Hashmi to Box, Vickers retires and a new hire for White House IT

GSA CIO taking a job with Box

General Services Administration CIO Sonny Hashmi is joining Box as managing director for government, the company announced March 19.

"Sonny's innovative leadership is just what the industry needs to accelerate the adoption of cloud and mobile technologies," Box CEO Aaron Levie said in the official statement. "We're incredibly thrilled to have him ... help drive our momentum and growth in the federal space."

Hashmi, who won a 2013 Federal 100 award while serving as GSA's deputy CIO and chief technology officer, has been a key driver of the agency's push for cloud services. Box's business model is entirely cloud-based; the firm's stated mission is to help organizations "securely access and manage their critical information in the cloud." Box currently has 40 federal-agency customers, and is working with the Defense Information Systems Agency to obtain FedRAMP certification.

FCW reported on March 10 that Hashmi planned to leave government, but at that point neither he nor other sources would confirm the destination on the record.

Vickers stepping down as Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence

Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers will retire April 30, ending a four-year run in the position, the Pentagon announced March 19.

In a January policy address, Vickers put insecurity in cyberspace on par with terrorism as the biggest immediate threat to U.S. national security. policy:

Obama appoints director of White House IT

President Barack Obama on March 19 named former Facebook engineering director David Recordon as director of White House information technology, a new position meant to drive IT modernization at the White House.

Recordon's charge will include collapsing overlapping IT systems, modernizing software and keeping the White House up with private-sector technology advances, according to a White House blog post.

In a statement, Obama lauded Recordon's "considerable private sector experience and ability to deploy the latest collaborative and communication technologies."

Contractors could be liable for reporting carbon

President Barack Obama's March 19 executive order aimed at reducing the federal government's carbon footprint includes some provisions for federal contractors to begin reporting their company's greenhouse gas emissions as a condition of their contracts.

GSA announced a new pilot program as Obama signed an order directing the federal government to cut its overall greenhouse-gas emissions by 40 percent over the next decade. The order also directed the GSA to encourage vendors and contractors to publicly disclose their corporate-wide greenhouse gas emissions and set targets for reducing them.

GSA is the first federal agency to launch such a program, Jed Ela, sustainability advisor, Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings, wrote in a March 19 blog post on the agency's web site.

GSA said it is launching the pilot with a third-party carbon reporting system provider CDP Supply Chain, a global nonprofit that offers companies the ability to publicly disclose their emissions. GSA said it plans to invite about 120 companies to participate in the program, chosen from among its largest suppliers.