Architecture expert heads to Air Force

Customs: Building an Enterprise Architecture framework

Rob Thomas II, who is widely credited with spearheading the government's efforts to build enterprise architectures, is leaving the Customs Service to become the Air Force's director of architecture and interoperability.

Thomas will serve as the senior civilian for the Air Force Communications and Information functional community. He will serve as the technical manager for the Air Force deputy chief of staff for communications and information.

Thomas served as director of Customs' Technology and Architecture Group and is widely recognized for his work developing enterprise architectures. Specifically, Customs has been hailed for setting up and using an enterprise architecture for its systems development. An enterprise architecture is a plan to streamline and standardize computer systems within an agency with common hardware and software.

Thomas was honored this year as one of Federal Computer Week's Federal 100 award winners because of his leadership of the CIO Council's Enterprise Interoperability and Emerging IT Federal Architecture Working Group.

He also helped the Department of Housing and Urban Development create a Web-based system for maintaining the agency's enterprise architecture. It helps the organization track its current systems, its plans for future systems and the standards that govern how systems interoperate.

Thomas will start his work at the Air Force on Aug. 20.