West to return to Commerce as CIO

Barry West will be returning to the Commerce Department -- this time as the agency's chief information officer.

West, who has served as CIO at the Federal Emergency Management Agency since October 2003, will begin his new job June 12.

“It’s kind of like a homecoming for me,” West said.

“I loved working for FEMA,” he said. He had worked with FEMA when he was the CIO at the National Weather Service, and he has been a first responder.

West has spent many years in government, beginning in the Air Force as a weather specialist and then serving as associate director for production services at the National Technical Information Service.

He became a systems manager at the Census Bureau during the 1990 Census. Before his FEMA appointment, he worked at NWS and served as deputy director at the General Services Administration, where he was the technical lead on the FirstGov.gov information portal project.

Commerce’s last CIO, Tom Pyke, had served since June 2001 and left to become CIO of the Energy Department in November 2005. Deputy Karen Hogan has served as acting CIO since Pyke’s departure.