Karl Mathias has been the CIO at the Department of Health and Human Services since March. The department’s last permanent CIO retired in mid-2021, and he took on the job after two people had served in an acting capacity. He was previously the CIO at the U.S. Marshals Service.
Mathias now oversees a $7 billion IT portfolio in a federated department with over 10 operating divisions, which include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. He recently spoke with FCW about his priorities and what keeps him up at night. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity…
FCW: What are your top priorities?
Mathias: There are the internal goals: What do I have to fix in my own shop, and what do I want to make more efficient? And then there are the departmentwide goals. Internally, the areas we’re looking at specifically are improving our ability to do acquisitions effectively and efficiently and find the best value.
Of course, every time you go to a new place, you need to learn how budgeting is done and then make sure that when we develop budgets, we’re well ahead of any deadlines, and even more importantly, we’re looking well ahead on the timeline.
My goal is to knock down servers. Fortunately, I have CIOs who think along the same lines, and they’re busy going to cloud… Read the full article here.
