Meet the Tech Exec: Helen Norris, CIO, Chapman University

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MEET THE TECH EXEC
Helen Norris
CIO
Chapman University

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Helen Norris is the Chief Information Officer at Chapman University. She has almost 30 years’ experience working in IT leadership roles. Originally from Ireland, Helen has earned a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, and a Master's degree in Computer Resource Management and Business Administration from Webster University in St. Louis. Helen holds a project management certification (PMP) from Project Management International (pmi.org) and is a fellow of the Educause Leading Change Institute. She serves as a board member of the Southern California Society of Information Management (scsim.org) and a trustee of the National Endowment for Financial Education (nefe.org). Helen also previously served as the Director of the Sacramento Women in Technology International network (witi.com).

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What superpower do you want most? 

You mean the one that I don't already have? To read people's minds. To understand what it is that people want. I feel like you have to listen really hard to what people are saying and I spend a lot of time practicing listening.

What did you want to grow up to be when you were a kid? 

I grew up in Ireland in the 70's which was a little different than here. I was the first to go to college in my family, as my parents worked in factories, and I didn't have a professional background. I was good at math and I wanted to be a math teacher or an actuary. When I was finishing up college at Trinity College in Dublin, there weren't many choices to move cities in Ireland, so I went to live in Germany. I didn't speak any German, so I worked for American Army in Germany. There, I was a computer programmer where I accidentally fell into IT and never went back. Back in the early 80's they didn't have computer science so I did a lot of fortran and pascal. In 1984 I moved to the US where I lived in St. Louis. Since 1997, I've been all over California where my first job in higher Ed was at UC Berkeley. After that, I worked at CSU Sacramento and then moved to Chapman University in 2014. Now, I oversee 75 people and we provide IT support to both the entire main campus and our health science campus.

How are you inspiring young women in STEM areas?

I do a lot of work with different organizations in Southern California to support advancing women in technology. We do have a Women in Science and Technology group at Chapman and I have spoken to them on several occasions, and also connected them with other women leaders in technology.  During Women's HerStory month, we did an interview that we were able to Facebook Live which was to stress to women, students, and faculty who don't often see women in leadership positions in technology. I am also connected to STEM Advantage and Advancing Women in Technology (AWT); organizations that provides scholarships to women and underserved communities studying in STEM fields in different universities.

You were the first female interview conducted after 30 previous interviews, does that surprise you?  

It's important to be visible to show people that you can be a woman and lead in the field. I never once had a female supervisor or manager in a technology field.  I do see a lot of women represented in management on the application side or project management side of information technology, but it is difficult to break through to the most senior roles.  So sadly, I’m not surprised to hear that.

How do you think women could change IT?

I remember people had this image for IT of somebody in the back playing dungeons and dragons, eating pizza, and now that stereotype I hope is gone. Our work is really focused on what we can do for the organization and how you support the business. To support the business, you have to know the business and know what their priorities are, otherwise you are just a utility. I want to be an asset to the organization and learn the needs of the community.

What are the top priorities for a university or for education?  

I think it really varies between all universities and university systems. When I was at the CSU's and the UC's, the priorities and focus were on costs, as we had constant budget pressures. This included being more efficient and helping students to graduate in a timely fashion. In universities it was harder for them to get the classes they wanted and we had to make sure we provided the ability for students to graduate. We wanted to understand what students’ needs were and how they can use technology to graduate.

At Chapman, we are very focused on personalized education. Rather than developing online education, we’d prefer to use technology in the context of personalized learning. Also, we are adding more faculty with a research focus. We have to have the right connection to other universities, the efficiency has to be there. Using technology to enhance our mission and define the role of collaboration in teaching. When students leave here, they are expected to be able to collaborate.

Students have access to Google tools and O365. The way students use them are mostly for email, and then they use One Drive or Google Drive for collaborative purposes. People use One Note a lot to just manage their lives and we use a variety of tools. In our College of Educational Studies, Google apps are very popular. It varies a little bit from discipline to discipline, but Google Tools are very popular.

We have all these tools (phones, iPads, laptops, etc.) and yet we still struggle to get information to students—how can we get something in front of them and how do we make sure we are delivering the right messages to them? When we bring people from this generation into the workforce, how will we train them? It's so easy to get in front of them but it's harder to communicate.

