California Public Sector CIO Academy Recognizes Top IT Leaders (Photo Gallery)

Photos by Jason Shueh and Tony Arias / e.Republic
By Colin Wood and Jason Shueh

At this year’s California Public Sector CIO Academy, government IT leaders gathered at the Sheraton Grand Hotel to address the most important policy, management and leadership issues surrounding the future of digital government, and the role of the public-sector CIO in the state.

Among sessions on building relationships with elected officials and recruiting and maintaining millennials, among many others, was an award ceremony in which 47 public IT leaders were recognized for their excellence in government IT management, three of which were special recognitions.

The CIO of the Year award was presented to Liana Bailey-Crimmins of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) while Kevin Piombo of the Office of Technology Services’ (OTech) Engineering Division received the CTO of the Year award. And for his more than 35 years of service to the state, Joe Panora of  the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations (CDCR) was presented the Dedication and Service Award.

The CIO of the Year award was presented to Liana Bailey-Crimmins of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System. Photo by Jason Shueh


Since Bailey-Crimmins joined CalPERS in August 2013, she has achieved what ceremony officials called "extraordinary results." The state agency is now flourishing under her leadership as she completed a decade-long project that integrated 109 systems under one platform.

“There are moments in your career that you have to stop and cherish,” she said when accepting the honor, “and I have to say that this is one of those moments.”

Bailey-Crimmins is also acknowledged as having launched a new strategic planning effort – the ITSB Journey of Excellence – that included more than 60 staff members who defined IT goals that would refocus the organization. An Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Roadmap assisted the department’s intranet transition, and a new Business Intelligence Program brought software dashboard and analytics, while an Information Security Roadmap enhanced the department’s cybersecurity stance. Bailey-Crimmins was recognized not just for her achievements in the 640-employee department, but also for having accomplished them in just one year.

“I was fortunate to have a team that wanted to embark on a journey of excellence with me,” Bailey-Crimmins said at the ceremony. “They are ready to transform and ready to make a difference. I believe that delivering technology is the easy part of our job. Success is about people, and at CalPERS, we use that kind of success every day.”

OTech’s Piombo was acknowledged for his executive leadership over the successful California Email Service (CES), now recognized as one of the leading cloud email systems in the nation with more than 160,000 email boxes.

“I want recognize the OTech team,” he said when accepting his award. “We have a tremendous team of people, whether it’s our executive team, our management team or our technical staff, people that are extremely talented, extremely dedicated, that come to work everyday and want to do the best that they can for our customers and the state of California.”

Piombo was also recognized for his dedication to customer service, which reshaped his agency’s storage solution contracts and saved on data center operations costs. For taking a human-centered approach that places the needs of both customers and employees prominently on the list of priorities, officials commended Piombo.

“I hope this is a team award,” he added, “because it takes a lot of people to accomplish what we’ve done.”

And Panora’s faithful dedication to California state government was acknowledged via the Dedication and Service Award. Over his 35 years of service, Panora worked at Caltrans, the Franchise Tax Board, Employment Development Department, State Controller’s Office, California Youth Authority and CDCR, having served as Enterprise Information Services director of the latter since 2008.

Panora oversaw an overall annual operating budget that exceeded $9 billion, including an IT project portfolio of $900 million. From overseeing the development of a financial management solution (ERP), a business information systems project (BIS), and a statewide automated online inmate visitation appointment scheduling system, Panora’s great contributions to the state have been many and varied.

