David Steinour, who has been serving as interim chief information officer for six months, has been named the University’s official CIO, the University announced this week.

Steinour will lead Information Systems and Services and oversee everything from GW’s e-mail to the University’s Web site redesign. Steinour said his first task will be to create a strategic plan for the future of GW’s technological infrastructure, with the ultimate goal of digitizing all of the University’s files and going “paper-free.”

The strategic plan will determine “what [ISS will] do in the classroom, how we can make the network better, how we can improve the wireless connectivity and improve services to the entire community,” Steinour said in reference to registration technology and student billing.

The University went through a nationwide search for a new CIO but ultimately chose Steinour out of the four finalists.

Steinour served as CIO at Furman University in South Carolina and Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania and was GW’s deputy CIO, before he became the interim head of ISS.

“One of my goals was to go from a small school, which is where I spent most of my time as a CIO, to a large school to finish out my career at a large research University as a CIO,” Steinour said. “So I have finally achieved the goal I was after.”

Now that the “interim” title has been removed, Steinour said he is ready to make real changes.

“You can’t really make headway as an interim because the things that you do from a strategic standpoint as an interim might not necessarily agree with the… new CIO coming in,” Steinour said. “So you try to maintain, keep everything in operation, and do the things that need to be done from a project standpoint.”

Steinour said he hopes to make ISS a more sustainable office and move the University toward becoming a completely digital society.

“It would reduce our footprint and get rid of all the paper on campus, and people will be able to access records more online rather than having to go to file cabinets,” Steinour said.

Executive Vice President and Treasurer Lou Katz, who oversees the ISS department, said in a news release that Steinour was the University’s candidate of choice for his experience in Information Technology in higher education.