Grimes eyed for DOD job

John Grimes, who started his career with Defense Department command and control systems 49 years ago, is a candidate for nomination as the permanent assistant secretary of defense for command, control, communications, and intelligence and DOD chief information officer. He would replace Linton Wells, who has held the position in an acting role since March 2004.

Industry and government sources at this week's AFCEA International TechNet conference speculated Grimes could be nominated for the assistant secretary job as early as next week. Grimes declined to comment on the possibility of receiving the appointment.

Retired Vice Adm. Herb Browne, AFCEA’s president and chief executive officer, said Grimes appears to be the next in line for a sensitive government job. Browne said he recently received a call from the FBI checking Grimes' background. Grimes also declined to stand for re-election to the AFCEA board May 16, citing a potential conflict of interest, Browne added.

Grimes is vice president of Washington, D.C., operations for Raytheon’s Intelligence and Information Systems division.

Grimes began his career with military information systems while serving in the Air Force in 1956. He worked on one of the first major DOD computer-driven projects, the Air Force Semi-Automatic Ground Environment, an air defense surveillance system that used radars connected to early IBM mainframe computers.

After leaving the Air Force in 1960, Grimes worked as a civilian for Army commands from 1961 to 1981, including a tour as assistant deputy chief of staff for the Army Communications Command.

From 1990 to 1994, Grimes was in the Pentagon as deputy assistant secretary of defense for counterintelligence/security countermeasures and deputy assistant secretary for defensewide command, control, communications and intelligence.

Grimes left DOD in 1994 to join Chrysler's Electrospace Systems division, which was acquired by Raytheon in 1996.