Amaya Capellán was appointed new state CIO and deputy secretary for the Office of Information Technology (OIT) in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania at the end of July 2023. The former vice president at Comcast, the telecommunications and media conglomerate, understands her charter – digital transformation. As described by her immediate boss, Secretary of Administration, Neil Weaver, Capellán’s extensive experience in the private-sector will do her well in her new position.
In this era of new government-wide digital transformation and legacy systems modernization, Louisiana CIO Dickie Howze is an old hand. More than half a decade ago, his Office of Technology Services (OTS) was responsible for an enterprise digital transformation plan for its citizen services.
James “Jim” Weaver began his state IT leadership role as chief technology officer (CTO) and deputy chief information officer (CIO) in Pennsylvania, followed by a very successful stint as CIO for the state of Washington, then was lured back east to North Carolina by Gov. Roy Cooper in 2021.
From laying cable throughout his college campus to heading up the state government’s information technology organization in New Mexico, state CIO Raja Sambandam has come a long way. However, he’s used to it.
State organizations are often confusing labyrinths – and difficult for laymen and even policy wonks to clearly understand – but in the case of Oregon state government IT functions the line of responsibility is clear with state Chief Information Officer (CIO) Terrence Woods reporting directly into Gov. Tina Koteck as a member of her cabinet.
Peter Romness is passionate about cybersecurity. He has been working with government customers for nearly 35 years and now, as cybersecurity principal in the CISO Advisor’s Office at Cisco, he focuses on protecting government networks from cyber threats. MeriTalk recently sat down with Romness to discuss how state and local governments and higher educational institutions are investing and gaining knowledge to guard against cyberattacks.
The Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT) has selected Aurigo Software for a multiyear contract that will help the department to streamline and modernize the state’s transportation planning process.
Anyone running an IT department knows it’s critical to ensure IT has the right tools in place to manage operations, projects, services and resources in the most efficient manner possible. Not only does this help with resource drain but streamlined processes and communication help keep everything running smoothly and projects on track for success.
In an organization, IT is rarely the only group that offers services – whether to employees, customers or citizens – and state and local governments are no different. But not every group has an organized system for service requests – that’s where Enterprise Service Management (ESM) comes in.
Customer service and the user experience includes internal clients. From managing requests to improving information flow, departments outside of the technology organization struggle with keeping track of an increasing avalanche of email inquiries, work orders, status reports, and data updates.
