Federal IT Trends in 2025, Outlook for 2026

Katie Arrington is currently performing the duties of CIO at the DOW.

Christopher Barnhurst is the Deputy Director at DISA.

Mr. Gurpreet Bhatia serves as the Acting Deputy DoD Chief Information Officer for Cybersecurity (DCIO(CS)) and the DoD’s Acting Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) per 44 USC 3544. In this role he provides expert policy, technical, program, and defense-wide oversight support to the DoD CIO on all cybersecurity matters. He is responsible for leading the DoD-wide cybersecurity program and associated governance processes. He partners with industry to improve cybersecurity and information sharing through the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) and represents the Secretary of Defense and DoD CIO in international discussions and negotiates cybersecurity topics in both bilateral and multi-lateral (alliance and coalition) channels. He leads the development of the cybersecurity investment priorities for the Department and provides planning guidance to Components.

Prior to assuming this position, Mr. Bhatia served as the DoD Principal Director for Cybersecurity / Deputy Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). Before joining the Office of the DoD CIO, Mr. Bhatia served as the Chief of Partner Engagements in Foreign Engagements at the National Security Agency (NSA), where he was responsible for the day-to-day management of NSA’s foreign cryptologic partnerships including technical guidance, management, and implementation of cryptologic foreign partner strategies, and representing NSA positions to foreign partners.

Mr. Bhatia’s 28 years of experience spans the Department of Defense and private industry, including three years at the Navy Public Works Center (PWC) in Washington and three years in the private sector. Over his 22 years with NSA, he led the incubation of joint secure chip technology with private industry focusing on fostering U.S. manufacturing, built foundational GIG authentication and policy reference architecture, and overseeing development of authentication technologies for DoD key management infrastructure. While detailed to the Pentagon, Mr. Bhatia served as a Senior Information Assurance (IA) Representative to the Joint Staff, J6 and to the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Cyber Policy. In this role he supported requirements and delivery of warfighter IA capability, was an integral part of the United States Cyber Command standup team, and a co-author of the 2011 DoD Strategy for Operations in Cyberspace. Upon returning, he led the organization responsible for development and delivery of the initial NSA cloud platform, analytics, and data stores.

After returning from an overseas assignment, Mr. Bhatia was selected to be a 2016 Brooking LEGIS Congressional Fellow. He served in a member office in the U.S. Senate, where he raised cybersecurity awareness writ large, advised on cybersecurity and privacy legislation across healthcare, Internet of Things (IoT), and business IP theft, and supported legislative efforts to update the right of individuals to serve in the U.S. Armed forces while retaining their articles of faith. He was then detailed as the Deputy Director, Legislative Liaison, and principal advisor at United States Cyber Command, where he advised on all legislative matters and secured crucial legislative wins. In 2019, Mr. Bhatia served as a member of the NSA cybersecurity strategy team which recommended the standup of the Cybersecurity Directorate (CSD) and then led the CSD implementation team.

Mr. Bhatia is a Certified Information Security Systems Engineer (CISSP), a two-time recipient of the Joint Meritorious Civilian Service Award, and a recipient of the National Partnership for Reinventing Government, Vice President Gore’s Hammer Award. Mr. Bhatia holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alabama at Huntsville, a Master’s in Science in Electrical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University, and a Master’s in Business Administration from Georgetown University.

Dr. Evan Carey is the Acting Director, NAII, at the VA.

Doug Collins is the Secretary at the VA.

Dr. Neil C. Evans is the Acting Program Executive Director (PED) of VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office. Dr. Evans reports to VA’s Deputy Secretary and is responsible for coordinating agency efforts to implement a modernized Federal Electronic Health Record (EHR) across its enterprise, including the functional, technical, and program management elements of the new EHR program.

Dr. Evans also serves as the Chief Officer for the Office of Connected Care in the Veterans Health Administration, overseeing VA’s expansive telehealth program and Veteran-facing digital health capabilities, including VA’s patient portal, mobile program, and other initiatives connecting Veterans with their VA health care teams.

In late 2021, Dr. Evans served as VA’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology and CIO, leading VA’s Digital Transformation. The role included managing a budget of more than $4 billion and guiding a workforce of approximately 16,000 government and contract staff, enabling health care and benefits delivery to more than 9 million enrolled Veterans.

