Christopher Thomas

Administrator, Defense Technical Information Center [DTIC]

U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)

Mr. Christopher E. Thomas, a member of the Senior Executive Service, was appointed Administrator of the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) in March 2012. He is responsible for planning and directing DTIC’s mission activities to coordinate science and technology information (STINFO) policy covering preservation and reuse of the results of DoD's $15B annual investment in science and technology.

In his role as Administrator, Mr. Thomas oversees the DoD’s central resource for government-funded science, technical, engineering, and business-related information, comprising over 4.7M records. He also leads the fielding of tools supporting DoD users and enabling diverse teams across the Department to collaborate. By preserving knowledge derived from science and technical research and providing to all DoD users, DTIC accelerates fielding new capabilities to our warfighters.

Under his direction, DTIC operates the DoD’s Information Analysis Centers (IAC), through which DoD components and federal government agencies annually fund two billion dollars of research and development, engineering and technical analysis in the areas of cyber security, defense systems and homeland defense.

Mr. Thomas serves as DoD’s representative on the National Science and Technology Council’s Subcommittee (NSTC) on Open Science and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Working Group on Scientific Collections. He chairs the DoD’s Research Data Working Group, established in July 2021 to advocate for the unique needs and interests of the S&T community and establish enterprise guidance to ensure open access, interoperability, and reuse of research data. In addition, he co-chairs CENDI, an interagency organization that provides a cooperative forum for collaboration on scientific and technical information challenges. Mr. Thomas also leads the DoD's implementation of public access to DoD-funded journal articles and digital data.

In 2017 Mr. Thomas established the Journal of DoD Research and Engineering, a quarterly peer-reviewed publication at the controlled unclassified and classified levels that provides a venue for DoD scientists and engineers to publish papers on scientific topics of significant interest to DoD.

Previously, Mr. Thomas was DTIC's Acting Administrator; Director, Information Systems Support; Director, Component Information Support; and Division Chief for Technology Applications. During his tenure at DTIC, he was instrumental in the production of DTIC's 2011-2016 Strategic Plan; he also accelerated the adoption of internet technologies to redefine the way DTIC collects and disseminates information and simplifies access to DoD community users.

Mr. Thomas directed the launch of DoDTechipedia, one of the first social collaboration tools available inside the NIPRNET and SIPRNET firewall, enabling DoD scientists, researchers and engineers to add and actively update content. In 2009, Mr. Thomas was the Program Manager for the DoDTechipedia when it earned the Government Computer News Agency Award, for “outstanding information technology initiatives.”

Before entering government service, Mr. Thomas served as a Director, Program Manager, Program Engineer, and Software Developer for several federal government contractors. He led software development for DoD’s first enterprise websites, including DefenseLink (the predecessor to Defense.gov), Air Force LINK, and led a team that established over 100 websites for DoD organizations.

Mr. Thomas holds a Project Management Professional (PMP) credential from the Project Management Institute and has a Global Information Assurance Certification (GIAC) Security Leadership (GSLC) certificate. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Old Dominion University and a Master of Arts in Economics from George Mason University. He has completed the Federal Executive Institute’s Leadership for a Democratic Society program and the APEX Senior Executive Orientation Program.

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