Turnover of chief information officers continues

Harold Gracey, the Veterans Affairs Department's chief information officer, is the latest in a stream of top federal technology executives to leave the government for the private sector.

Gracey will retire from the department at the end of the month, a VA spokeswoman said. He has not announced where he is going to work.

Gracey's departure follows upon the announced retirements of CIOs at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Agriculture Department earlier this year. EPA CIO Alan Pesachowitz announced his departure for the private sector in March, while Agriculture CIO Anne Reed left the government in February to work for EDS.

The deputy CIOs at three agencies-Labor, Defense and Commerce-have all moved on in recent months as well, although two of them went to other jobs in the federal government. Dennis Fischer, head of the General Services Administration's Federal Technology Service, left the government earlier this year.

The 1996 Information Technology Management Reform Act mandated that every major agency install a chief information officer to oversee technology investments and development. Government Executive profiled the new CIOs at 23 agencies in 1997. Only eight of those profiled are still in their jobs.