In addition, Dr. Evans served from 2019-2020 as Interim Director and then Senior Advisor at the Federal Electronic Health Record Modernization office, leading efforts to implement a single, common Federal EHR with VA, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Coast Guard.

Dr. Evans has over 20 years of experience in VA and remains an active primary care physician, managing a panel of patients in the Primary Care clinic at the Washington, D.C. Veterans Affairs Medical Center. He has served in both clinical and IT-related leadership roles at the medical center level and at VA Central Office.

Dr. Evans began his VA career after completing medical school at Johns Hopkins University and training in Internal Medicine through the Osler Medical Residency, also at Johns Hopkins. He is board-certified in both Internal Medicine and Clinical Informatics and holds a faculty appointment as a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Prior to his medical training, he received a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Delaware.

In October 2020, Dr. Evans was selected as a winner of the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal for Management Excellence. Dr. Evans and his wife, Rachel, have three children.

Pete Hegseth is the Secretary of the Defense Department.

Dr. Kristen Honey is the Chief Data Scientist and a Senior Advisor. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Dr. Honey pivoted back to her data roots. She advised the White House National Security Council (NSC) and the HHS Chief Information Officer (CIO) on big-data sharing, governance, analysis, and predictive analytics with AI/ML (HHS Protect Vision with DataRobot). In collaboration with the CIO, Dr. Honey established the Office of the Chief Data Officer (OCDO) and co-founded the Data Governance Board to implement the OPEN Government Data Act (open data) elements of the Foundations for Evidence Based Policymaking Act. This work with OCDO is helping to unify 11 HHS Operating Divisions (e.g. CDC, NIH, CMS, and FDA) with 80,000+ government employees, geographically dispersed workforces, diverse missions and work cultures, and separate incompatible IT systems into a single, data-driven HHS. As the Chief Data Scientist and Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Health (ASH), Dr. Honey leads the $30M COVID-19 Diagnostics Data Platform project.

Dr. Honey earned her Ph.D. at Stanford University in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in the Environment and Resources, School of Earth Sciences, while simultaneously earning a Ph.D. minor in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Stanford University. She holds an M.A. in Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a B.A. in Human Biology with Honors from Stanford University. She previously worked in the Obama Administration from 2015 to 2017. Dr. Kristen Honey worked for the U.S. Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) as a Policy Advisor. She would then advise the Federal Chief Information Officer as a Senior Policy Analyst. In June 2018, Dr. Honey transitioned to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Immediate Office of the Secretary, to tackle complex challenges by harnessing the power of open science, open data, open source, citizen science, crowdsourcing, prizes, challenges, and innovative public-private partnerships for public health.

Mr. George Lamb is the Director of Cloud and Software Modernization in the Office of the DOD CIO.  He leads the team responsible for the DOD strategy, planning, and when necessary building capability and processes used in DOD missions.  Mr. Lamb joined the DOD/CIO four years ago after a career working across the Federal and Civilian technical community.  He was a global staff engineer at Dell advising clients on open network across the US North-East and the Federal sectors.  He also was the Federal Systems Engineer at Nicira, a Silicon Valley startup that invented network virtualization and was acquired by VMware and became the NSX product line.  And he spent 10 years at IBM as a Chief Architect and Technical Systems Manager for the U.S. Intelligence Community.

He is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University with a B.S. degree. in Pure Mathematics and Professional Writing and from the University of Delaware with a M.S. degree in Computer Science.  He was also an elected director of the Northern Virginia Soil and Water Conservation District.

Dr. Kimberly McManus is the Deputy CTO – AI at the Department of Veterans Affairs where she leads efforts to improve AI capabilities across the agency. She initially joined the federal government as a Presidential Innovation Fellow in the Office of the CTO at the VA in 2020. Her expertise is at the nexus of software engineering, machine learning and digital health.

Previous to VA, she built ML and AI products in industry at 23andMe, LinkedIn and start-ups. She has a bachelor’s degree from MIT, and a MS and PhD from Stanford University, in Biomedical Informatics and Population Genetics, respectively, where she developed computational and statistical methods with genomic data.

Eddie Pool is the Acting CIO at the VA.

