Havekost to leave HHS and head for Austria

Charles Havekost announced Monday that he will be leaving his position as chief information officer at the Department of Health and Human Services in mid-June and moving with his family to Vienna, Austria, where he will work for the International Atomic Energy Agency. He has been hired as director of that agency’s information technology division.Havekost, a well-known figure in the federal information technology community, led Grants.gov, an e-government initiative that required considerable cross-agency leadership skills to get off the ground. Sheila Conley, HHS’ deputy chief financial officer, said in an interview earlier this year that Havekost “has the knack of being able to bring people together to make decisions where others can’t.”He began his career at HHS in 1975 as a GS-2 Junior Fellow at the National Institutes of Health. Except for a brief stint at a start-up telecommunications company in 1999, Havekost has served in numerous positions at HHS, culminating in 2004 in his current position as deputy assistant secretary and CIO.This spring, Havekost’s peers selected him for a 2007 Federal 100 award.