Tritak departs CIAO, government
Head of the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office left government Jan. 10
John Tritak, head of the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office and a longtime leader of public/private partnerships in the information security arena, left government Jan. 10, according to a Commerce Department spokesman.
The CIAO is one of several infrastructure protection organizations that is destined for the new Homeland Security Department, and the White House reportedly was planning to name Tritak to lead the department's infrastructure protection division.
Tritak did not return calls, but he has been planning this departure for some time, the spokesman said.
Tritak came to the CIAO in July 1999 and was immediately thrown into the controversy surrounding the Clinton administration's plan to create a governmentwide intrusion detection network. As head of the CIAO, the policy arm of the White House's critical infrastructure protection efforts, Tritak was also in charge of the Clinton administration's National Plan for Information Systems Protection.
In the Bush administration, he served as the primary contact for federal outreach to the state, local and private sector entities involved in developing the draft National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace.