Tech Industry Group Dissolves Public Sector Division

The IT Alliance for Public Sector is being dissolved into its parent group, the Information Technology Industry Council, amid a reorganization effort and its lead advocate is leaving the organization.

Trey Hodgkins, who since 2013 has served as senior vice president of ITAPS, a coalition of technology companies that advocate for IT issues affecting the government, will leave his position at the end of the year.

“ITI’s public sector work is an ongoing priority for the organization and our members, and we are committed to continuing to deliver on that priority at the highest level,” ITI spokesperson Ashley Berrang told Nextgov. “Earlier this year, ITI re-shaped its operating approach and organizational structure across all policy areas.”

Pam Walker, vice president for federal public sector, will drive ITI’s public sector activities under a new—but as of yet unclear—organizational structure, according to an email to ITI board members Tuesday from ITI President Dean Garfield. In the email obtained by Nextgov, Garfield said ITI will hire another experienced public sector professional and will leverage “additional expertise within ITI to support and strengthen our work in this space, including federal affairs and other relevant policy areas, like cybersecurity and supply chain.”

Over the last year, ITI executives have been debating how best to position ITAPS moving forward and have decided to reabsorb the division back into the larger group, according to additional emails obtained by Nextgov.

In an email to member companies from July, Garfield notes that having ITAPS separate from ITI has created more brand awareness around the public sector advocacy but also causes confusion about how the two groups are connected. In that email, Garfield suggests the realignment will better serve ITAPS’ members by giving them greater access to the full resources provided by ITI.

“The changes mean there will be more people working on public sector issues and we expect we will deliver more,” he wrote. “Not everyone will start with the substantive depth, but very quickly we will be able to deliver more robust engagement on public sector matters. That is the key metric by which we will measure our success.”

Garfield also reiterated the organization’s policy of “one company, one vote,” which he said will not change on public sector issues, stating, “ITAPS members will have the full ability to shape decisions.”