McManus to leave government work

John McManus, deputy chief information officer and chief technology officer at the Commerce Department, will be leaving the government for the private sector. His last day is today.McManus leaves after less than a year in his position, which he took in November 2006.McManus said he will be joining a small, Kirkland, Wash.-based property management firm called Watermark as CIO.“It’s just an opportunity for me go back out and sharpen up my technical skills for a few years,” he said in a phone interview, adding that he looked forward to doing “hands-on technical architecture work.”A well-regarded fixture in the government information technology community and winner of two Federal Computer Week Federal 100 awards, McManus co-chaired the CIO Council’s IPv6 Working Group. Prior to his work at Commerce, he was deputy CIO and CTO at NASA and led efforts to develop an agencywide IT architecture.“We’ve lost a great guy,” said Peter Tseronis, director of network services at the Education Department. “I’m bummed.”Tseronis will now take the lead of the working group. He said he plans to bring on as vice chairman Tim Schmidt, CTO at the Transportation Department.McManus said he is leaving government only temporarily.“I’ve started my career in the federal government and my plan is to, in the future, finish it here,” he said, adding that most of his family lives in the Northern Virginia area.