There is a little more clarity about the mystery of Barry West, the seemingly now-former chief information officer at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

West updated his LinkedIn page over the weekend, writing he’s the president of the Mason Harriman Group, a management consulting firm that utilizes former CXOs as advisers or consultants. Mason Harriman holds several contract vehicles including EAGLE II at the Homeland Security Department, three General Services Administration’s schedules contract — financial and business solutions (FABS), 70 and MOBIS — and Immigration and Customs Enforcement independent verification and validation services.

West’s LinkedIn page says he left the FDIC in this month and also started at the Mason Harriman Group this month.

An email to West seeking comment was not immediately returned.

The FDIC website continues to list West as the CIO and chief privacy officer, but it hasn’t been updated since Aug. 12.

West has been on administrative leave from the FDIC since early June.

It’s unclear why West left the FDIC. Some industry sources say it’s related to problems he had while CIO at Commerce back in 2008.

But West and the agency have been mum on what’s really going on.

So maybe West’s LinkedIn entry sheds a little light on this federal IT mystery.

Three other agencies are more upfront with some personnel changes.

The Recovery Board is losing its CIO, while the Treasury Department is getting a new deputy CIO. And another industry veteran is taking a turn as a fed.

Let’s start with Hemanth Setty, the Recovery Board’s CIO. He’s leaving government to become the vice president of technology for BESTech.

Setty took over as CIO for Shawn Kingsberry, who left government in October to join TASC, which now is Engility.

Setty has been with the board since 2010, when he started as a solutions architect and was promoted to chief technology officer in 2012.

He also worked as a solutions architect for the Department of Agriculture for 13 years before coming to the Recovery Board, where he developed enterprise IT practices for architectural governance, project methodology and infrastructure migration from legacy systems.

With his move to the private sector, Setty will help BESTech, an 8(a) firm, provide services back to the government. BESTech customers include USDA, the Forest Service and the National Transportation Safety Board.

Over at Treasury, Eric Olson will be the new deputy CIO, leaving the Justice Department after 12 years.

In an email obtained by Federal News Radio, Justice CIO Joe Klimavicz announced Olson’s plans to move to Treasury. Olson was the agency’s director of service engineering and previously served as the director of e-government services.

Klimavicz said Jeffrey Johnson, the FBI chief technology officer, who is on detail to Justice, will take over for Olson as acting director of service engineering starting Aug. 23.

Olson heads to Treasury after spending the last 12 years at Justice. He also worked for Accenture, Verizon and Sprint before coming into the government.

GSA also is getting new personnel. Steve Krauss is leaving Censeo Consulting Services to run the program management office for category management in the Federal Acquisition Service.

Sources said Krauss will help the PMO build tools, processes and strategies for the various categories and managers as they get named. He also will play a big role in getting the tools in the categories adopted governmentwide.

Krauss has been the corporate development officer at Censeo for the last four years. This is his first stint in government after working in industry at Pragmatics, GTSI and HP during his career.

He’s the second long-time industry executive to join GSA under the category management umbrella. Dan Twomey also made the jump to GSA in May to work in the category management area.

This post is part of Jason Miller’s Inside the Reporter’s Notebook feature. Read more from this edition of Jason’s Notebook.

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