Steph Warren, VA’s No.2 IT official, to leave department

Stephen Warren, who has been the number-two information technology official at the Department of Veterans Affairs since 2007 and who served for a time as VA’s chief information officer, will leave the department in late August.

The news came late Thursday morning in an emailed memo from LaVerne Council, who took over as VA’s new CIO and assistant secretary for information and technology in July following her confirmation by the Senate.

Council’s memo, obtained by Federal News Radio, said Warren’s last day at VA would be Aug. 28, and that his “leadership helped lay the foundation for the organization that we will continue to improve upon and bring to greatness.”

Warren will become the new chief information officer at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, officials there announced Thursday afternoon. He’ll begin work at OCC on Sept. 6.

In an email to VA staff obtained by Federal News Radio, Warren said he was privileged to work at the agency.

“Together we have accomplished great things: building one of the largest consolidated IT organizations; developing and deploying the new GI Bill system that today processes original enrollment requests with no required human interaction; moving the benefits determination process from a completely paper-based process to one that is now almost completely in digits; and a dramatic increase in the volume and type of information that we share with DoD to make sure Veterans are receiving the care that they desire,” he wrote. “We’ve done all this while transforming the way we deliver IT solutions such that over the past 5 years we have a more than 80% on-schedule delivery-to-date record with 95+% of all efforts delivering capability.”

“Stephen brings deep experience in information technology to our agency,” Kathy Murphy, OCC’s senior deputy comptroller for management and chief financial officer said in a statement.  “His experience leading large federal IT functions and overseeing delivery of solutions that have helped other agencies will help us deliver even more effective systems, increase employee engagement, and enhance customer service to our agency’s employees and the institutions we regulate.”

Warren had been VA’s CIO since Spring 2013, when then-CIO Roger Baker departed VA. He resumed his duties as principal deputy acting secretary for information and technology last month when Council assumed her new role.

“Steph worked for me for four years, and was an outstanding partner in the things we accomplished during that time,” Baker wrote in an email to Federal News Radio Thursday. “For those that forget, those things included completing the consolidation of VA IT, stopping 45 failing programs, delivering the GI Bill system on time, and deploying the VBMS system nationally 6 months ahead of schedule.  None of that could have been done without Steph Warren.”

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