Federal 100: Max Everett
Name: Max Everett
Title: CIO
Agency: Department of Energy
Data center consolidator. For years, DOE had fallen behind on the government’s Data Center Optimization Initiative. When Everett took over as CIO, he used the directive to reshape the department’s entire strategy. He collaborated with the national labs to inventory the department’s data centers and consolidate them into enterprisewide and high-performance computing environments. In 2018, DOE closed 94 of its 314 data centers, with another 20 set for closure by the end of 2020. “Max’s basic approach was you have to give people a reason to close data centers,” said Gerard Hopkins, senior adviser to DOE’s CIO. “Otherwise, they’re going to stick around.”