State Dept. to lose top IT official

The State Department will lose its top information technology official early next month, adding to a growing list of federal IT leaders who have left their roles this year. 

State’s chief information officer (CIO), Frontis Wiggins, is retiring after more than three decades of service in the federal government, a department spokesman confirmed. 

{mosads}Wiggins’s last day will be Dec. 8. The spokesman said the department’s principal deputy chief information officer, Robert Adams, will assume Wiggins’s responsibilities in an acting capacity. 

Wiggins, who has served in the government for 32 years, was appointed CIO at the State Department in July 2016. He is responsible for managing State’s billion-dollar IT budget and serves as the driving force behind IT initiatives at the department. He has spent much of his tenure focusing on moving agency systems to the cloud and implementing the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act.

A handful of individuals serving in high-ranking IT positions across the federal government left their roles earlier this year, illuminating the challenge the government faces in retaining technology and cybersecurity professionals.

Wiggins’s retirement was first reported by FedScoop.