Mr. Richard A Varn is the Assistant Chief Information Officer for the National Weather Service in Silver Spring, Maryland. In this role, Mr. Varn is responsible for the information technology (IT) planning and evaluating activities for the NWS, to include coordination and development of the annual NWS IT Operating Plan, the NWS IT Strategic Plan, and coordination and implementation of all NWS IT security and critical IT infrastructure activities.

Richard has more than 25 years of experience in IT leadership and management, customer support, strategic and communication planning, and operations. He has been Acting Associate Chief Information Officer for the National Weather Service since January 2016 and has been the NWS Information Services Branch Chief since January 2015, working with staff to optimize NWS mission support IT and enterprise information services.

Before coming to the NWS, Richard worked for the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Department of Transportation. At Navy he led the Naval Enterprise Network (NEN) strategy team, whose development efforts guide future information technology strategic direction. For the Department of Transportation Common Operating Environment, Richard led the Telecommunication, Network, Storage, Information System Security, Technology Testing and Evaluation Lab, and Wireless Programs as the final authority for matters across the Department of Transportation’s Common Operating Environment customer base for a geographic area containing all states with various national stakeholders including 12 operating administrations and bureaus.

Mr. Varn received his Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from Malone College (2000) and his Master of Business Administration from Baker University (2007).

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