Mr. Randy Resnick serves as the Director of the newly established Zero Trust Portfolio Management Office within DoD CIO/CS. Mr. Resnick joins us from the National Security Agency (NSA) with over 34 years of experience in offense and defense cybersecurity. In his most recent assignment, Mr. Resnick served as NSA’s Zero Trust Strategic Lead. In that role, Mr. Resnick successfully led and executed numerous ZT activities at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels and also provided NSA leadership during the successful ZT POM 23-27 Issue Paper process. His leadership and technical direction led to the development of the first DoD Zero Trust Reference Architecture, the first NSS Zero Trust Reference Architecture, DoD’s ZT maturity model, DoD’s initial strategy for Zero Trust and the construction of two Zero Trust Innovation testbed labs in collaboration with DISA and USCC. Prior to serving as NSA’s Zero Trust Strategic Lead, Mr. Resnick held positions as their Cybersecurity Innovations Director for the NSA Cybersecurity Directorate, served as Chief of NSA’s Red Team, and served as the Deputy Mission Manager for NC2/NC3/NLCC missions.

As the Zero Trust Portfolio Management Office Director, Mr. Resnick’s focus will be to provide strategic guidance, direct alignment of DoD ZT efforts, and prioritize resources to accelerate Zero Trust adoption across the DoD Enterprise while strengthening coordination and collaboration with key partners and stakeholders across the Department, the IC, Interagency, and Industry.

A native New Yorker, Mr. Resnick holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Fairleigh Dickenson University and a Master’s Degree in Engineering Management from George Washington University. Mr. Resnick has been married for 25 years and has two daughters, ages 22 and 20, who simultaneously adore him as well as drive him crazy.

Mr. Tanner is a native of Jefferson City, MO and a 1991 graduate of the United States Naval Academy, where he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering with honors. Upon commissioning, he served on active duty as a Nuclear Submarine Officer, holding multiple Division Officer roles in USS Drum (SSN-677) and as Lead Tactics Training Officer at Trident Training Facility, Kings Bay GA. He earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Brenau University in 1997, and is a Qualified Naval Nuclear Engineer. He left active duty and transitioned to the Navy Reserve in 1998.

Mr. Tanner currently serves as the Executive Director (Acting) of PEO Digital Enterprise Services, as well as the Chief Operating Officer for the PEO. In these two roles, Mr. Tanner oversees and coordinates the efforts of over 300 personnel delivering digital enterprise services to the Navy and Marine Corps across Cloud Platforms, Digital Workplaces, Cyber Operations, End User Services, Infrastructure, Strategic Sourcing and more. Over his career he has held positions with multiple technology companies, most recently as a Senior Associate with Booz Allen Hamilton’s Strategic Innovation Group, specializing in Digital Technology implementation and strategy focused on Cloud Computing, Enterprise Collaboration, Open Innovation and Enterprise Security. He has supported several defense clients including the Joint Staff Office of the Chief Information Officer, the Defense Information Systems Agency, Naval Special Warfare Group 10, and US European Command.

In his Navy Reserve duties, Mr. Tanner holds the rank of Captain and has served in multiple command and staff roles over a 31 year career. In 2016 he was recalled to active duty and served as the Assistance Chief of Staff for Communications (N6) and Deputy CIO for US Fleet Cyber Command, Commander Tenth Fleet in Fort Meade Maryland.

Chad Tetreault is a Field Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Federal, at Zscaler. In his role as Field CTO he provides technical guidance and leadership for the Public Sector Go-To-Market (GTM) team and their customers. His strategic vision and unwavering commitment to technological advancement coupled with his past experience in government leadership roles, provides Zscaler customers a proven, trusted advisor for their digital transformation efforts.

Prior to Zscaler, Chad served as Deputy Chief Technology Officer and Deputy Chief Artificial Intelligence Official at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), where he led transformative digital modernization efforts that redefine government technology capabilities. He spearheaded a pivotal Secretary of Homeland Security GenAI pilot, delivering breakthrough AI solutions including synthetic human-like officer training systems, Neural Machine Translation capabilities, and Model Context Protocol services with comprehensive AI security governance and guardrails. Additionally, he contributed operational insights to the DHS Generative AI Public Sector Playbook, helping establish the framework for responsible AI governance across federal agencies.

Throughout his twenty plus years of federal service, Chad has consistently built high-performing teams, established cloud-native engineering programs, and championed continuous improvement methodologies that help position USCIS as a leader in digital government innovation.