--- title: Obama Taps Facebook Director to Fix The Way The White House Uses Tech description: The Obama administration has hired Facebook's David Recordon as the White House's IT specialist canonical: https://time.com/3751651/obama-administration-facebook-director-white-house-technology/ author: Maya Rhodan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-19T20:30:46.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:59:39.034Z article:section: Politics og:title: Obama Taps Facebook Director to Upgrade White House Technology og:description: Facebook's David Recordon is the White House's new IT specialist og:url: https://time.com/3751651/obama-administration-facebook-director-white-house-technology/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Obama Taps Facebook Director to Upgrade White House Technology twitter:description: Facebook's David Recordon is the White House's new IT specialist twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Obama Taps Facebook Director to Upgrade White House Technology > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: How Health Care Is Changing for 2015 [Watch (HLS stream): How Health Care Is Changing for 2015](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/asBSrQOp.m3u8) (1:23)  _Published 2014-12-17. A focus on preventive care, wellness programs, and insurance updates are the main health care changes coming to employer-sponsored programs in 2015._ by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Mar 19, 2015 8:30 PM UTC by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Mar 19, 2015 8:30 PM UTC The Obama Administration has tapped another Silicon Valley techie to help the federal government navigate the digital world. Facebook Engineering Director [David Recordon](https://www.facebook.com/davidrecordon/about?section=education) is set to join the White House staff as the director of information technology, a new position created to upgrade technology at the White House. According to a White House [blog post](https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/03/19/president-obama-names-david-recordon-director-white-house-information-technology), Recordon will unite overlapping programs and ensure the government has the most up-to-date, secure equipment. “His considerable private sector experience and ability to deploy the latest collaborative and communication technologies will be a great asset to our work on behalf of the American people,” President Obama said of Recordon in a [statement](https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/03/19/president-obama-names-david-recordon-director-white-house-information-technology). [Yahoo News ](https://www.yahoo.com/tech/exclusive-facebooks-engineering-director-is-114060505054.html)first reported Recordon’s appointment on Thursday and Obama signed a presidential memorandum establishing the position later in the afternoon. Before joining Facebook in 2009, Recordon worked at several startups including blogging services creator Six Apart and Verisign. Recordon’s hiring is the latest move by the Obama administration to bring the federal government’s technology up to speed with the private sector. In 2014, President Obama launched the [U.S. Digital Service](https://www.whitehouse.gov/digital/united-states-digital-service), which brought some of the brightest minds of the tech world to Washington to improve the government’s use of technology. The Digital Service is led by Mikey Dickerson, a former Google executive who was tapped to fix the Healthcare.gov website following its abysmal launch. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3751651/obama-administration-facebook-director-white-house-technology/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3751651/obama-administration-facebook-director-white-house-technology/"},"headline":"Obama Taps Facebook Director to Upgrade White House Technology","datePublished":"2015-03-19T20:30:46.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:59:39.034Z","description":"Facebook's David Recordon is the White House's new IT specialist","url":"https://time.com/3751651/obama-administration-facebook-director-white-house-technology/","keywords":["White House"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Maya Rhodan","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3751651/obama-administration-facebook-director-white-house-technology/","name":"Obama Taps Facebook Director to Upgrade White House Technology"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"How Health Care Is Changing for 2015","description":"A focus on preventive care, wellness programs, and insurance updates are the main health care changes coming to employer-sponsored programs in 2015.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/asBSrQOp/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-12-17T22:55:43.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/asBSrQOp.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3751651/obama-administration-facebook-director-white-house-technology/","duration":"PT1M23S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3751651/obama-administration-facebook-director-white-house-technology/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```