Reporter's Notebook

DHS continues to find-and-replace cyber talent

DHS promotes Danny Toler and brings on GSA veteran Emile Monett to work on the CDM program.

Jason Miller@jmillerWFED

March 28, 2016 4:36 am

3 min read

The Homeland Security Department seems to be on a never-ending find-and-replace mission when it comes to cybersecurity experts.

The latest edition of this expedition brings us to Danny Toler, who is moving to be the career deputy assistant secretary in the Cybersecurity and Communications Office after serving as the head of network security deployment for the last 16 months, according to a March 18 email from Suzanne Spaulding, undersecretary of the National Programs and Protection Directorate at DHS, which Federal News Radio obtained.

“Over the course of almost four years at CS&C, Danny has become a widely respected and trusted leader who epitomizes professionalism and integrity,” Spaulding wrote in her email to staff.

Toler joins Greg Touhill in the deputy assistant secretary role. Touhill has been with DHS since April 2014.

Toler has been with DHS since 2011 coming over from the State Department.

Additionally, Spaulding announced Brian Gattoni, current Network Security Deployment (NSD) branch chief for systems engineering and acquisition, will take over as acting director of NSD once Toler begins his new position.

Along with Toler’s move, Emile Monett is coming to DHS from the General Services Administration to work on the continuous diagnostics and mitigation (CDM) program. Monett will focus on supply chain and other acquisition related areas for CDM.

He joins DHS after spending the last six-plus years as GSA’s senior adviser for cyber in the Office of Mission Assurance, where he worked on a variety of cyber and mission areas, including leading the effort to develop recommendations to make the federal acquisition community more cyber conscious. In 2015, Monette began to help lead an effort to create cyber risk profile indicators.

Monette’s decision to join DHS comes after he spent the majority of his federal career working at GSA as a senior procurement adviser and analyst.

In another security related move, Leo Wong joined the Federal Communications Commission as its chief information security officer in November. Wong comes to the FCC after spending the previous five years as the CISO and deputy CISO of the Agriculture Department’s Food and Nutrition Service.

Finally, the Small Business Administration recently announced it was bringing on a new kind of CDO — a chief digital officer.

Tracy Terrill will serve in this first-time position after spending his entire career in the private sector working for companies such as LegalZoom, NBC Universal Studios and Gartner.

“Tracy has built a digital service team with top talent from both the private and public sector,” said Maria Contreras-Sweet, SBA administrator in a March 15 release. “The team is charged with guiding improvement of our systems and ensuring that the SBA leverages its digital capabilities to effectively serve entrepreneurs and small businesses.”

Terrill will lead SBA’s digital services team, which the White House hopes every CFO Act agency has stood up by the end of fiscal 2016. Several agencies already beat the deadline by setting up digital services offices including the departments of Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs and GSA.

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