Former Internal Revenue Service Chief Information Officer Arthur L. Gonzalez has returned to government service and has been appointed deputy CIO for service, delivery and engineering at the Department of Veterans Affairs, FedScoop has learned.
Gonzalez, who spent five years at the IRS, most recently served as senior vice president and CIO of TISTA Science and Technology Corp., a service-disabled veteran-owned business based in Rockville, Md., that just a month earlier had received a $25 million VA contract for financial auditing services.
Gonzalez has been serving as VA’s new deputy CIO for SDE since Sept. 23, according to a Nov. 6 email from VA CIO Stephen Warren, obtained exclusively by FedScoop.
At IRS, “he led a 7,000 person organization and managed a $2 billon budget to support the nation’s tax administration system,” Warren said in the email. “He brings a wide range of knowledge and expertise in fields such as application development, managing federal IT programs, overseeing project delivery, and implementing new service delivery management processes, which will assist him in this new role.”
Gonzalez will replace Wilbert Berrios, who has been serving in the position in an acting capacity, Warren said. Berrios will serve as a senior adviser to Gonzalez during the transition, Warren said in the email.
Gonzalez became IRS CIO in 2007, replacing Richard Spires, who at the time became deputy IRS commissioner for operations support.
In August, just a month before Gonzalez’s appointment, VA awarded TISTA a $25 million prime Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity contract for audit readiness services.
According to the TISTA website, the company “will participate in the annual audit process and also assist the agency to improve its financial and reporting processes in an effort to improve the overall preparation for and completion of subsequent audits. TISTA will provide reviews and recommendations on the financial integrity, audit readiness, and fiscal accountability of the VA.”
