As expected, California Office of Technology Services (OTech) chief Robert Schmidt is retiring from state service in three weeks. Techwire first reported the news in October.
Schmidt's last day with the state will be Feb. 8, he wrote in an email to staff this week.
The Brown administration appointed Schmidt the chief of OTech in September 2015, replacing Davood Ghods. Schmidt had been the agency CIO and director of Executive Office/IT Services at the California Department of Food and Agriculture since 2011.
According to the governor’s office, he was principal of statewide IT consolidation at the Department of Technology from 2009 to 2011, and a system software specialist at the California Franchise Tax Board from 1999 to 2009 and at the California Department of Technology from 1996 to 1999, where he was an associate system software specialist from 1995 to 1996.
Until the governor's office names a permanent replacement, Ellen Ishimoto will take the role of interim chief at OTech, a role she also handled when Davood Ghods departed as chief in 2015. Ishimoto was named assistant chief at OTech in 2014.
Ishimoto was a project director in OTech’s Customer Delivery Division and she formerly was CIO of the California Lottery for seven years until 2012. During her career with the state, she has held positions at the Teale Data Center and the Department of Transportation, and was chair of an Enterprise Architecture Committee that was under the direction of the state CIO.
