Ex-Microsoft exec VanRoekel named U.S. technology chief
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 5th, 2011 4:35 am by HL
Ex-Microsoft exec VanRoekel named U.S. technology chief
Former Microsoft executive Steven VanRoekel has been named the nation’s top technology chief, the White House announced Thursday. VanRoekel succeeds Vivek Kundra, the 36-year-old who pioneered the role.
VanRoekel, 41, said he would use his new role as chief information officer to introduce new technologies to improve government service as well as focus on cutting costs in an age of austerity.
“The productivity gap between where the private sector has gone over the last two decades and where government has gone is ever-widening,” VanRoekel told reporters at the White House on Thursday, attributing this largely to the government’s slow uptake and lack of spending on new technology. This “can be done in a way that actually saves money, saves resources and everything else,” he said.
Senate leaders in agreement on trade deal votes
Three long-delayed trade deals with South Korea, Panama and Colombia are moving closer to a vote after the Senate’s leaders announced that they had reached an agreement to bring the pacts up for consideration when Congress returns from recess in September.
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also agreed to hold a vote on a program favored by Democrats, called Trade Adjustment Assistance, which provides aid and retraining to workers who have lost their jobs because work was sent overseas.
Glenn Beck launches publishing imprint
If you’ve been wondering where Glenn Beck is since he left FOX, he’s still on the radio — and moving bigtime into publishing. He set up his own imprint, Mercury Ink, at Simon & Schuster, and is launching his first title next week. But Beck isn’t waiting for the launch to start selling the book.
And he isn’t leaving success to chance.
Beck hasn’t discovered an unknown author whom he’d like to introduce to the world but rather has teamed up with mega-seller Richard Paul Evans, who burst upon the scene years ago with “The Christmas Box.” That novel was first self-published then picked up by Simon & Schuster for an initial print run of 750,000 copies. Kirkus called it a “reverent little domestic tale” that will “move many to new tears of piety,” if they can get past “such phrasings . . . as: ‘?“This should be interesting,” I decided’; ‘Jenna smiled hungrily’; ‘?“There’s bound to be a lot of history in a place like this,” he said thoughtfully.’?’’
