Meet the CIOs: Commerce

Commerce: Alan Balutis

ALAN P. BALUTIS
Commerce Department
14th & Constitution Avenue N.W. #5820
Washington, D.C. 20230
Phone: 202-482-3490
Fax: 202-482-3361
E-mail: abalutis@doc.gov

Career Highlights:

1994-Present: Director for budget, management and information, and deputy chief information officer
1979-94: Various Commerce positions, including director for budget, planning and organization
1975-79: Posts at Health, Education and Welfare, including management analyst

IT Budget (fiscal years):
1996: $665 million
1997: $760 million
1998: $835 million (est.)

Priority Projects:

• Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System - integrating data from a variety of sources to aid forecasting.
• Decennial Census Automation - multi-component imaging system to capture and disseminate data for the 2000 Census.
• Automated Patent System - enhancing search and retrieval capabilities of patent processing system.

Biggest Challenges:

"Effectively implementing IT capital planning and investment, and measuring IT's contribution to mission performance. Both aspects require that we build effective relationships and share our expertise. We need to make the CIO Council an effective body for meaningful interagency cooperation."

Management Approach:

"We have developed a process for selection, control and evaluation of information technology resources - based on guidance developed by GAO and OMB - and intend to begin implementation this year. Performance measures are embedded."

Hottest Technologies:

"Web technology, both the Internet and intranets, is as hot as they come. Other hot technologies are those such as data warehousing and relational databases, which help us to make greater use of the information available to us. Electronic commerce/electronic data interchange and distributed computing also deserve a mention."