Santa Clara County Executive Jeffrey Smith recently announced that Ann Dunkin, former chief information officer for the Environmental Protection Agency, will serve as the county's CIO effective Feb. 16.
Dunkin joined the EPA in 2014 as a political appointee and also served as senior adviser. In her time as CIO for the agency, Dunkin became a leader of the federal government's Digital Services movement, according to the announcement. She is credited with creating the Innovation Fellowship to expedite the hiring of short-term federal employees and helping streamline purchasing through the development of "agile acquisition vehicles."
Now with Santa Clara, Dunkin will lead nearly 800 IT professionals and coordinating services to departments managing their own software applications. In total, her leadership will support 18,000 county employees and nearly 2 million residents. Her work will likely focus on building efficiency, especially in the areas of hiring and purchasing.
“I am excited to return to the Bay Area and to have the opportunity to work at the local level again, especially, for Santa Clara County,” said Dunkin in the announcement. “The most important public services are delivered at the county level and I’m looking forward to helping the County’s IT organization deliver services more efficiently and effectively.”
Prior to joining the EPA, Dunkin was chief technology officer for the Palo Alto Unified School District. Before her move to the public sector, she worked for Hewlett-Packard for 20 years in a variety of positions in research and development, IT, manufacturing engineering, software quality and operations. She holds a Master of Science degree and Bachelor of Industrial Engineering degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
