WASHINGTON – Interior Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Neal A. McCaleb announced his appointment of Brian Burns as the Chief Information Officer for Indian Affairs. Mr. Burns was formerly the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Information Resources Management and the Deputy Information Officer at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
“I depend on the Chief Information Officer to keep the BIA’s computer network well maintained and secure for our employees and service beneficiaries,” said McCaleb. “I am very pleased to add Brian Burns, an IT professional with extensive experience in the public and private sectors, to my management team.”
Mr. Burns has eighteen years of service specializing in Program Management, Systems Architecture, Infrastructure and Lab Operations Management, Telecommunications and Security Technology, Human Factors/Usability of graphical user interfaces (GUI) and object-oriented programming, and facilitation. His background also includes five years of Federal and thirteen years of commercial real-time large-scale systems development in document management/ imaging, telecommunications, securities and health.
While at HHS, Mr. Burns oversaw the department’s enterprise Information Technology (IT) investment strategy, architecture and security of approximately $3.5 billion annually across 12 agencies including the Indian Health Service (IHS), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Office of the Secretary. He directed daily IT operations for the Office of the Secretary and oversaw HHS’s successful Y2K conversion.
In addition, Mr. Burns served as the Federal Chief Information Council Executive Lead for developing the Federal Information Technology Security Assessment Framework to evaluate the IT security readiness of an organization. He also chaired the Federal Healthcare Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) Working Group to develop a common standard level of computer security and privacy to share healthcare data across Federal, State and healthcare industry organizations. Mr. Burns was the Federal CIO Council liaison to the Federal Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Council, a member of the General Services Administration (GSA) Intergovernmental Advisory Board, which is comprised of Federal, State and industry CIOs to address future IT issues and solutions across industry and government, and was the technical lead on architecting the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Quicksilver government-wide E-Grants portal.
Prior to HHS, Mr. Burns served as the Acting Deputy CIO for Operations and Director for Architecture, Engineering and Infrastructure at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after having worked in the private sector for the Coleman Research Corporation, BDM, Inc. and the IBM Corporation.
Mr. Burns has a Master of Arts degree in Psychology for Human Factors Engineering from George Mason University (1992) and a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Drexel University (1985). The Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs has responsibility for fulfilling the Department’s trust responsibility and promoting self-determination and economic development on behalf of tribal governments, American Indians and Alaska Natives. The Assistant Secretary, who oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Federal Acknowledgment Process, is also responsible for providing services to approximately 1.4 million American Indians and Alaska Natives from the 562 federally recognized tribes.
Note to Editors: A photo of Brian Burns may be viewed via the Interior Department’s web site at www.doi.gov.
