Deputy CIO Ed Meagher announces retirement

Ed Meagher, deputy chief information officer at the Interior Department and former deputy CIO at the Veterans Affairs Department, announced today that he plans to retire July 1 to take a position with SRA International, in that company's health care unit.

In a short email sent out this monring, Meagher wrote:

Folks,

I have decided to retire from the government effective July 1, 2008.

I will be joining SRA International in their Health Care Unit in mid July.

Regards,

Ed

Meagher was known for working hard to push information technology into the strategic decision making processes in agencies' top executive levels. He has been a strong proponent of giving the CIO more influence in agencies to improve government performance. In March, Meagher told Government Executive in an article that the government has failed to make IT strategic, as laid in the Clinger Cohen Act of 1996:

With a few notable exceptions, we're moving in the wrong direction. Clinger-Cohen was the direct result of these same conversations in the 1990s, when folks recognized that IT is a $70-billion-a-year operation in government. But Clinger-Cohen has fundamentally been ignored. The CIO has no voice. He doesn't get invited to meetings, he gets his directions and gives feedback through a third party after decisions have already been made, and he only gets called in when things are broken.

Meagher also was equally known for his work with wounded veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, frequently providing them a steak dinner and helping them work their way through the Defense Department's and VA's health care maze so they could re-enter society.