IT Leadership Award winners included:

GEORGE AKIYAMA
Section Chief, IT Administration, CalPERS, Information Technology Services Branch (ITSB), Information Technology Performance & Accountability Division (IPAD)

TRACEY ALLEN
Systems Software Specialist III, Covered California

DIRK BENSON
Section Chief, Data Center Systems Management, CalPERS, Information Technology Services Branch (ITSB), Data Center Management Division (DCMD)

CHRIS BINGER
Senior Cloud Engineer, California Natural Resources Agency

ROBERT BLESI
IT Operations Manager, Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR)

BENJAMIN BONTE
Senior Supervising Project Manager, Department of Industrial Relations

MARK CHADWICK
Manager of Regional Offices Client Services, Department of Water Resources

JACK CHU
Programming Section Manager, Data Processing Manager III, Department of Industrial Relations

AMY COOPER
Data Processing Manager II, Department of Technology

DEBRA DIXON
DPM II, Chief of HIPAA Codes Section, DHCS, Office of HIPAA Compliance

MARK EUBANKS
System Software Specialist Ill (Supervisor), Department of Technology

JOY GUZMAN
IT Manager, Vendor Management Office, ITSD, California State Lottery

BRUCE HENRY
Business Information System-Technical Manager, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

STEPHEN HENSLEY
CWS/CMS Director, CWS/CMS, Office of Systems Integration

CHERYL HOLDEN
Senior Information Systems Analyst – Supervisor, State Water Resources Control Board

RENEE HOLLAND
DPM III, CA-MMIS, Department of Health Care Services

BETTY JABLONSKY
Technical / Solutions Delivery Manager, CMIPS II Project at the Office of Systems Integration

MEGAN JOHNSON
Data Processing Manager Ill, Department of Technology

LAURA KLEIN
Parole Automation and Biometric Identification Systems- Manager, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

MICHELLE LEW
Call Center Operations Section Chief, Data Processing Manager III, Employment Development Department

LINA LUNA-PRUITT
Chief, Technology Infrastructure Office, ITSD, California Lottery

RAMON MACHADO
State Controller’s Office

GORDON MCGREGOR
Data Processing Manager II, Department of Health Care Services

STEVE MOORE
Information Security Officer, Department of Health Care Services

JULIE MORENO
Manager, Enterprise Data to Revenue (EDR) Knowledge Management Program, Franchise Tax Board, Technology Services Division

TINA NYCUM
Lead Senior Analyst, Department of Water Resources

BRENDA O’BRIEN
Chief of Enterprise Architecture and Operations, Covered California

RANDALL OGANS
Chief, Project and Portfolio Management Section, Department of Health Care Services (DHCS)

JOSE OROZCO
Manager, Services Development Section, Technology Services Division, Franchise Tax Board

DOMINICK PEDICINO
System Software Specialist II, Governor’s Office of Emergency Services

JASON PEREZ
Data Processing Manager Ill, Department of Technology

BRYAN RAU
Manager, Enterprise Data to Revenue (EDR) Business Requirement Section, Technology Services Division, Franchise Tax Board

FILEMON (PHIL) ROMANO
Network Operations Supervisor, Systems Software Specialist III, Employment Development Department

BHASKAR RUDRAKSHALA
Section Chief, Application Engineering and Architecture, CalPERS, Information Technology Services Branch (ITSB), Enterprise Solutions Development Division (ESDD)

ANDREA SPEARS
Assistant Division Chief, CalPERS, Information Technology Services Branch (ITSB), Technology Innovation & Strategic Services (TISS) Division

DAN STALL
Project Manager, Public Safety Technology Modernization, Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR)

SHARON SWEET
Data Processing Manager II, Secretary of State

THERESE VOLK
Senior Programmer Analyst (Supervisor) / Project Manager, CA Housing Finance Agency

JIM WANG
Chief of Production Services, California Natural Resources Agency

ALFRED WANGER
Deputy Director for Information Technology and Water Quality, California Coastal Commission

MILLIE WATERS
Senior Information Systems Analyst (Supervisor), Air Resources Board / Office of Information Services

KIMBERLY WHITAKER
Data Processing Manager Ill, Department of Technology

SHERRI WINFREE
Staff Services Manager, Branch Chief of IT Administration, California Department of Food and Agriculture

HELEN WOODMAN
Information Security Officer, California Department of Finance

 

This article was originally published by Government Technology.