NASA’s Chief Data Officer (CDO) and Deputy Digital Transformation Officer Ron Thompson has retired from Federal service after a career of serving in seven different agencies.
Thompson stepped down from his more than three-year stint at NASA on Sept. 30. Prior to his time at NASA, he served as the director of IT and chief information officer (CIO) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“Since 1984, when I put on a uniform, I have been serving this great nation as a public servant,” Thompson said in a LinkedIn post. “I had the opportunity to serve in seven agencies rising through the ranks to the senior executive service – I have been truly blessed. It has been my privilege to serve this wonderful nation and making lifelong friends, benefiting from amazing mentors’ leaders throughout the journey.”
Thompson began his career with the U.S. Army in 1984, serving as a telecommunications specialist. He has also served as a division director at the Environmental Protection Agency, deputy CIO and principal deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Information and Technology at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and executive director of IT engineering and operations at the Department of Health and Human Services.
He also served as the director and senior technical advisor at the Internal Revenue Service and as the director of the Department of the Treasury’s web application infrastructure and UNIX engineering.
Additionally, Thompson spent over 11 years as the branch chief of the U.S. Census Bureau’s enterprise systems, and he later returned to serve as the agency’s chief enterprise architect and division chief.
“As I reflect back on my time, it is amazing how quickly the time passed and my hope is my contributions made the mission better than I found it and I helped others as I have been helped along the way,” Thompson said.
