Sun Federal shuffles employees

Sun Microsystems has announced several personnel changes at Sun Microsystems Federal, a wholly owned subsidiary.

After 20 years at Sun, John Marselle, chief operating officer at Sun Federal, is retiring. Marselle held various positions at the company, including vice president of the Americas and president of Sun Federal.

Bill Vass, formerly Sun’s chief information officer, was named president and COO of Sun Microsystems Federal.

Anthony Robbins was hired as vice president of federal sales.

Vass and Robbins join Scott McNealy, chairman of Sun Federal, as leaders of the business unit, according to a company statement.

McNealy stepped down as chief executive officer of Sun in April, but remains chairman of the company and of Sun Federal.

With Vass’ transition to Sun Federal, the company has appointed Robert Worrall as CIO. Worrall formerly was vice president of information technology under Vass.

“Bill and Anthony redouble the commitment to government established by Scott and me, adding top talent and focus,” said Jonathan Schwartz, Sun Microsystems chief executive officer. “Now is the time for all technology companies to place their priorities on evolving the safety, security and innovation available to our government.”

Prior to joining Sun, Vass held other government-sector positions, including an executive CIO role at the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In this capacity, he was responsible for IT strategy and execution of the Defense Department’s IT infrastructure: DOD Software Management, CIO Pentagon IT infrastructure Oversight and Architecture, and Network Operations for the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Robbins comes to Sun from SGI, where he held numerous positions including president of SGI Federal and senior vice president of the North American Field Organization and senior vice president of Worldwide Sales. He began his career at SGI as a sales representative for civilian and intelligence agencies and DOD.