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Municipal Data Pioneer Heads for Exit

The C-level executive took a newly created data position nearly five years ago and has helped shape how his Southern California city handles information.

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A pioneer in municipal open data is moving on after nearly five years in his position.

In something of a return to the private sector, Maksim Pecherskiy, San Diego’s inaugural chief data officer, is leaving the Southern California city and heading more than 4,000 miles south to Lima, Peru. There, he’ll tackle side projects including writing, creating custom software for private-sector clients and potentially exploring government-related initiatives as well. His last day at San Diego was Friday.

“I feel like working here has really given me the skills and the confidence to be able to do that," Pecherskiy told Techwire. "I talked with some of the other CDOs and I’ve gotten the resounding advice that at this level in my career, that at this point, I should be more strategic and thoughtful in what I do next.” 

The CDO, who joined San Diego in November 2014, had previously been a solutions architect at Promet Source, where designing integrations and guiding development were among his focuses. He migrated to the public sector in part through a fellowship at Code for America, where he developed PrimerPeso in Puerto Rico, which connected entrepreneurs to government incentives.

Pecherskiy, who ran a department of one for about 10 months before making his first hire, developed San Diego’s open data portal but made automation a focus — aggregating data from city systems, storing it in the cloud and notifying employees in real time as data sets update.

During a panel discussion on building smart cities in January, at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Pecherskiy said governments need to avoid a top-down approach to projects and instead bake in structured user research cycles to understand issues and problems – leaning on community engagement and related strategies.

“I think we have to think about how we engage people that are not typically the ones that are engaged. And I think that the people that are really, really into government shouldn’t have more of a voice than the people who have better things to do,” he said in an interview with Government Technology* magazine.

Pecherskiy suggested the public sector consider software development cycles, which connect agencies closely to vendors during multiple mock-ups, test phases and versions.

Asked then what lay ahead for San Diego this year, Pecherskiy highlighted the need for “unsexy” but mandatory maintenance, saying: “I think that it’s important for us to really venerate and admire good maintenance of software and good practices of maintenance.” Techwire will have more on what Pecherskiy’s departure means for San Diego and what’s next for the city.

*Government Technology magazine is a publication of e.Republic, which also produces Techwire.

Theo Douglas is Assistant Managing Editor of Industry Insider — California.