DHS’ Holcomb to retire

Lee Holcomb, the Homeland Security Department’s chief technology officer, will retire at the end of June, according to a letter sent to the federal CIO Council yesterday.

In the letter, Holcomb said he intends to take a federal information technology job in the private sector.

Holcomb is widely respected in the federal IT community. In June 2005, the Association for Federal Information Resources Management named Holcomb the winner of its 2005 Executive Leadership Award for his outstanding leadership at DHS.

Holcomb joined the White House’s Homeland Security Office in 2002 and joined DHS in 2003. He has worked in the federal government since the 1970s and is a former NASA chief information officer.

Holcomb’s departure marks the second senior DHS official to leave the department this week. Jim Williams, director of the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) program, announced June 5 that he is going to head the General Service Administration’s newly created Federal Acquisition Service.

US-VISIT is an immigrant and border management identification system.