Longtime Agriculture tech executive departs government

The Agriculture Department’s longtime chief information officer, Gary Washington, is leaving the government months after he was replaced by an associate from the Department of Government Efficiency. 

In September, Sam Berry — a DOGE staffer who’s been working at USDA since April — was installed as the department’s CIO, and Washington moved to a newly created role, chief innovation officer.

Now, Washington is leaving USDA altogether to be chief strategy officer for the American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council, an educational nonprofit focused on government technology, according to an ACT-IAC announcement and USDA employee familiar with the matter. 

It’s not clear if USDA will be replacing Washington in the chief innovation officer role. The department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

“Gary Washington is an outstanding federal technology leader with keen insights and experience across government and the commercial sector,” Dave Wennergren, ACT-IAC CEO, said in a statement last week about Washington’s new role. “We are absolutely delighted to have Gary join the ACT-IAC leadership team.”

Washington, who was the acting head of USDA at the start of the Trump administration, is an Air Force veteran who’s worked for the government for over 25 years. In 2018, he was a Federal 100 winner for his work on IT modernization at USDA.

Many agencies have gotten new CIOs since President Donald Trump returned to office. In February, his administration asked agencies to make it easier to install political appointees as CIOs, as opposed to career federal employees.