The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has poached the chief
information officer from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints in Salt Lake City, where he was the worldwide director of
information and communications systems.
Darwin John was hired by FBI director Robert Mueller and will
replace Bob Dies, who served for two years as both chief
information officer and assistant director for information
resources at the FBI.
John, who has worked for the church since 1990, helped create the
IT systems it uses to communicate with its 11 million members.
According to the FBI, John helped create the church's Family Search
Web site, which has averaged seven to eight million hits a day
since 1999. The site contains a database of some 900 million names
for searching.
Mueller said that John brings demonstrated capabilities that can
help the agency modernise its IT systems to fight terrorism.
John will be responsible for developing IT strategies to support
the FBI's work and will report directly to Mueller.