Lorentz to leave OMB

Norm Lorentz, the chief technology officer at the Office of Management and Budget, announced his departure from the administration today.

Lorentz, who has been serving as the acting e-government chief since Mark Forman's departure last month, is the latest prominent government official to exit the Bush administration. Lorentz is moving to DigitalNet, where he will be senior vice-president in charge of civilian government business. His new position will give him the opportunity to develop strategies for the company, something he was looking for, he said.

Three senior OMB officials have announced resignations in the past month: Forman; Lorentz; and Angela Styles, who will be leaving her job as administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. The departures are not a sign of an OMB brain drain, Lorentz said. "Change is good," he said. "This is the ordinary cycle of change."

As the federal chief technology officer, Lorentz made it possible for many of OMB's e-government policies to happen.

His oversight of the Federal Enterprise Architecture set the vision for identifying and cataloging federal business processes and the technologies that support them.

His work in reorganizing and reinvigorating the CIO Council's Architecture and Infrastructure Committee will help ensure that agencies not only implement the policies and practices set out by OMB, but are also involved in developing them.

Jim Kane, president and chief executive officer of Federal Sources Inc., said Lorentz's resignation could have a greater impact than Forman's because much of Forman's work has been "institutionalized" in government.

"Norm's departure introduces some risk of whether Enterprise Architecture will be institutionalized," Kane said. "His successor has got to be someone who keeps the focus on EA."

Lorentz's information technology career has spanned a 30-year stretch, including serving as the CTO at the U.S. Postal Service, where he oversaw a $4 billion budget and managed 4,000 IT professionals nationwide.

Prior to joining the federal government, Lorentz was senior vice president and chief technology officer for IT career solutions provider Dice Inc., where he directed the development of technology strategy and infrastructure.