DoD deputy CIO Ranks heads back to CIA

Peter Ranks, the deputy chief information officer for information enterprise at the Defense Department, has returned to the intelligence community.

A DoD spokesman confirmed Ranks left DoD at the end of November after spending almost two years in the Pentagon.

“Under his leadership, we’ve made great advances in execution of the DoD Cloud Strategy and development of the software modernization approach while supporting the entirety of the DoD workforce with remote work capabilities during the pandemic – most notably, the work he led on Commercial Virtual Remote. We are thankful for all Pete has done to move the Department forward,” said Dana Deasy, the DoD CIO in a statement. “Danielle Metz has assumed the role of acting deputy CIO for information enterprise and I have full confidence in her ability to continue delivering real outcomes in support of digital modernization and the warfighter.”

Sources say Ranks is heading back to the CIA to help implement the C2E cloud program. The CIA awarded five vendors a spot on C2E late last month.

Ranks spent more than 20 years at the CIA before coming to DoD, including playing a leading role in the IC’s adoption of cloud computing.

Before coming to DoD, he also led the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology where he was responsible for technical intelligence collection and technical analysis in support of the IC’s counter-proliferation objectives.

He came to DoD, in part, to get the JEDI cloud computing program off the ground, but found it a tough row to hoe given the constant stream of protests the initiative continues to face.

Ranks, who led the DoD CIO’s cloud computing program office, also focused on improving how the military makes better use of its data and the implementation of the Commercial Virtual Remote (CVR) collaboration environment during the pandemic.

Ranks said in July that the development of CVR provided DoD with a host of lessons that can be applied more broadly in the future.

“I had the pleasure of working with Peter on several infrastructure programs and will miss his unique listening skills,” said John Weiler, CEO of the IT Acquisition Advisory Committee (IT-ACC), in an email. “He will be a valuable lead on the new C2E multi-cloud program at the CIA.”

Ranks also worked on other issues such as software development in the cloud to move toward a more agile or DevSecOps development approach through what he called a “services ecosystem.”

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