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Computerworld - Dan Lohrmann, chief technology officer for the state of Michigan, is what novelists would call a man of action -- an IT leader up for any challenge.

Lohrmann, 46, was Michigan's chief security officer for many years, and his résumé includes a stint at the National Security Agency. He's also a blogger and an author. Like other men of action, he is guided by inner principles, and those principles appear as themes of his book, Virtual Integrity: Faithfully Navigating the Brave New Web (Brazos Press, 2008), which examines the relationship between the concepts of security, privacy, ethics and integrity.

There are no single-purpose projects in Lohrmann's vision. For example, he brought Michigan into compliance with the ever-toughening Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, so agencies can now offer financial transaction services to citizens. Those security improvements might in turn make it possible to deliver applications and services, such as driver's license renewals, by way of mobile devices, he says.

And Michigan's multiyear consolidation of 40 data centers to three offers the state other opportunities. For example, it could become a cloud services provider. Under the model Lohrmann envisions, Michigan could find the best application developed by a government entity for any particular service and then make it available across the state as a cloud-based service, he says.

Former Michigan CIO Teri Takai, who is now California's CIO, calls Lohrmann "a dedicated, energetic and talented public servant" and says his "leadership in information security has led the nation."

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