The General Services Administration’s (GSA) Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) has appointed Pete Waterman as the program’s new director.
Waterman’s first day on the job was Monday. He comes to FedRAMP after leaving GSA’s Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) in February, where he served as a senior technical adviser.
“Pete is joining GSA from a broad background as an implementer and leader across private and public-sector technology roles, including a not-long-ago stint here at GSA supporting the Technology Modernization Fund,” Eric Mill, executive director for cloud security at GSA, wrote in an email to staff obtained by MeriTalk.
“Pete is in a great position to build on the direction and momentum the FedRAMP team has this year, establish key relationships across the executive branch for the program, and take FedRAMP into its next iteration,” Mill said.
Waterman takes over the director role after Brian Conrad, the former acting FedRAMP director, stepped down in March. Waterman is the program’s first permanent director since Ashley Mahan, who left in January 2021.
FedRAMP aims to provide a standardized, government-wide approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services used by Federal agencies.
The program has undergone big changes this year, publishing a new roadmap in March detailing how FedRAMP will evolve in 2024 and 2025.
Last month, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released long-awaited guidance to overhaul FedRAMP, replacing the policy created for the program when it began in 2011. The guidance aims to reduce pain points and bolster FedRAMP’s role as a cornerstone of Federal cloud security.
“This program has been building a ton of momentum over the last year, and I’m so stoked to join this team as we look towards a future where civil servants have broader access to secure cloud services,” Waterman said in an Aug. 26 LinkedIn post announcing his new role.
Prior to his time at TMF, Waterman served as a staff engineer and digital services expert at the United States Digital Service for over three years.
Previously, he spent over 20 years working in the private sector in a variety of roles that focused on machine learning, private cloud, security, data analysis, and more.
Beyond Waterman’s new role, Mill also said that FedRAMP’s second U.S. Digital Corps fellow started work on Monday, “as well as the first of a few key technical hires (with more to come) who will shape FedRAMP into a more technology-forward program that will be in a great position to collaborate and integrate with the work of many of you all across [Technology Transformation Services].”
