Nelson to resign from the EPA to join Microsoft
The EPA’S CIO will serve as executive director of e-government.
Kim Nelson, the Environmental Protection Agency’s chief information officer, is leaving her federal job to become the executive director of e-government at Microsoft, a newly created position.
In a letter to President Bush, Nelson said her resignation after four years as CIO is effective Jan. 2. She wrote that she hoped to continue to support e-government in her new position.
At Microsoft, Nelson will help develop Microsoft’s e-government strategy, according to the company. She will work with government CIOs and other leaders to establish “long-term strategies and vision for more efficient and cost-effective online services.”
“Her role will also include extensive collaboration with Microsoft’s vast partner ecosystem, working to drive solutions that will ensure the predictable delivery of improved online services while helping to reduce the cost, risk and deployment time associated with sophisticated e-government systems,” Microsoft said in a statement.
She is leaving the EPA when it is well-positioned to support citizen-centric government and its “challenging mission of protecting human health and safeguarding the natural environment.” Nelson has worked hard to make sure that the EPA receives a green score on the e-government portion of the management score card, she wrote in her letter to Bush.
In addition, she said, the EPA and the states “planned, designed and built the Environmental Information Exchange Network to seamlessly share information across government boundaries over the Internet.”
Nelson also serves on the executive council of the Federal CIO board and is co-chairwoman of the CIO Council’s Architecture and Infrastructure Committee. While on the CIO Council, she has helped produce a data reference model, an important tool in information-sharing in the fight against terrorism.
Nelson will start her new job in January 2006 and report to Scott Suhy, general manager of Microsoft’s U.S. industry unit and leader of the company’s worldwide partner strategy.
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