Photo: U.S. Department of Energy

According to a U.S. Project Open Data GitHub pull request, it appears the U.S. Department of Energy has named Dave Dutton as its chief data officer.

Dutton has officially held the title since January, and previously worked in data management related positions at Freddie Mac, McDonald’s and EDS.

From his LinkedIn profile related to his new role:

We will offer enterprise data services to eliminate silos, improve the reliability of data, and reduce security risks. We will also provide public-facing data services that are open for all consumers to use. Moreover, we will use digital and traditional mediums to deliver and receive high-value data and information in an easily discoverable, retrievable, and recordable format that promotes transparency with appropriate consumers. We will continue to strengthen our electronic and paper records management capability. All of these efforts will be supplemented by providing training and communications to the DOE workforce on the importance of records management and sharing data and information in a secure manner.

Much like new U.S. Department of Transportation Chief Data Officer Dan Morgan, Dutton has an important and enormous task of managing and making public large amounts of data and leveraging this to impact environmental, energy and sustainability changes throughout the world.