What are your hiring challenges in regards to millennials? 

We have hiring challenges in general; it's very difficult to hire technical people in Orange County. There's lots of competition in Silicon Beach and we struggle to find candidates in fields like security. They want a cooler place with sexier tools, and  it's just not as exciting as working for Snap Chat. We are more of a traditional environment and workplace. We have to figure out how to provide the flexibility to be attractive to millennials.. I do think that millennials are working in places where they like their mission, and since we are mission driven, that becomes more attractive.

Where do see technology in education in the next 5 years?  

The ability to use VR to train and educate people. That's something that will continue to see growth in the next 5 years. We are beginning to look into it for example, in the health sciences we are already using virtual cadavers. That's an area we are going to see massive growth. In the future, as patients, we may be treated by someone who was completely trained virtually.

What kind of messaging is coming down from the CEO/Key Executives about their partnership with IT? 

A couple of things: we are focused on business intelligence and dashboards, and very focused on providing more and more data to our colleagues around campus. Our Data Warehouse is built on a Microsoft SQL back end and we're using something specifically built for our universities. Those are the kinds of tools we are looking at. We're doing a lot of work in the classroom with technology enabled space and learning spaces, and transforming classrooms to spaces that are much more inviting. We want to have students share information back and forth; the same kind of thing in informal learning centers.

Are you connecting with any universities abroad? 

We have a campus in Irvine that we've done a fair amount of teaching to and from the main campus in Orange with. We frequently have guest lecturers via Skype. Our Irvine campus is interesting because we opened a School of Pharmacy four years ago, and our dean is very forward thinking. The entire curriculum is made with technology in mind and the students interact with it from the day they come on board.

What's your philosophy on premise or moving to cloud?  

Moving to the cloud makes a lot of sense in a variety of ways. I think it's harder to move to the Cloud than we're led to believe, with the first reason being cost. The other challenge we have in universities is that the cloud efficiencies of scale are really harvested because you go to a standardized model. Some things can be outsourced, but if I'm supporting researchers in data science, they need cutting edge, non-standard technology that will remain on premise.

Do you talk to students about what they need from you?  

I spend time with our student government association to make sure we are providing the services they need. We do reach out and talk to students and faculty as much as we can and try to consider their points of view.

How about security? 

Security is always a major issue. We need to be open as a network and we have to balance that need with security. It's much more difficult to dictate things students can and cannot do. We've always had students bring their own devices and we've had to manage that for a long time. Over the last couple of years, we've really focused on education and outreach. We work hard with students and do a lot of work on phishing campaigns and password management since we have a transient community. It's a big deal in information technology and we think as a university setting we are a target. Hackers have used universities as launching pads since we maintain so much personal information.

If you could give guidance to a CIO, what would you tell them? 

I would tell people to build your relationships across the organization. Sometimes, people just build them internally and manage up, but you have to manage out. Build your relationships across the organization and give them your time. It’s difficult for more introverted people,  but just take an hour, (only 2.5% of your time if you work 40 hours a week) and reach out across the organization and just talk to people about their needs and about their departments and groups..

What advice could you give to your longer younger self?  

I wouldn't give any advice. I learned from all of my mistakes, so for the most part, I am glad I made them. I would just say learn to listen and build relationships.

Was there a woman in history that you admired or looked up to?

There are so many women to admire, like Maya Angelou. Any women like that have done amazing things. Harriet Tubman I admire from history. More recently, women in Silicon Valley like Marisa Meyer from Google—I admire her and think she's made mistakes but that's what I would admire about her.

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Meet the Tech Exec: Jason Fischer, CIO, PIH Health

MEET THE TECH EXEC
Jason Fischer
CIO
PIH Health

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Jason Fischer is the Chief Information Officer for PIH Health Hospital, an IDS with 2 acute care facilities, home health, over 20 medical office locations, and a Managed Services organization.

Prior to joining PIH Health, Jason spent 7 years as the Director of Applications and Revenue Cycle at CHOC Children’s. During that time, he led the Information Systems application teams, project management office, development, revenue cycle and hospital coding departments. In addition, he was the executive sponsor for both the ICD 10 and Meaningful Use programs for the health system. Most recently, he was instrumental in the opening of a new patient care tower, tripling the size of the previous patient care facility and bringing in many new ancillary service lines. In addition, he assisted CHOC in achieving HIMSS level 6, a testament to the organizations goals for improving safety, minimizing errors, and prioritizing IT implementations.

