On a daily basis, 8,000 commercial and 18,000 private aircraft operate close to 50,000 flights per day in U.S. airspace. Doing this safely and efficiently involves the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA ) maintaining the world’s largest air navigation and communications infrastructure, which relies significantly on advances in information technology (IT ). “Our mission,” says Dave Bowen, Assistant Administrator for Information Services and chief information officer (CIO) at the FAA , “is quite simply to provide the safest air transportation in the world. We do this extraordinarily well.

David M. Bowen is the Assistant Administrator for Information Services and Chief Information Officer for the FAA.

Mr. Bowen has over 25 years experience in healthcare information technology management in the provider, payer, consultant and vendor areas. He was formerly the  Senior Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Blue Shield of California, a $6.2 billion health plan with over 2.5 million members and the 2nd largest not-for-profit healthcare organization in California. He directed Blue Shield’s information technology, telecommunication, business recovery and web implementation resources with an operating budget in excess of $100 million. Mr.