Utah names new CIO

Stephen Fletcher has been appointed Utah's new chief information officer, Gov. John Huntsman (R) announced Monday.

Fletcher, who begins May 1, said his first order of business would be to review IT functions in the state government to gauge their efficiency and productivity.

Fletcher was previously CIO and chief technology officer for the U.S. Department of Education. He also worked for the agency as deputy assistant secretary for management.

While at the Education Department, Fletcher established performance-based contracts and improved business processes focused on service-level agreements that produced savings for the government.

"This is a great opportunity for Utah to enact permanent change and improve the way of doing business throughout all government agencies," Fletcher said in a statement issued by the governor's office. "I hope to be able to bring best practices from both the public and private sectors to elevate the office of CIO to a high-performance organization."

Fletcher succeeds Val Oveson, who resigned Dec. 31 to work in the private sector. Oveson began working in February as vice president of strategic business development for CGI-AMS of Fairfax, Va.