OMB, Transportation lose long-time IT, policy staff members

Over the last few weeks, several lesser known, but significant changes came to the federal IT and acquisition ranks.

While these federal executives may not be  known as well as some of their chief information officer colleagues that we usually write about in this space, they nonetheless have a big impact.

Let’s start with Kamela White, who left the Office of Management and Budget in August after 19 years. White joined the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Homeland Security as a professional staff member.

Many of you may not recognize White’s name, but you’ve been impacted by her efforts. She was a senior program examiner at OMB starting in 2000 where she initially worked on some of the e-government initiatives around cybersecurity and later around shared services.

She later worked on homeland security issues, including immigration and visas.

Since July 2017, White has been the director of enterprise analytics at OMB where she helped accelerated the adoption of advanced analytics to support more data-driven policy, budget and operational decisions.

White is one of those people who made OMB work, putting her head down and drawing little attention to her successes.

Jimmy Jones is another person in the same mold of making the trains run on time and helping agencies find success.

Jones left the Transportation Department, where he was a program analyst in the CIO’s office, after four years working on a host of issues from creating an open source repository to working on emergency response for hurricanes on behalf of the agency.

In a note posted on LinkedIn, Jones writes, “I have decided to take a job offer with Pinellas County’s Tax Collectors Office as a senior project manager around the first of September. This job opportunity came to me as a total surprise, but it is the right position for me at the right time in my life. Therefore, I am moving from a federal position into a county position. As many of you already know, I have been commuting back and forth from D.C. to Florida for over the last four years. Please note that I have been provided a lot of wonderful experiences and challenging assignments during my career.”

Jones started his federal career on Capitol Hill where he worked for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. He moved over to the Education Department shortly after and spent five years developing IT business cases.

He joined the Interior Department in 2006 and then the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board in 2010.

“I was able to improve to enhance my knowledge while working on so many areas that allowed me to grow at each of my positions,” Jones writes.

Over at the Homeland Security Department, Beth Cappello joined as the new deputy CIO replacing Stephen Rice.

Cappello comes to headquarters after spending the previous almost-three years with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement directorate as its deputy CIO and acting CIO.

She also worked at the Customs and Border Protection directorate for five years as its head of the Enterprise Networks and Technology Support office.

Rice left in June to be the deputy CIO at the Navy Federal Credit Union.

Also at DHS, but on the procurement side, Milton Slade is a new industry liaison. He comes to the headquarters office of the chief procurement officer after spending the last nine years as a contract specialist at DHS.

“As I transition, I look forward to this challenge and the opportunity to engage with many of you on strategy, innovation, outreach and better communication in order to build a stronger, more robust DHS,” Slade writes on LinkedIn.

Over at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Benjamin Huebner joined as the new chief of the Office of Civil Liberties, Privacy, and Transparency (CLPT).

He also will be the Intelligence Community’s (IC) Civil Liberties Protection Officer, a position established by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, and as ODNI’s Chief Transparency Officer.

Huebner replaces Alex Joel, who held the position since 2005 and left in July.

And finally, Terryne Murphy, who left in August as the Commerce Department’s acting CIO, announced her new position as CIO at U.S. Railroad Retirement Board in Chicago. She replaces Ram Murthy, who held that position since 2013.

Copyright © 2024 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.