Defense CIO to leave job soon

The Defense Department's top information technology official said he plans to leave his post "sooner rather than later."

John Stenbit is waiting for the Bush administration to name a nominee for his replacement as assistant secretary of defense for networks and information integration and chief information officer, several defense officials who declined to be identified said Wednesday. Stenbit told Federal Computer Week on Wednesday afternoon that he has not resigned or retired, but the former TRW executive — who came out of retirement in 2001 to take the same defense position he held in the 1970s - said he wants to spend more time with his grandchildren.

Defense and industry officials said Stenbit also wants to see through the department's 2004 and 2005 IT budgets, intelligence data-sharing tests and awards of the $500 million Global Information Grid-Bandwidth Expansion (GIG-BE) contracts scheduled for later this month or in early October.

Stenbit shaped DOD's evolving network-centric warfare strategy, and oversaw implementation of the Navy Marine Corps Intranet and DOD's Composite Health Care System II programs. He also secured congressional support for more than $4 billion in additional funding for three key NCW programs and initiatives: GIG-BE; Horizontal Fusion; and the future satellite Transformational Communications System.

Stenbit became assistant secretary of defense for command, control, communications and intelligence and CIO in 2001, but his office was reorganized into the assistant secretary of defense for networks and information integration and CIO in May. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology.