Facebook Engineer Joins White House as First Director of IT
The White House has added another member to its growing team of IT heavy hitters.
President Barack Obama on Thursday named David Recordon, one of Facebook’s engineering directors, as the new director of White House information technology (a position that did not exist — until now). The president issued a memo Thursday establishing the new position.
“His considerable private sector experience and ability to deploy the latest collaborative and communication technologies will be a great asset to our work on behalf of the American people,” President Obama said of Recordon’s appointment.
In his new role, Recordon will set policies and procedures for operating information systems that serve the president, vice president and the Executive Office of the President. He will focus on consolidating duplicate systems, modernizing collaboration software and introducing new technologies that will benefit White House operations and serve as a model for the federal government, according to a White House blog post.
Recordon will also review IT costs and procurement of information resources and systems by the Presidential Information Technology Community. The community includes entities, such as the National Security Council, U.S. Secret Service and the Office of Administration, which provide information resources and systems to the president, vice president and EOP.
“In our continued efforts to serve our citizens better, we’re bringing in top tech leaders to support our teams across the federal government,” Obama noted.
Last month, the president named Tony Scott, VMware's senior vice president and CIO, as the new federal CIO. Recent hires include DJ Patil as deputy chief technology officer for data policy and chief data scientist, Megan Smith, a former Google executive turned federal chief technology officer, and Mikey Dickerson, a former Google engineer who now serves as administrator of U.S. Digital Service within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Dickerson’s team includes the third engineer hired at Amazon and the former operations director at Twitter. And this won't be Recordon's first time at the White House weighing in on IT matters. (Read more here.)
President Obama’s memo also established the Executive Committee for Presidential Information Technology. Members include the assistant to the president for management and administration; the executive secretary of the National Security Council; the director of the Office of Administration; the director of the U.S. Secret Service; and the director of the White House Military Office.
As director of White House information technology, Recordon is tasked with updating the committee on collaboration efforts with the federal CIO and other government agencies. He will also participate in the CIO Council.
