IE11 Not Supported

For optimal browsing, we recommend Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers.

CCC Creates Resume Module, Assesses Modernization

The California Conservation Corps is a state agency that hires young people to preserve the state's natural resources and to work on emergency response crews. Since 1976, when the corps was established, 9 million hours have been dedicated to emergency response including fires, floods and earthquakes. The agency offers scholarships, training and educational credits for participants.

The California Conservation Corps is a state agency that hires young California residents for work to preserve the state's natural resources and on emergency response crews. Since 1976, when the corps was established, 9 million hours have been dedicated to emergency response including fires, floods and earthquakes. The agency offers scholarships, training and educational credits for participants.

Techwire spoke with the organization's CIO David Chase and Communications Director Dana Howard and got an overview of the agency and its priorities. 

Techwire: What is the overall budget of the California Conservation Corps, and what portion goes toward IT?
Dana Howard: Our budget is roughly $95 million. The IT budget is about $4 million for 2017-2018.

There’s about 15 IT staff; it’s a small but powerful group.

TW: What projects is the corps' IT department working on?

DC: Our big job right now is the continuous implementation of our C3 system. The system implementation was officially completed in January of this year. We are continuing to refine it and we are adding some significant modules this calendar year. The primary one is we are moving to a stipend system to pay corps members, rather than the hourly time sheet that has been in use for quite a while here. Our director has committed us to implement the stipend function into C3 by July 2018 so we’re working on defining the requirements, the business rules and the technical design for that function.

The other large module that we are looking at is the core member development module. That had been rolled into the implementation project, but the thinking was that it was so comprehensive that it was set aside for completion after implementation. That performs a couple of functions; one of the functions is to create a transcript of a corps member’s time at the CCC. It would provide a report; it would show all the trainings that they’ve taken, all of the certifications that they’d received, all of their achievements. We don’t currently have the ability to do that. We also have to do a lot of reporting to various agencies and sponsors through the year, and the corps member development module would also track ... how much work we’ve done, how many miles of trails we’ve built, how many fires we fought, how many hours people worked, that kind of stuff.

It’s roughly the same timeline [as the stipend module], within 12 months, but it’s somewhat flexible. These should be covered under our existing maintenance and operation contract. This is an existing system; these are subsequent enhancements. It was built by Global TouchPoints.

TW: What are some ideas of the future modernization efforts of the corps?

DC: We’re really expanding and embracing our C3 system as our primary system of performing our core functions of the corps. It can handle payroll and sponsor verification, invoicing, those primary things. We’re always looking at making our system as efficient as possible. We’re a small organization with limited funds so we need to get the most out of our technology investment. We had some money this year to do some PC refresh and we’re going to be rolling that out with this calendar year. Previously, the PCs throughout, and we have a number of facilities throughout the state, have not been refreshed on a regular basis.

TW: What are the goals for the IT department?

DC: I’ve only been here at the corps since mid-February, and the primary focus has really be on working with the C3 system and getting that going. My ultimate goal for IT services here is the same as they’ve been at all the places I’ve worked, and that is to provide the best technology that we can provide given the funding and staff that we have. Just because we are a small organization with not a lot of financial resources, our technology needs are really no less than any other organization. Technology is really key to implementing any initiative or vision for the organization. Any significant improvement in operations is at this point, here in the 21st century, going to be enabled through technology.

TW: Given that you are such a small organization, what challenges have you been facing with your tech?

DC: I think that they’re sort of the usual challenges. One of the interesting things about a small organization is there is a chance to go in-depth into a wider variety of areas. In larger organizations, there’s a lot of specialization, so even though the staff is competent, they may only get to experience things in a narrow way. As the CIO, I get involved in several different areas at a fairly deep level, and much of my staff have to cover more than one function. It’s challenging to cover more than one focus area but it also makes the work more meaningful, I believe.

TW: What is your favorite area to go in-depth with?

DC: I’m really focusing on analysis of business processes and making sure we have a thorough understanding of those and that we base our automation on essential business processes. I really think that most of the value in automated systems comes early on in the design phase, where we set up how the system is going to operate, and that’s been my primary focus, making sure the systems are well-designed and making sure they meet needs as fully and completely as possible.

Kayla Nick-Kearney was a staff writer for Techwire from March 2017 through January 2019.