FirstNet names Gwinn as CIO

FirstNet last week named Jim Gwinn as the organization’s chief information officer (CIO), a role that calls for him to oversee the internal communications and support functions for FirstNet, according FirstNet General Manager Bill D’Agostino.

Gwinn will be in charge of  “all the basic communications—computer, phone, video conferencing, all of the IT policies internal to the organization,” D’Agostino said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “Jim has a lot of experience, so he’ll help consult with our CTO [chief technology officer, who has not yet been named], but he’s not going to own the [overall FirstNet] architecture; the CTO will.”

An information-technology veteran with almost 28 years of senior management experience, Gwinn previously was the CIO for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency (FSA), according to information provided by a FirstNet spokesman. In that role, Gwinn managed the FSA’s IT modernization efforts, which included updating legacy technology and operations.

Prior to joining FSA in 2008, Gwinn served in a variety of management roles for Verizon Business, ending his tenure at the company as vice president of information technology-network systems. D’Agostino previously worked for Verizon Wireless, but D’Agostino said he and Gwinn had not worked together.

Gwinn also worked as the vice president of information technologies for MCI and WorldCom, being appointed as acting CIO for MCI-WorldCom during the company’s bankruptcy. In this role, Gwinn led an IT organization of more than 4,000 people through exit bankruptcy and later re-emergence as a telecommunications provider.