DHS names Border and Transportation CIO

Charles Armstrong has been named the first chief information officer at the Homeland Security Department's Border and Transportation Security Directorate. He will be reporting to Dave Nicholson, resource director at the directorate.

Armstrong has been acting CIO at the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection and long considered a rising star in the federal information technology community.

In his new job, Armstrong will be in charge of integrating IT across the directorate and overseeing the coordination of major major programs such as the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) project, a database that will link every U.S. port of entry and replace a paper-based system and the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program, DHS' entry/exit system that tracks foreign visitors to the United States. He will be working with Scott Hastings who is the US-VISIT CIO.

Before starting his job July 26, Armstrong said he will be going to Bangkok to give a speech to the Asia-Pacific Economic Council on modernizing the trade process using ACE.