The Department of Transportation (DoT) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) have both filled their chief information officer (CIO) roles in an acting capacity in the early days of the new Trump administration.
SSA Acting Commissioner Michelle King has announced Brian Peltier as the acting CIO, an agency spokesperson confirmed to MeriTalk. Peltier previously served as SSA’s deputy CIO for strategy and chief AI officer.
Peltier attended MeriTalk’s FITARA Awards ceremony last year, where SSA was recognized in MeriTalk’s “Best in Modernizing Government Technology” category. The agency received an “A” in this category, and a “B” overall on the 17th edition of the FITARA Scorecard.
“It’s great to be recognized to share the progress we’re making on the FITARA scorecard. It’s been a great experience to really try to strive for the best to show that we’re paying attention to the metrics that we’re trying to drive to protect our customers,” Peltier said.
“Our cybersecurity team, our infrastructure team are all putting in the efforts to really try to drive up our scores,” he added. “So, it’s a team effort.”
As for DoT, Jack Albright is once again serving as the acting CIO as well as the principal advisor to the secretary of transportation on matters involving IT and information assurance. The agency said he is also serving as the deputy CIO, a role in which he is responsible for providing the full range of core departmental commodity IT business-enabling capabilities.
Albright previously served as DoT’s acting CIO in 2021, before the agency hired Cordell Schachter as its permanent CIO. Albright first joined DoT’s Office of the Chief Information Officer in March 2016 as the associate CIO for IT Shared Services (ITSS).
He also spent the prior 10 years as the CIO for DoT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Material Transportation Administration.
