Sonny has 26 years of experience in Industry and the Federal Government in technical, management and executive leadership capacity transforming organizations using Information Technology (IT), Information Resource Management (IRM) and Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) to achieve mission success and business value. He has served in world-class organizations such as Boeing, DOJ (FBI), DOI and GSA and served customers such as NASA, Defense and other Civilian Agencies while at Boeing.
As of July 6, 2011, Sonny is serving as the first-ever Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the State of Hawai’i reporting to the Governor. In his current role, he is seeking to work collaboratively with all agencies in State Government to transform the IT and IRM to meet the needs of the State Government and Citizens of Hawai’i.
Prior to Hawai’i, Sonny served as Deputy Associate Administrator, Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies (OCSIT), US General Services Administration (GSA) from May 24, 2010 until July 5th, 2011. In this capacity, he served as the Senior Executive leading GSA’s efforts in helping the US Government’s Federal CIO and CTO implement Government-wide e-Government (“e-Gov”) and Open-Government (“Open-Gov”) programs in an agile, secure and reliable manner. This portfolio include GSA’s Open Government Directive (OGD) Program, Data.gov, Federal Cloud Computing Initiative, FEDSPACE – Government-wide Collaboration, Mobile Applications, Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative, FEDRAMP – Government Cloud Security. These programs serve as a foundation for the White House/OMB’s 25-point IT Reforms Plan and the OGD. He co-established (with Federal Acquisition Service) a new GSA Cloud Computing Line-of-Business; and has laid the foundational vision/plans for Innovation.gov, an innovation platform for Government.
Prior to GSA, Sonny served as the CIO of the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), a large cabinet agency, from December, 2008 until May, 2010 overseeing an IT Portfolio of a $ 1 Billion. Sonny led a cross-agency team to modernize and unify DOI’s diverse IT environment under its top-rated Enterprise Architecture Program and in compliance with an IRM framework compliant with the Clinger-Cohen Act. Sonny also served as CIO for Indian Affairs, a $ 2.3 billion, 10, 000 user, sub-agency within the US DOI from August 2007 to December 2008.
Sonny has served as a member of the Federal CIO Council Executive Committee, co-chairing its Architecture and Infrastructure Committee, Best Practices Committee and the Inter-Agency Management Council for the $ 1.2 Billion GSA “NETWORX” program unifying IT Infrastructure for the Federal Government.
Sonny served with distinction in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the U.S. Department of Justice as an Information Technology Program Management Executive for eight years from July 1999 through August 2007, overseeing and transforming a $ 1 B IT portfolio and upgrading the secure IT Infrastructure for FBI’s mission needs.
Sonny has also served with distinction in Industry for 14 years at Boeing, a Fortune 50 company, from July 1985 until July 1999, as a Senior Principal Engineer in the prestigious Boeing Technical Excellence Fellowship Program in support of Systems Integration and Business Development for U.S. Government Civilian, Defense & Intelligence Community Clients. At Boeing, he spent nine years establishing a secure, reliable global IT infrastructure and another year architecting a comprehensive Consolidated Space Operations solution for NASA.
Sonny has a Masters’ of Science (MS) in Information Resource Management from Syracuse University, a MS and Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from Louisiana State University. Sonny is also a Distinguished Graduate (twice) from the National Defense University with a Federal CIO Certificate and an IRM Diploma.
His numerous awards from US Government and Industry include the Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Executive Service, DOI Secretary’s Gold Executive Award, NASA Award of Merit, NASA Silver Snoopy Award, two Federal 100 Awards, the Boeing Technical Excellence Fellowship Program and Boeing Computer Support Services Employee of the Year. He has also been named by Information Week as one of the Top 50 CIO leaders in the Federal, State, and Local Government. Recently in 2011, he won the CIO 100 award, was part of the OCSIT team that won the 2011 AFFIRM Leadership Award for the Advancement of Open Government and his team was an Excellence in Government Finalist for Open Government. He has received numerous commendations from top leaders including the Federal CIO, Federal CTO, the GSA Administrator and several other leaders.
