Davie takes over as IT Category manager

An experienced federal IT hand has taken over of the Office of Management and Budget's crucial IT acquisition category under the government-wide category management initiative, the agency has confirmed.

Former Hewlett Packard executive Kim Luke, who had been IT category manager at OMB since February, has left his post, an OMB official said in an email to FCW.  

Federal News Radio, which first reported Luke's move, attributed the departure to a family emergency. Industry sources told FCW that Luke's last day on the job was June 10.

Mary Davie, GSA's Assistant Commissioner for the Integrated Technology Services, has assumed the role of the government's IT category manager, said the OMB official.

With his deep experience in the commercial IT world as vice president of strategic growth for U.S. public sector at HP Enterprise Services and at Electronic Data Systems before that, Luke was seen as a talented manager for the IT category.

OMB's initiative includes 10 "supercategories" of commonly purchased goods and services, each run by individual managers with particular expertise. OMB officially named the category managers in February.

The IT category is critical in the agency's year-old initiative to spread category management practices across the federal government to make it into a more agile, smarter buyer of goods and services. It remains so, said one source, pointing to the speed with which OMB turned to Davie to take over the category's duties.

Along with IT, other categories include travel; professional services; facilities and construction; human capital; transportation and logistics; medical; office management; security and protection; and industrial products and services.

Given the impact IT has on federal operations, OMB considers the IT category perhaps the most important of the 10, said Larry Allen, president of Allen Federal Business Partners. It is the only category officially housed at the agency, he said. All of the others are spread across various federal agencies from the Department of Defense to NASA

With Mary Davie taking the reins, the IT category remains in "very capable hands," he said.