As Todd Park Becomes Top Tech Recruiter, What's Next For CTO Role?

Rebecca Carroll | Nextgov.com | August 29, 2014

When Todd Park was asked in 2009 to become the Department of Health and Human Services' first chief technology officer, he wasn’t looking for a government job.  He had already co-founded two successful -- and now publicly traded, though he divested -- health care companies and was finally looking at a life with more time for his family in California. But the job -- all about opening troves of federal health data to the public -- sounded amazing to him, and after a few days of thinking about it, he and his wife saw the opportunity as a national duty.

Park may have thought his term as federal CTO would also be about opening data, but actually his and his family’s initial reluctance to move to Washington may be the more telling aspect of his early days. They were eventually convinced to make some sacrifices for the opportunity to be of service to the country, and Park has since managed to convince throngs of the best technology workers to do the same.

The Obama administration announced Thursday that in his new role working for the White House from Silicon Valley, Park will continue his recruiting efforts and keep policy officials in touch with tech world developments and trends.  Park became the second-ever federal CTO in March 2012. His predecessor, Aneesh Chopra, had been appointed in 2009 by President Barack Obama, who was honoring a campaign promise to create the position...