The US Department of Energy has a new chief information officer (CIO) for the second time this year.

Stepping into the role is Ross Graber, who most recently worked as the senior director of security engineering for Procore Technologies, a construction management software-as-a-service compan, which works with the data center sector, among other.

Graber takes over from former SpaceX engineer Ryan Riedel, who held the CIO job for less than two months. Dawn Zimmer, principal deputy CIO, again stood in as acting CIO, having previously done so after former CIO Ann Dunkin left the role when President Donald Trump entered office.

News that Ryan Riedel was leaving the DOE after less than two months emerged last week, though no official reason was offered.

DCD has contacted the DOE for more information about the changing leadership team.

Graber's career started at EY in the 2000s, with him later working as an IT audit manager at Yahoo, a security and privacy technical program manager at Google, and a senior risk and data analytics manager at Twitter, now known as X.

The DOE's senior leadership change was first reported by Next Gov, which noted that a State Department official told them that Graber had been recently supporting the Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) work, which has been dramatically cutting jobs across the federal government.

In the DOE specifically, DOGE reportedly laid off around 2,000 employees in February 2025 across a variety of teams, including the Grid Deployment Office, Offshore Wind Team, and Office of General Counsel.

Around 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration, which manages the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile, were also impacted. DOGE later tried to reverse that decision, but it is unclear how many will resume their roles.

DCD interviewed former CIO Ann Dunkin while she was still in office. Since leaving her post, Dunkin has written on LinkedIn about the pros and cons of being a "politically appointed CIO."

Dunkin wrote: "There is value to the flexibility to bring in a well qualified appointee when the time is right for an organization. However, making all department-level CIOs political limits the career potential for our very talented government IT leaders and eventually will push those talented leaders who want to be CIOs out of the government. That would be a loss for all of us."