Ron Ralph has been chief information officer for Cal Fire since 2002, overseeing IT management across the department and managing a multimillion-dollar IT program including acquisition and integration of the department’s IT resources, according to his executive summary on the Cal Fire website.
Ralph joined Cal Fire in 1990, and his roles have included support technician, systems programmer, systems analyst and technical supervisor. Before joining Cal Fire, he worked in the private sector in the IT and electronics industries, where he worked in various capacities including electronic technician, systems and applications programming, systems analyst, technical writer and technical supervisor.
Ralph was named a “Great Communicator Award” winner in 2004 at the California Public Sector CIO Academy. In addition, he won a Best of California award in 2010 and this year was named one of two winners of a CIO of the Year Award, all bestowed by the Center for Digital Government.*
“I hope the people who come in behind me can build and grow on what’s been done already,” Ralph told Techwire in an interview last week. “I’ve worked for the best department in the state. We have a phenomenal mission. We’re right where we need to be. The hardest part is, there’s always more to do.”
Cal Fire has been among the busier state agencies in recent weeks, as wildfires have plagued the state and forced tens of thousands to evacuate.
During Ralph’s tenure as CIO, Cal Fire has expanded its emergency management capabilities through the implementation of new equipment and technologies.
Ralph has also “led the way in the mindset change of technology groups,” according to news coverage of his CIO of the Year Award.
“Our business is not about the hardware and software or the things in the data center,” Ralph has said. “It’s about the delivery of services. It’s about providing access to technology resources, services, systems, data and the ability to allow the business to do what they need to do, when they need to do it, and from anywhere it needs to be done.”
His achievements with Cal Fire include having the creation of an agile and secure environment that encompasses software-defined technologies, cloud services, virtual compute resources, shared-services, software-as-service, data-as-a-service, and platform-as-services.
So why is he retiring?
“I just turned 60,” he told Techwire. “We had just wrapped up some significant, major projects successfully, and it looked like the right time. It was a personal decision.” He has some accrued time off and then will move on, vacating the premises for whoever follows (the application deadline is Friday.).
Ralph also had a caution for those seeking to succeed him: “We’re in a challenged environment — it’s a lives-at-stake kind of job. The job at Cal Fire has been extremely stressful. It’s not a good job for the timid.”
