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Mark Gorak
Principal Director for Resources & Analysis for the
Department of Defense, Office of the Chief Information Officer
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Mr. Mark Gorak is the Principal Director for Resources & Analysis in the office of the Chief Information Officer (CIO). Key responsibilities include monitoring and analyzing congressional activities and legislation; serving as the DoD CIO focal point for planning, programming, budgeting and execution processes; DoD CIO administration and management; and DoD’s digital and cyber workforce policy and development integrator.
Prior to his current role, Mr. Gorak served as the Deputy Director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC). In this capacity he served as the senior advisor to the Director with a focus on attracting and cultivating mission-driven, world class talent to transform the Department of Defense through the integration of artificial intelligence.
From November 2019 to March 2021, Mr. Gorak served as the Director of People Analytics within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs (ASA M&RA). As a senior advisor to M&RA, he was responsible for developing, managing, and synthesizing the research design, strategy, and policies to ensure Army personnel data is visible, accessible, understandable, trusted, interoperable, and secure.
Prior to entering civil service, Mr. Gorak served in the United States Army for over thirty-three years. He began his military service as an enlisted truck driver who was inspired to become an Army leader and later retired as a Colonel. As on officer, he served on the Joint Staff as a Division Chief responsible for implementing military and civilian personnel policy, talent management and readiness, reducing joint individual augmentees by 40% returning Service members back to Services, directly increasing readiness. He also served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Cost Assessment Program Evaluation (OSD-CAPE) as a program analyst. In this role, he established and led a DepSecDef wargaming group whose aim was to revitalize, synchronize and prioritize Department wargaming efforts. He founded the Department’s Defense Wargaming Alignment Group as well as the warfighting lab incentive fund, which provided operational concept innovation through experiments and demonstrations.
His previous military experience includes serving as an OH-58 Scout helicopter pilot in 1st Cavalry Division; C-12 King Air, fixed-wing aviator with XVIII Airborne Corps, commanding Charlie Company 228th theater aviation company; Headquarters, United States Military Entrance Processing Command serving as lead operations analyst; Army G-1 as branch chief for military personnel programs responsible for program and execution of military pay; and the US Army manpower analysis agency where he served as a senior analyst. He also served with Joint Task Force-Iraq (JTF-I) as Deputy J5 evaluating US force presence conducting strategic assessment of the theaters progress in achieving campaign objectives resulting in revisions to implementation plans.
In addition to his military assignments, Mr. Gorak has chaired various Military Operations Research Society working groups for over three years and is a six-sigma black belt. His education includes an MS in National Resource Strategy from the Eisenhower School – National Defense University, an MS in Applied Mathematics from the Naval Post Graduate School and a BS in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics from Marquette University.
His accomplishments include receiving the Superior Civilian Service Award; twice recognized by ASA M&RA, Legion of Merit; twice recognized, Defense Meritorious Service Medal; twice recognized, and the Meritorious Service Medal; twice recognized.
Mr. Gorak and his wife celebrate over 30 years of marriage and five children. He is an active youth soccer and basketball coach in support of his children and enjoys traveling around the country as an NCAA soccer referee. Lastly, he is a Wisconsin native, local supporter and prideful part owner of the Green Bay Packers.