technical papers and reports and has lectured widely at conferences and symposiums. He has received numerous awards, including the Department of Commerce Gold Medal Award and two Presidential Meritorious Rank Awards, and he is listed in Who’s Who in America.

Mr. Pyke is a senior member of the IEEE, a member of the ACM, AAAS, Sigma Xi, Eta Kappa Nu, and Omicron Delta Kappa, and is a Fellow of the Washington Academy of Sciences, from which he received the Engineering Science Award.