State Department CIO RetiresState Department CIO Retires

Bruce Morrison is following Secretary of State Colin Powell's lead, and is leaving his post as State Department CIO. An aide in his office said Tuesday Morrison is retiring.

Morrison might not be the only departmental CIO ready to leave in the wake of a big changeover in President George Bush's Cabinet. Eight Cabinet officials have announced their intention of leaving as the second Bush administration begins, and Mark Forman, the one-time de facto federal CIO, points out that Cabinet secretaries like to have their own people in senior departmental posts. "A number of people are gearing up to leave," says Forman, who left his job as the administration's E-administrator 15 months ago to become executive VP worldwide for startup Cassatt Corp. "Buddies are asking for names of people. That's always a sign of change." Forman didn't speculate on specific CIOs who might leave.

Within the first six months of George W. Bush's presidency in 2001, 12 of 26 major departments and agencies changed CIOs. The difference then from today was that a Republican administration replaced a Democratic one. At that time, only four of the CIOs were political appointees; the remainder were career IT pros, including Morrison. Today, nine are political appointees. [That doesn't count political appointee Steve Cooper, CIO at Homeland Security, which wasn't a Cabinet department when Bush took office. ]

Powell tapped Morrison as acting State Department CIO in early 2003 and later promoted him to permanent CIO. Since 1996--when the Clinger-Cohen Act took effect and required Cabinet departments to have CIOs--State Department IT has been headed by a career civil servant, except for a 1 1/2-year period around 1996.