Nuclear Regulatory Commission names permanent CIO

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is elevating its acting chief information officer and former deputy CIO to the permanent CIO role, the agency said in a Wednesday release.

Scott Flanders, who will assume the permanent CIO position Sunday, is charged with managing and employing technology to enhance “information access and strengthen agency performance,” the NRC’s release states. Additionally, Flanders’s office is also charged with overseeing cyber and information security, data management, artificial intelligence and more.

Flanders “has risen through the ranks at the NRC over many years and has been an outstanding member of the senior executive service since 2004,” Raymond Furstenau, NRC’s acting executive director for operations, said in the release. “His experience with the government’s use of information technology and his deep understanding of the NRC mission will help the agency navigate the challenges of the future.”

As deputy CIO, Flanders “planned, directed and oversaw resources” to ensure IT and information management systems’ delivery to support the agency’s goals and priorities, the NRC said. 

Flanders joined the NRC in 1991 as a reactor engineer intern, and later served in the agency’s Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards’ Division of Site Safety and Environmental Analysis and in the Office of New Reactors as the director, according to CIO.gov. Additionally, he served as the deputy director of the Division of Waste Management and Environment Review in the ONMSS.

Flanders takes over as NRC’s permanent IT chief  amid an internal push on artificial intelligence. A staff letter sent earlier this month recommended the agency follow an AI framework that outlines AI governance, hiring new talent, upskilling existing workers, maturing the commission’s data management program and allocating resources to support AI integration into IT infrastructure.