FCW Insider: Career exec as deputy CTO?

Amidst all the speculation about who Obama will appoint as chief technology officer, a veteran of the federal community is trying to drum up support for creating a deputy CTO -- to be filled by a career senior executive.

Bob Greeves, a former chief information officer at the Energy Department and an active member in various industry groups around town, sent out an e-mail Friday proposing the idea.

Greeves assumes, as most people do, that Obama will find a CTO outside government. Naming a career fed as deputy "would provide stability during transitions and changes of political CTO's (that normally change at the rate of one every 18 months or so)," he wrote.

Greeves even suggested two potential candidates for the job: Kshemendra Paul, chief architect at the Office of Management and Budget ("he has the background, technological capability, relationship building skills and energy to carry it off"), and Van Hitch, CIO at the Justice Department ("he is a quality CIO, the dean of federal CIOs and has served in that capacity for many years"). He has worked with both of them over the years.

Greeves is hoping to get some support for the idea from the federal media, ACT/IAC and the Senior Executives Association. A contractor to Justice for the last 10 years, he is careful to note that this initiative is his alone and that he is not speaking for his employer.