FCC looking for a new CIO after Calvosa takes private sector role

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FCC looking for a new CIO after Calvosa takes private sector role

The FCC is looking for a new permanent CIO just three months after making Christine Calvosa the full-time IT leader.

Jason Miller@jmillerWFED

May 15, 2019 10:43 am

2 min read

Christine Calvosa wasn’t sure if she would be named the Federal Communication Commission’s chief information officer after serving in an acting role for more than 15 months.

Calvosa received the nod from the FCC leadership in February. But when she received a call for one of those jobs she applied for while waiting for the commission to decide on her future, it was hard to say no.

FCC CIO Christina Calvosa (left) decided to take new private sector position just three months after being named as the permanent CIO.

Sources confirmed Calvosa left the FCC last Thursday to take a job with a commercial bank in Malaysia. They also said her sudden departure left many in the CIO’s office stunned.

But at the same time, no one could blame her for taking this exciting opportunity.

A FCC spokesman would only confirm that Calvosa left, declining to say who is the acting CIO.

John Skudlarek has been the deputy CIO since 2014 and is the logical person to be acting.

Calvosa joined the FCC in 2014 as the deputy CIO after working at the Agriculture Department’s Natural Resources Conservation Service for about four years.

Before joining the government, she worked at Booz Allen Hamilton and PEC Solutions as a government contractor.

During her tenure as both acting and permanent CIO, Calvosa oversaw the information technology for the 28 GHz auction and led implementation of the FCC’s updated and modernized National Broadband Map.

She also led modernization efforts such as migrating FCC employees to Apple iPhone devices from BlackBerry devices, ensuring the technology infrastructure could support of the Connect America Fund II auction, and updated the Electronic Document Management System.

Among the items on the to-do list for 2019 and beyond are supporting the new Office of Economics and Analytics, completing the migration from a consolidated database system to a licensing management system and modernizing the equipment authorization system.

The FCC’s IT budget for fiscal 2019 is about $186 million and the commission is requesting $184 million for 2020.

“Building on these successes, the momentum of IT modernization should continue to better meet the commission’s mission needs. By continuing to modernize and/or migrate outdated technology-based systems and applications to cloud-based environments, the commission will reduce its operation and maintenance (O&M) costs, reduce time and resources required to make application changes and enhancements and provide the ability to scale to meet increased demand loads such as public filing surges,” the FCC writes in its budget justification to Congress. “In addition, security vulnerabilities that currently exist in these outdated systems will largely be eliminated as they are moved to modern cloud-based technology platforms.”

Fedscoop first reported Calvosa leaving the FCC.