My datum point is one. Here's a current vacancy announcement for the CIO position at the National Park Service: http://jobsearch.usajobs.opm.gov/get...&TabNum=1&rc=6

I couple of points --

The CIO job is a series 0340 (Program Management), which does not require a technical degree. For that matter, the IT Series (2210) does not have a college degree requirement at all (allows for someone to be hired without a college degree to work a help desk).

The NPS CIO vacancy does have a technical question in which the applicant must describe their IT-related experience.

For the DHS guy, he must have been selected over candidates who had actual computer science and IT backgrounds. For that matter, DHS had 23 CIOs from the agencies that were forced to become DHS. You would have thought that at least one of the 23 might have been more qualified than this guy. He must have some pictures.

There are plenty of other actual CIOs out there who have an academic background in a related field. There's a reson why none of them applied to be the DHS CIO.

Also, there's a reasohn why this guy couldn't get a decent job in the biological sciences field.

However, perhaps a degree in plant science is critical when dealing with all the plant life that works at the DHS from Chertoff on down.