Prior to CHOC Children’s, Jason gained broad industry experience as an auditor and management consultant with Ernst & Young LLP and Accenture. During his 10 years, he consulted with many of the leading health care systems in the country.

Jason earned his bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Biology from Syracuse University in New York. He is a lean six sigma green belt and CPA/accounting professional.

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If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

The ability to see into the future. With the healthcare IT landscape constantly changing, there are many shifts in resources that we need to consider, both in terms of people and technology, to be as impactful as possible. So if we were able to see into the future that would be great.

What’s the #1 area of focus CIO’s should concentrate on?

In healthcare right now, the number one area of focus is security. With all the breaches that are coming into the healthcare space for patient data and with the increased focus on exploited vulnerability, security is a top priority. We've been focusing on everything from laptops to network vulnerabilities from an IT standpoint but the most important and biggest risk for us and any organization are the people. We have what we call a Phishing exercise where we send messages out to the organization on a quarterly basis to see who accepts the messages by launching an attachment or clicking on a web link. This enables us to educate and notify those users thereafter in an effort to reduce continued risk. Because our entry point is our people through email or through other means regardless of how widely deployed our security technology is , any one associate or clinician can pose risk to the organization.

What’s your take on public cloud?

We use the public cloud for a couple of different purposes right now and are working with a few outsourced vendors. I think it’s a great, cost effective model for supporting healthcare IT, however I think that there are some challenges with risk and exposure, potentially HIPAA violations associated with data sharing that may take place outside of our control. The cloud has proven to be cost effective and beneficial from a growth standpoint and the public cloud decreases the need from our data center. But the focus really needs to start with reviewing the risks when we select the vendor. We need to consider if the cost benefit outweigh the risk burden. As one example, our human resources application suite is cloud based along with a few other niche applications.

Do you feel IT still carries the title of a cost center rather than revenue driver?

I don't see IT necessarily as revenue driver but I also don’t see it as just a cost center. We are 100% a business partner within the PIH Health organization. That's how this organization sees it and that’s how I see it. We model our strategic plan from the organization’s strategic plan, roadmap and vision, which of course equates to growth, revenue, and quality in the healthcare space. So, while we're not necessarily a revenue driver we absolutely support, and have enabling technologies to support, those business models and the growth of the organization.  

What are you (the CIO) doing to support innovation in the company and its own organization to deliver better solutions?

PIH Health is focused on mobile technologies around telemedicine, analytics and clinical processes. Telehealth is a current initiative we're starting up for the stroke service line. We have a mobile solution that we are going to deploy here in the next 30 days for our physicians in the in-patient setting to access labs, radiology results and orders all through their mobile phones. For management across the organization, we've deployed a mobile application which essentially is an analytics scorecard, where you can view key financial and performance indicators across our two hospitals. We are also focusing on analytics in general. Analytics in the healthcare industry can be improved. In addition to security, we have a huge focus on using all of this data that we've aggregated for many years now in a meaningful way to help drive business decisions whether they be in the finance space addressing what we should invest in and where we should grow, or in the quality space around patient disease classifications, whether it be asthmatics or diabetics. We have been collecting data (both clinical and financial) for many years and are now starting to use it to drive business decisions across the enterprise.

The other thing that I think is really exciting for us, you may even experience this in your personal life as well, we started deploying a patient engagement kiosk in our physician practices. Upon arrival, it allows patients to check in without having to wait in line or complete paperwork, or as an option a “pre-visit” check in from a web based platform in the comfort of your own home. The whole purpose of this is to expedite your patient visit so you can spend more time with your care provider as opposed to completing paperwork that you then have to hand over to a person who has to enter that information into the system before you could be seen. Another innovative approach is our interoperability platform. These allow us to share patient data with other facilities so they could have visibility into your problems, your allergies, medicines and so on. Data sharing is another focus in the healthcare industry right now. We are participating in a closed program with seven health systems in the Los Angeles area as well as a major payer to exchange data across our patient base. The purpose is really two-fold and includes increasing the quality of care for all patients whom are part of that population and managing costs.

