HHS Tech Boss Is Next Federal CTO

Todd Park, who has been HHS CTO for the past three years, will succeed Aneesh Chopra in the federal technologist job President Barack Obama first created in 2009. Chopra stepped down in late January, several months after formal federal CIO Vivek Kundra left the White House.

Park's appointment was confirmed by John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, in a White House blog post Friday. Park, Holdren said, was a "hugely energetic force" in his three years at HHS.

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"He led the successful execution of an an array of breakthrough initiatives, including the creation of HealthCare.gov, the first Website to provide consumers with a comprehensive inventory of public and private health insurance plans available across the Nation by zip code in a single, easy-to-use tool," Holdren wrote.

The federal CTO job comes under the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and Holdren said Park will work closely with U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Telecommunications Tom Power. Power will oversee the OSTP's Associate Director for Technology duties -- a role that Chopra had had during his federal CTO stint but that Park apparently will not.

Previously in his career, Park co-founded AthenaHealth, and also was a management consulting for Booz Allen Hamilton.

The roles of federal CTO and federal CIO were created by the Obama Administration to overhaul how the White House and federal agencies procure technology. Park and Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel, a former Microsoft executive who replaced Kundra last summer, are expected to continue the government's embrace of cloud computing technologies and its ongoing data center consolidation effort.