Paul J. Cosgrave was appointed Commissioner of the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on June 14, 2006.  Throughout his more than 30 years of experience in both the public and private sectors, Commissioner Cosgrave has devoted his career to using the power of technology to make people and the organizations they serve more effective.  At DoITT, Commissioner Cosgrave is committed to ensuring that City services are transparent, accountable and accessible to all New Yorkers. 

Among his accomplishments at DoITT is PlanIT: Better Government through Customer Service, the City’s first-ever comprehensive technology strategy for coordinated, effective and efficient citywide IT implementation.  PlanIT builds on the City’s technology accomplishments during the Bloomberg Administration and creates a strategic approach to new initiatives going forward.  With an overarching theme of customer service, PlanIT strives to change the focus of e-government to that which first and foremost serves the customer.  Success to date has been achieved in a number of ways:

• The New York City Wireless Network (NYCWiN) represents an historic enhancement to public safety communications by enabling data transfer rates 50 times faster than before.  It will give the City’s emergency responders high-speed data access to support large file transfers, fingerprints, mug shots, city maps, and full-motion, streaming video; and will also support a host of other public service applications that will provide a significant improvement over existing technologies.
  
  
• The Emergency Communications Transformation Program (ECTP), is a multi-year, multi-agency initiative to modernize virtually all aspects of the City’s Emergency 911 system—from the phone lines that carry 911 calls, to the facilities where those calls are handled, to the communications systems that dispatch first responders to an emergency.  As a result, NYPD and FDNY staffs who handle emergency calls from the public—people who perform an incredibly important function—will for the first time be seated side-by-side under the same roof and use the same telephone system, greatly improving emergency communication and coordination.
  
  
• To improve information sharing across the City's health and human services agencies, the City has created a new Health and Human Services Office (HHS Connect).  Reporting to Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs and housed at DoITT, HHS Connect “connects the dots” between clients, agencies, and providers to create a more client-centric approach to service delivery, increase the accessibility of information, and maximize the use of modern technologies.

Prior to his appointment, Commissioner Cosgrave served as the Executive Vice President for Crown Consulting, Inc., where he directed an Enterprise Architecture team to design the overall structure of the Next Generation Air Transportation System for the Federal Aviation Administration.  Before that, he worked with Federal Department of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta on the formation of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

From 1998 to 2001, he served as Chief Information Officer at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), an organization with an annual budget of $1.6 billion and a staff of 7,900, where he led a major restructuring and centralization of information systems.  During his tenure at the IRS, he also facilitated the largest civilian Y2K conversion effort ($1.3 billion) and worked on designing a multi-billion dollar strategic modernization program aimed at improving core processing capabilities, streamlining operations, and introducing e-commerce services to taxpayers. 

Prior to joining the IRS, Commissioner Cosgrave was the Chairman, President and CEO of the Claremont Technology Group, a start-up IT Company that he took public in 1996.  Commissioner Cosgrave has served as Executive Board member for the Information Technology Association of America.

Commissioner Cosgrave earned a BS and MS in Industrial Engineering from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  He is a native New Yorker, born in Flushing, Queens, and is the father of three grown children.  He currently resides in lower Manhattan.