  We run on average about 50 projects through our department at any point in time, and these are not just IT projects. They are organizational initiatives, so we have a lot of examples of things we are doing to advance the business. The whole purpose is creating efficiencies where we can in departments, as well as to determine how we grow and establish ourselves in the community as a care provider that has the highest level of quality and is the most efficient.

We are hearing so much about the internet of things – what does or could the internet of things for your business look like?

The one thing that comes to mind is connectivity of devices, patient monitoring devices or infusion pumps are currently separate from our IT systems. When you start connecting through IoT we're sending patient data to those devices and they are sending clinical data back to our electronic medical record. We are just beginning to plan for this level of integration and are researching the security concerns to ensure a safe and efficient connection. As an industry, I think we need to get past the security concerns with some safeguards. The vendors we are working with in that space that support those technologies right now are working collaboratively with us and our EMR vendor toward integration.

Are there any hiring challenges?

Yes, every day. The market for healthcare IT specifically, for good talent is challenging. It is really hard to find the right fit with the right skill set. PIH Health has open positions all the time. We try to fill them, but it's that balance of finding senior-level experience who have niche knowledge of a particular electronic medical record platform or a particular technology. These people are really hard to find because they are sought after so you see salaries increasing as well, which is good for the economy. Our department on-site has about 100 full-time employees. We have an off-site support service in Buena Park and 30-40 full-time employees that we utilize in India, so we have a 24/7 IT support team.

What did you want to grow up to be when you were a kid?

An orthopedic surgeon. I became more interested in the business of healthcare and had a heavy interest in IT. I balanced that out by keeping my focus in healthcare.

What kind of messaging is coming down from the CEO/Key Executives about their partnership with IT?  What are they expecting you to look at?

IT is seen as a business partner. We provide shared services to the entire organization. Our senior leaders understand that to achieve our goals around revenue growth and efficiency, technology and a technology team that partners with them is integral. That is why we model our IT strategic plan off of the organization’s plan. We're in the third year right now of a plan that we're going to refresh for another three years based on where the organization’s priorities and roadmap take us. From a service line perspective, growth prospective, efficiency and cost perspective, as well strategic advancement, the message is clear that IT needs to be a partner. We're also looking at the offset of those investments as well. Whether it be in people or other areas where total cost of ownership can be decreased, it is important to constantly evaluate the benefits of any IT investment.

Has the idea of using cloud changed your mindset of using outsourced IT rather than keeping in house?

I don't think so. As I mentioned earlier when we discussed public cloud, we have our HR suite, we also have a private cloud that we outsource for database support of our EMR platform that services this organization. I'm all for it where it makes sense and where we can show a proven track record. We still have two data centers full of server stacks that must be on-site right now for applications we host on-site. But I do see it as a cost reduction when utilizing larger businesses like our EMR vendors who have larger datacenters that end up costing less. So I fully support it when it makes sense for the business, it’s never an all or nothing decision.

If you won the lottery what would you do?

I would probably still work. I enjoy what I do here at PIH Health, I enjoy the operations side and more so the growth, so I would probably just continue with the status quo.

If you could give guidance to any CIO, IT Manager Director about how they position their careers what would you tell them?

I grew up in IT moving through some of the ranks and had an opportunity at different stages of my career to broaden my horizon and not just be niche focused. For any individual who is interested in growing into a larger management role in IT, I would absolutely suggest creating both breadth and depth to get a good feel for what the department has responsibility for and how it runs. Getting a good feel for what works and what doesn’t is very important. You get to develop your own opinions and your own management style as you grow. I think it’s a lot easier to manage a broader department if you have greater insight into the overall scope of what that department does, so my advice would be rather than being more linear and niche focused, be a little bit broader throughout your career.

