Former Army CIO leaves Computer Associates

Otto Guenther, the Army's first chief information officer, has left software vendor Computer Associates International Inc. after a three-and-a-half-year stint there.

A receptionist answering the telephone at Computer Associates Federal Systems Group's office in Herndon, Va., confirmed that Guenther left the company last week.

As a three-star general, Guenther served as the Army's director of information systems for command, control, communications and computers from 1995 to 1997. That position also serves as the Army's chief information officer.

As a two-star general, he served as commander of the Army Communications-Electronics Command at Fort Monmouth, N.J. Before that, Guenther served as the Army's program executive officer for command, control and communications systems.

Guenther joined CA in August 1997 as director of strategic initiatives, and he formed the company's federal systems group in April 2000 after CA purchased Sterling Software Inc. and Applied Management Systems Inc. During the same time frame, a potential acquisition that would have made Guenther's organization even bigger—CA's hostile takeover bid for integrator Computer Sciences Corp.—didn't come through.

An industry source familiar with the matter said that Guenther left the company because he was frustrated about not having all of CA's public-sector business and related operations under his direction.

A CA spokesman at the company's headquarters in Islandia, N.Y., did not return phone calls for comment.