Former Navy CIO Aaron Weis joins Google Public Sector

Just weeks after departing the Navy as chief information officer, Aaron Weis has taken a role with Google Public Sector.

Weis joined the organization on Monday as the managing director of technology, reporting to Leigh Palmer, the firm’s vice president.

After nearly four years as Navy CIO, Weis announced in February in a letter to staff that he was leaving to “attend to family,” among other things.

In his absence, Navy Principal Deputy CIO Jane Rathbun has stepped in to serve as acting CIO.

In an interview with DefenseScoop, Weis described what he accomplished during his tenure with the Navy.

“There’s years of work left to do in modernization. But I think we’ve substantially moved the needle,” Weis said. “It’s got momentum, it’s got legs and it’s happened. That is gratifying to see versus early days where when we said we need to modernize because we’re behind. You get pushed back just by saying that. ‘What do you mean we’re behind? Why do you say that?’ I think there’s general awareness now.”

Weis has a wealth of experience working in the private sector — nearly three decades’ worth, including with Axalta Coating Systems, Sensata Technologies and Tyco International.

Google Public Sector was launched last summer with the aim of expanding work with government agencies. CEO Karen Dahut shared with FedScoop in November the standalone company’s vision to gain traction in the federal cloud market and deliver more “choice” to federal partners.

In December, Google was awarded a spot on the Pentagon’s enterprise Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) cloud procurement.