Army nominates new top-ranking uniformed IT officer

After a recent shakeup to the structure of the Army’s Office of the Chief Information Officer, the service nominated a general to be the next top uniformed IT officer.

Maj. Gen. John Morrison has been nominated as deputy chief of staff of the G-6, a Senate Armed Services Committee spokesperson confirmed to FedScoop. If confirmed by the Senate, Morrison will also receive a rank promotion to lieutenant general.

Currently, Lt. Gen. Bruce Crawford holds the CIO role for the Army under the current CIO/G-6 model. However, the service recently split the role into a civilian CIO and the uniformed deputy chief of staff to the G-6, which will become official Aug. 31. The shakeup comes as several other top IT and cyber positions are being reshuffled in the Pentagon and the military services.

Morrison comes from U.S. Cyber Command, where he served as chief of staff. In his new role, he would focus on military IT issues, including work with Army Cyber Command, and policy implementation. He would report directly to the Army’s chief of staff, the department’s top uniformed officer, and serve as an adviser on the enterprise network developments, which the eventual new CIO will oversee more directly.

Crawford will leave his CIO position next month and retire from the Army after more than 30 years of uniformed service on Oct. 1. The new civilian CIO has not been named.

DOD’s new uniformed cyber adviser

In other defense IT personnel news, the Department of Defense has a new top uniformed cyber policy adviser, Rear Adm. William Chase, according to a news release.

Chase’s official title will be senior military adviser for cyber policy to the undersecretary of defense for policy, and deputy principal cyber adviser to the secretary of defense. Chase replaces Maj. Gen. Dennis Crall, who was nominated to be the next director for command, control, communications, and computers (C4)/cyber and the CIO (J-6) for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Crall was selected as a 2020 FedScoop Best Boss in Federal IT.

The position oversees the implementation of the DOD’s cybersecurity strategy and developing and implementing other policies the DOD issues related to cyber.