Callahan moving to Homeland

The chief information officer at the Homeland Security Department, is quickly putting together his team. The latest addition is the Labor Department's deputy chief information officer, Laura Callahan, who will join the new department April 1.

Callahan will be the senior director of an office that will be in charge of management, policy and enterprise initiatives such as disaster management and Project SafeCom, a communications network linking first responders, Homeland Security Department CIO Steve Cooper told Federal Computer Week.

"We're moving as fast as we can," Cooper said.

Callahan is the latest in a series of information technology executives to join the new department's CIO shop. Others include Scott Hastings, who was the CIO at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and Woody Hall, who was the CIO at the Customs Service. Both of those agencies have been folded into the department, and the Hastings and Hall will have similar responsibilities in the new department.

Ron Miller, who had been the CIO at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and had been on detail to the Homeland Security Department, is moving to the Small Business Administration, where he will be taking a newly created job handling policy and the "transformational lead."

Cooper told the Northern Virginia Technology Council last week that he would also like to tap Nathaniel Heiner, the chief knowledge officer at the Coast Guard, who has been detailed to the new department for 90 days. But he has not yet persuaded the Coast Guard to let him go.