Donald Bitner serves as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). In this role, Mr. Bitner is responsible for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) technological needs as well as its research and development (R&D). He also envisions and sets strategy for how technology will be used at USDA as well as how to further implement cost effective new technologies across the Department.
Mr. Bitner previously served as the Platform Strategy and Development Branch Chief for the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Artificial Intelligence (AI) Center employing emerging Development Security Operations (DevSecOps) tools and environments for development of AI/Machine Learning (ML) models, data curation, and applications across DoD. He led the roll-out and evolution of an AI development platform supporting 80+ organization, 1000+ developers of machine learning, and secure access to over 60 data sources. He shaped and formed two key divisions within the Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO) – Platform Division and Product Management division, capable of sustaining decision advantage products with analytics and machine learning expertise needed for cloud-based technologies.
As Application and Services Branch Chief for the Headquarters Department of Army Chief Information Officer (CIO)/G6, he led the largest transition to Windows 10 in DoD by overseeing the migration of 1.1M end user devices. Under his leadership, the Army drove the implementation of key joint information environment initiatives across DoD, and executed over $1B in network, regional security architectures, and end-point modernization through collaboration across all Army components to realize end-to-end cyber hygiene for the Army enterprise across the globe.
As Project Lead and Engineer for the US Navy and US Special Operations Command, he developed and negotiated contract requirements for weapons systems. In less than 12 months, he rapidly adapted commercial mapping software delivering Special Operations Forces (SOF) warriors 3d visualizations of real-time data during mission planning, rehearsal, and execution. As a Navy Price Fighter, he accumulated $513M in cost avoidance by leading contract negotiations for major platforms deployed by multiple agencies bot DoD and Federal Civilian.
He is a graduate of the National Defense University (NDU) Eisenhower School Senior Acquisition Course and Masters in National Strategy and Resources, June 2019, and graduate of NDU CIO Leadership program in 2015. He also holds a Defense Acquisition University (DAU) Systems Engineering Level III certification. Mr. Bitner graduated cum laude from Old Dominion University with BS degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2005.