PTO taps Texan for CIO post

The Patent and Trademark Office has named David Freeland to fill its vacant CIO post.

The announcement is not official. PTO is awaiting approval from the Office of Personnel Management on a Senior Executive Service appointment for Freeland, who previously was a systems chief with the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.

Freeland will replace Douglas Bourgeois, who left the agency in September for a job at the Interior Department. Bourgeois had been CIO for three years.

While with Texas Department of Human Services, which has been subsumed by HHSC, Freeland oversaw a variety of efforts, from creating online services for citizens to drafting a departmentwide telecommunications strategy.

He will begin his new job early next year. Freeland will immediately face the challenges of PTO's ongoing modernization effort to make patent and trademark services more efficient through electronic processing.