Lorentz, CTO at OMB, to join DigitalNet

CAMBRIDGE, Md.?Norman Lorentz will leave his post as the Office of Management and Budget's chief technology officer this month to join a Washington-area IT company. His last day at OMB will be Sept. 19.

Lorentz informed OMB officials of his intention to step down on Aug. 30, he said. He will join DigitalNet of Herndon, Va., as a senior vice president.

In recent weeks, Lorentz has acted as OMB's associate administrator for e-government and IT, the post Mark Forman left on Aug. 15.

Lorentz said he's not sure whether he'll be replaced at OMB, because of OMB's plan to appoint a full-time chief architect.

"I don't think it's absolutely necessary," Lorentz said of replacing him. "My guess would be that the CTO leadership position could be potentially absorbed by the administrator, and the architecture work could be done by the full-time chief architect." To date, Bob Haycock has filled the role of chief architect.

He said Evans and other OMB leaders will decide on whether to fill the CTO post.

As for his departure, Lorentz it is for personal reasons not related to the management shakeup at OMB. "I would have been satisfied with supporting Karen Evans" had he stayed, he said.

He decided to leave now, before the next budget cycle got started. "I didn't want to disrupt the process with the budget starting and Karen coming in," he said, adding that, "DigitalNet gave me an offer I couldn't refuse."

He will oversee all of DigitalNet's civilian federal market, work as an operational manager and participate in the strategic direction of the company, he said. He noted that, because of rules governing public- and private-sector connections, he will not work with Debra Stouffer or Bill McVay, both former OMB officials who now work for DigitalNet.

As the office's CTO, Lorentz oversaw efforts to establish a federal enterprise architecture. The Federal Enterprise Architecture Program Office in June released an updated version of the Business Reference Model, and the initial
versions of the Service Component and Technical Reference models. The models are major building blocks to establishing a plan for governmentwide IT investments.

Before joining OMB in January 2002, Lorentz was senior vice president and chief technology officer for Dice Inc., a technology employment firm in Urbandale, Iowa.

He also was senior vice president and CTO of the Postal Service, where he managed a $4 billion budget and 4,000 IT workers.

DigitalNet, which has filed plans to conduct an initial public stock offering, offers consulting, enterprise management services, information assurance, application development and integration.