Intelligence CIO seeks product certification overhaul

Dale Meyerrose, who became CIO for the director of national intelligence two months ago, said an overhaul of the certification process is one of his top priorities.

"In some sectors, that process takes about 42 months and costs in the millions of dollars, which automatically eliminates the innovation of small companies and corporations," Meyerrose said during a speech at a conference in Washington sponsored by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association.

"We can surely do better than that, particularly since our information technology refresh cycle is somewhere between seven and 18 months," he added. "My goal is to figure out how once you go through a certification process within the intelligence community, it's good everywhere in the intelligence community."

Meyerrose, who is the first CIO for the U.S. intelligence community, said he wants standardization across agencies. He said some intelligence agencies are more lenient in how they certify technology while others are more restrictive.

"We're a long way from getting there," he said. "We have to bring a lot of folks within the community together in thinking that that's how we need to [move] forward, and we're working that."