The White House is bolstering its cyber coordinator office with a familiar face.

Andy Ozment will join the cyber office as one of two senior directors reporting to Howard Schmidt, the administration’s cyber coordinator, and eventually the new cyber coordinator, Michael Daniel, a National Security Staff spokeswoman confirmed. Schmidt announced he was retiring earlier this month.

Ozment comes back to the White House from the Homeland Security Department where he was director for compliance and technology in the chief information security officer’s office.

He worked in the Executive Office of the President for about 18 months as part of the team that worked on the overall policy direction for the administration after the 60-day cyberspace review was completed.

“Andy Ozment’s tenure at DHS has provided him valuable insight on how policies actually get implemented or not at the department and agency level,” said Karen Evans, former administrator of e-government and IT at the Office of Management and Budget. “This experience will prove invaluable to him as he returns to the White House.”

Evans said Ozment’s experience, along with Daniel’s 17 years of experience at OMB with national security budget issues, will form a strong team as they implement the administration’s cybersecurity agenda.

“I am very excited for the department and agencies as they will be able to really help the departments and agencies achieve the priorities for minimizing the risk to the nation’s assets from information to critical infrastructure,” she said.

Before joining the government Ozment was an associate staff member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Lab and worked for Merrill Lynch in its information security and privacy division.

“Andy is knowledgeable, energetic and knows the lay of the land,” said James Lewis, director of the Technology and Public Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “Overall, he’s a good pick.”

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