White House Names Todd Park CTO

The White House has named Todd Park as the country's new chief technology officer.

Park has been the CTO at the Department of Health and Human Services. He succeeds Aneesh Chopra, who exited last month.

Among the CTO's charters is to help move government online, one of the many moves behind the FCC's push for faster and ubiquitous broadband.

Park's post is located in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Unlike Chopra, he will not share the title of associate director of that office. Tom Power, deputy chief technology officer for telecom, will continue to handle those duties until a new associate director of technology is named.

"We congratulate Todd Park on his appointment," said Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn. "The CTO has wide-ranging responsibilities, from advocating for more efficient use of technology in government, to making government more accessible, to weighing in on important tech-related policy debates."

"Our industry couldn't ask for a better choice than Todd Park as the nation's new CTO," said TechAmerica acting president Dan Varroney. "Todd's tremendous enthusiasm for innovation and proven track record of success makes us confident he will continue the great work started by his predecessor but has the vision to take the path even further."

TechAmerica members include IBM, Dell, and Apple.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.