DHS names Greg Garcia as director of National Cyber Security Division
Position was vacant for a year as officials searched for qualified IT professionals willing to take a paycut; Garcia’s first objective will be to resurrect the dormant National Strategy to Secure America; previous position was with ITAA
Finally. DHS has selected Greg Garcia as assistant secretary for cybersecurity and telecommunications after spending a year trying to find qualified executives willing to take a massive paycut in the name of public service. Garcia, formerly vice president at the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), a powerful lobbying group, is charged with resurrecting the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, a three-year-old plan that has been mainly ignored for the past three years as the division has suffered from turnover and a perceived lack of support within the government. Amit Yoran, the last director of the National Cyber Security Division at DHS, left after just a year on the job, and for the last two years that office has been run by Donald “Andy” Purdy, a two-year contract employee on loan from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Before joining ITAA in 2003, Garcia was on the staff of the House Science Subcommittee on Research, working on science issues related to IT and also worked as a government relations expert at networking giant 3Com.
-read more in Dinnis Fisher’s Search Security report
