The Principal Deputy Chief Information Officer for the Department of Defense will retire June 30, according to a department spokesperson.
Essye Miller, the current principal deputy CIO, will be replaced by John Sherman, the current CIO of the Intelligence Community (IC), once Miller departs. Miller served as acting defense CIO from December 2017 to May 2018.
“I want to wish Essye Miller well in her upcoming retirement and thank her for 35 years of federal service to our nation,” said the department’s CIO Dana Deasy, who took over the role from Miller in May 2018 before being Senate confirmed in December 2019.
“Essye has been a trusted advisor to me, especially as I came onboard the DoD,” Deasy said. “John will bring a breadth of experience to the organization and I look forward to working with him as we continue to implement the digital modernization strategy across the DoD.”
Sherman has served as the CIO of the IC since September 2017.
“It’s been an honor to work at ODNI, and lead the efforts to modernize the IC Information Technology Environment,” Sherman said. “I look forward to assisting DoD CIO, the Honorable Dana Deasy, and the Department of Defense with its ongoing digital modernization.”
Those modernization efforts include cyber workforce education and training. The department told the Government Accountability Office that a department manual, Cyber Workforce Qualification and Management Program, with educational and training requirements will be complete sometime around this month. GAO said last week that the department needs to take “decisive action” to improve how it implements cyber hygiene practices.
