Rick Holgate, the chief information officer for the Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, is leaving government.

Holgate, who also holds the title assistant director for science and technology at ATF, sent a note to colleagues and friends saying with the nomination of Laura Holgate, his wife, to be U.S. ambassador to the UN mission in Vienna, Austria, he will be leaving the Washington area, assuming she is confirmed by the Senate.

“Consequently, I’ll be leaving ATF in the coming weeks to join Gartner, who’s offered me the opportunity to join them as a federal analyst,” Holgate wrote in the email obtained by Federal News Radio. “Though it’s with some significant regret I’m leaving the ATF family, the DoJ community, and federal service, I’m excited to join Gartner and for their willingness to support a move to Vienna. I’ll still be a member of the federal community at large, and I look forward to continuing to work with you to ensure Gartner’s research is as relevant, timely, and usable as it can be in the federal space (I reserve the right to reach out to you for your suggestions!). And I’ll still be active in the ACT-IAC community, as well.”

Holgate has been a key figure in the federal IT community over the last six-plus years — both in his role at ATF CIO and as president of the American Council for Technology (ACT) under the ACT-IAC banner.

As ATF CIO, Holgate pushed the bureau toward a mobile future and modernizing commodity IT such as moving email to the cloud and investing in data analytics tools.

On a governmentwide perspective, Holgate played a key role in the interagency team developing the Digital Government Strategy, released by the Office of Management and Budget in 2012.

“I worked with Rick on the Digital Government Strategy. Holgate is first and foremost a collaborator. He has the unique ability to bring disparate groups together and make everyone involved feel like they had a voice into the process,” said Tom Suder, president of Mobilegov. “That is real leadership.”

Holgate joined the government in 2004 as a command information officer for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Before coming to government, he worked for Bearingpoint and Mitre Corp.

Holgate will start at Gartner on Sept. 14.

Roger Beasley is the ATF deputy CIO, currently on a one-year detail from DoJ. He’ll be the acting Assistant Director/CIO pending selection of a permanent replacement.

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