NGA to merge CIO and IT services

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is merging its CIO and IT services functions in a bid to better implement a “services-based” model and an intelligence community-wide IT architecture, the agency announced Jan. 26. The merger is effective Feb. 15.

The move will help "accelerate IT delivery of capabilities while fully leveraging [the IC Information Technology Enterprise] and incorporating new data sources," NGA Director Robert Cardillo said in a statement. ICITE is an ambitious project to deliver a common IT platform across the intelligence community that, after more than two years of foundation-setting, is moving into a new phase that includes enterprise management and advanced tools for the cloud.

Douglas McGovern, a former deputy chief operating officer who now directs the agency’s R&D arm, will lead the NGA's merged CIO and IT functions.

Current CIO David White will become an NGA fellow to the recently established Intelligence and National Security Foundation, an arm of the nonprofit Intelligence and National Security Alliance. Current Director of IT Services David Bottom will head the NGA’s leader development program.

"NGA is at a pivotal crossroads where policy and business processes must move as quickly as IT implementation," Cardillo said. "Executing new missions and leveraging new sources, along with our traditional missions and sources, require us to unify our IT management with IT delivery and sustainment."