Todd Park, the United States chief technology officer, will step down by the end of August, an official familiar with the situation confirmed to FedScoop.
President Barack Obama and Todd Park, federal CTO, (Photo: Pete Souza White House)Park will take on a new role working as part of the White House team from Silicon Valley where he will focus on recruiting top tech talent and help channel the best ideas from the tech community into IT efforts in government.
Park, a California native, will return to Silicon Valley by the end of August in time for his children to start school, the official confirmed. The move back to California has been planned for a while, according to the official. The source also said Park needs to move back home for family reasons.
Park, the second person to hold the U.S. CTO title, has been in the position since March 2012, when he replaced Aneesh Chopra after the position was created by President Barack Obama in April 2009. Since taking on the position, Park has spearheaded a number of the President’s open data initiatives and worked on the creation of the Presidential Innovation Fellows program.
In the position, Park lead projects to use technology to improve citizen services and government outcomes. During the fumbled healthcare.gov rollout last October, Park, the former CTO at the Department of Health and Human Services, led the team that sought to bring in technology experts to fix the website.
After healthcare.gov got up to speed, Park also helped create the U.S. Digital Service, which is now headed by former Google employee Mikey Dickerson.
Prior to his time as the US CTO and associate director of the Office of Science & Technology Policy, Park was the CTO of HHS and worked in the private sector. An official announcement from the White House is expected soon, the source said.
