Senate hires first CIO
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Greg Hanson, the first CIO for the Senate Sergeant at Arms, said his job likely will be more about management and less about technology.
In the eight days since Greg Hanson became the first CIO for the Senate Sergeant at Arms, the 25-year IT veteran quickly recognized he was walking into an organization that is technologically adept. In fact, Hanson said his job likely will be more about management and less about technology.
'There are a lot of good projects going on with lots of good technology,' Hanson said. 'I inherited an organization in good shape.'
Hanson takes over the Senate's IT leadership from Barbara Timmer, who was the acting assistant sergeant at arms for IT. He will concentrate on enterprise technology for the Senate and IT issues for the Sergeant at Arms.
While most senators and committees have at least a part-time systems administrator, Hanson said he is the de facto Senate CIO and will work closely with the sysadmins to address concerns and needs on a Senatewide scale.
He said his initial priorities include finishing the Senate's migration to Microsoft Exchange Server from Lotus Notes cc:Mail, which is nearly complete. A number of Senate offices also are moving to Microsoft Windows 2000 from Windows NT to create a Senatewide Active Directory. With this in place, Hanson said he would be able to launch enterprise applications.
Another priority is to formalize the Senate's enterprise architecture. He said there had been some work on a modernization blueprint, but he would like to move it forward to get a better idea of the Senate's IT environment.
Hanson said he also will look at wireless, knowledge management and security technologies for members. In particular, he said he wants to consider how the Senate can make better use of the IEEE 802.11b wireless standard and Web technologies.
'My impression is there are no serious holes in our security,' he said. 'We just want to make sure we are as secure as possible without limiting the ability of the members to do their jobs.'
Before coming to the Senate, Hanson was the chief technology officer for Universal Systems and Technology Inc. of Centreville, Va., and Telos Corp. of Ashburn, Va. He also was a chief software engineer for the Air Force and served as a lead computer scientist for NATO's Central Region Headquarters, where he managed a $200 million command and control development effort and built the organization's largest LAN.
Hanson earned a doctorate in computer science from the University of Central Florida, a master's degree from the Air Force Institute of Technology and a bachelor's degree from the Air Force Academy.
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