ASI exec departs to join fed's new cyber unit

Jeremy Grant has announced he is stepping down as chief development officer at ASI Government effective Friday, Feb. 4.

On Monday, ASI Government announced that Kimberly McCabe had been named president of the public-sector consulting company, assuming that role from Anne Reed who will remain CEO, focusing on client relations and strategies for company growth.

Grant, who came to ASI in 2009 after servings as senior vice president and analyst at the Stanford Group Co., will return to federal service in mid-February.

He will lead the new National Program Office for the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) – a new initiative stemming from the Obama administration’s cybersecurity review, he said today in an e-mail. Grant called it "an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

Grant’s new position comes under the National Institutes of Standards and Technology at the Commerce Department.

The National Program Office will be responsible for bringing the public and private sectors together to meet this challenge. Specific responsibilities as enumerated on the NIST website include:

• Building consensus on legal, technical and policy frameworks necessary to achieve the NSTIC vision, including ways to enhance privacy, free expression and open markets;
• Working with industry to identify where new standards or collaborative efforts may be needed to enable Americans to use – and businesses and other entities to accept – stronger, more secure online authentication technologies;
• Coordinating collaboration across government stakeholders, including agencies such as the General Services Administration and Department of Homeland Security, as well as state and local governments; and
• Guiding NSTIC pilot projects and other NSTIC-related implementations.

The NSTIC was formally unveiled last month at Stanford University by Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt.