Federal CTO Todd Park will leave his position by the end of this year, Fortune reported today. Citing “sources familiar with the situation,” the publication says Park will return to the West Coast, but remain with the White House in some capacity.
Park became the nation’s second federal chief technology officer in 2012, replacing Aneesh Chopra. Prior to that appointment, Park spent three years as CTO for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where he earned a reputation as an innovator.
His appointment as federal CTO was greeted warmly by many in the tech industry, including Web 2.0 guru Tim O’Reilly, who wrote, “Ok, I admit it. I have a mancrush on the new Federal CTO, Todd Park.”
Park was instrumental in salvaging HealthCare.gov after the site’s disastrous launch in 2013. “I went from White House CTO to full-time HealthCare.gov fixer,” Park told Time in an article published earlier this year. But he also became a target of a House investigation into the troubled site. Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, subpoenaed Park to testify and eventually grilled him and others about the site’s performance.
In June, Park headlined Health Datapalooza 2014, a Washington, D.C., event promoting tech innovation in health care that drew more than 2,000 health-care and IT officials. During the event he announced the launch of openFDA, a beta open data portal for the FDA that will provide millions of data records to the public.
The Fortune report says Park’s new White House role will involve recruiting Silicon Valley tech talent for government positions.
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