Agriculture CFO to double as CIO

Charles Christopherson Jr. has been selected as the Agriculture Department’s chief information officer in addition to retaining his role as chief financial officer. He replaces Dave Combs, who left the CIO position last month.The Senate confirmed Christopherson as USDA’s CFO in November 2005. The CIO role does not require Senate confirmation, the agency said. Christopherson has successfully led several joint initiatives between the CFO and CIO offices. Deputy CIO Jerry Williams and Deputy CFO Patricia Healy will support Christopherson in his dual roles.“Christopherson has been an integral part of the USDA team in his role as the CFO and has demonstrated a ‘get it done and get it done right’ attitude,” USDA Secretary Mike Johanns said today in announcing Christopherson’s new role.Christopherson said his goal was to focus more effort on ensuring that financial and nonfinancial systems and business processes help USDA agencies accomplish their missions.“We will continue to focus our efforts on protecting the sensitive data held by USDA, improving our IT systems security, providing better technology to the USDA programs that serve our citizens, and leveraging the synergies of the Offices of the CFO and CIO,” he said.He received a bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University and a master's degree from the Oregon Executive MBA program, a consortium of the business schools at three of Oregon’s largest public universities.