The Federal Emergency Management Agency late last week appointed Charles Armstrong as the agency’s new chief information officer.
Armstrong has three decades of tech experience in IT operations and management including seven years as CIO of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and most recently served as CEO of E2.71 Advisory Services, a federal government IT firm which he founded.
“I owe a lot to Eric Leckey and Tami Franklin for having the confidence in me to bring me back. Make no mistake, Eric can be very persuasive!” Armstrong said in a LinkedIn post. “I’m very appreciative of how welcoming everyone at FEMA has been, especially Administrator Criswell and Deputy Administrator Hooks.”
Armstrong was referring to Deputy Associate Administrator of mission support, Tami Franklin, and Eric Leckey, Associate Administrator for Mission Support at FEMA.
According to Amstrong’s LinkedIn profile, he served as CIO of the Border and Transportation Security division within CBP prior to serving as Department of Homeland Security Deputy CIO from 2005 through 2008. While at DHS, Armstrong helped steer the agency’s IT initiatives for improving secure information-sharing capabilities.
Armstrong was the Assistant Commissioner of the Office of Information and Technology at CBP from 2008 to 2016, during which he was in charge of running a budget of nearly $1.3 billion and a workforce of approximately 6,000 Federal employees and contractors.
While at CBP he focused on modernizing the passenger processing, implemented virtualization and cloud computing, and enhanced a federal law enforcement tactical communications system.
Armstrong is a graduate of Old Dominion University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in information systems. He also holds a master’s certificate in management from National Louis University.
FEMA did not respond to a request for comment.