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Meet the Tech Exec: Doug Cyphers, CIO, Welk Resorts

MEET THE TECH EXEC
Doug Cyphers
CIO, Welk Resorts

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Doug Cyphers is the Chief Information Officer for Welk Resorts and has been with them since January, 2012. His organization is responsible for delivering all technology related services and solutions which include Software Development, Salesforce Implementations, Database and Reporting, Application Support, Agile Delivery, and IT Operations. Having almost 30 years of experience in IT, Doug has held Executive or Senior Level positions with organizations in industries that include Resort Development & Hospitality, Banking, Payments, SAAS, Direct Sales, Public Schools, Defense and Industrial Automation & Controls. The size of companies he has been involved with have ranged from “Startup” to Fortune 50. Aside from working at Welk, some highlights have included helping one company gain Inc500 Hall of Fame status, working for one of the largest event and license registration companies in the US, and partnering with the nation’s top credit card processors to implement cutting edge End-to-End Encryption solutions. Additionally, he’s worked with several nonprofit organizations in a variety of roles. Doug has a degree in Computer Science and a Masters of Business Administration, has obtained several professional certifications during his career and was named San Diego Magazine’s 2014 “Top Tech Exec”.

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What’s the #1 area of focus CIO’s should concentrate on?

Partnering with heads of divisions outside of IT.  Without taking the time to get to know these people, what’s important to them and where they plan on taking their area it’s very difficult to become a strategic partner

What’s your take on Public Cloud? 

It’s here to stay.  Most colleagues I talk with see the AWS’s and Azure’s of the world as more stable and secure than their own data centers.  It also provides a level of stability and accountability that is hard to match internally.

What are you (the CIO) doing to support innovation in the company and its own organization to deliver better solutions? 

I go to key conferences that I believe are riding that progressive wave and I do entertain new vendors to see what their products can do.  I make sure that I’m a key player in the company’s strategic planning so that I can share what I see and have experience in the context of helping the company realize a new revenue stream or to improve an existing one

We are hearing so much about the internet of things – what does or could the internet of things for your business look like?

The jury for me is still out on how this area can help.  Sure in our resort operations there are some compelling offerings that may provide a better experience for our customers, but I would like to see them become more mainstream and a business case made for it.  The greatest revenue generating part of our business is our sales which I’ve struggle to find a good fit for in this context.

Are there any hiring challenges? 

Yes.  There is a shortage of highly skilled and experienced people in San Diego.  I’ve been told by many that in some cases there are not enough candidates to fill certain specialized roles.  There’s not a lot of large companies in San Diego comparatively to other large cities. We just don’t have the inventory they do.

What did you want to grow up to be when you were a kid?

An astronaut, then a doctor that uses technology to cure diseases.

What kind of messaging is coming down from the CEO/Key Executives about their partnership with IT?  What are they expecting you to look at? 

They always want it faster and cheaper.  The funny thing is that I find that they don’t have enough staff to support all the projects they want to do and many times are the ones that become the regulator of the amount of projects we end up doing.  Being able to react to new directions and priorities is probably what everyone wants.  It’s really a  balancing act between stability, flexibility, scalability and cost

Has the idea of using cloud changed your mindset of using outsourced/Managed Services? 

Yes.  I’m much more open to it.  The same problems though still exist when working with any partner.  You’re still looking at someone who has a great track record, who can do it well, quickly and cheaply… just like me

If you could give guidance to any CIO, IT Manager Director about how they position their careers what would you tell them? 

Become much more of a business manager.  Run your org like a business.  Think like your colleagues outside of IT.  Constantly be looking at things in how they can benefit your company from a business perspective.  Use other people in your org to focus on the deep dark technical stuff.   The really successful guys think business first, then how to harness technology to drive it.  Don’t forget to learn all aspects of your business quickly and stay connected to your colleagues.

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Meet the Tech Exec: Behzad Zamanian, CIO, City of Huntington Beach

MEET THE TECH EXEC
Behzad Zamanian
CIO, City of Huntington Beach

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Behzad Zamanian was appointed as the Chief Information Officer for the City of Huntington Beach (Surf City USA), California in August 2015. In this role, Behzad is responsible for the overall leadership of the Information Services Department including strategic technology planning, development and implementation of technology standards, policies and procedures, project management, budget development and implementation.

Behzad started his career with the City of Huntington Beach is January 2004 as a Business Systems Business Systems Manager and was soon promoted to the Business Systems and Public Safety Systems Manager responsible for the oversight of public safety systems in addition to business systems and enterprise applications.

Before joining the City of Huntington Beach, Behzad held the position of Chief Architect and Administrative Computing Manager for 10 years at the University of California, Irvine.

Behzad has more than 28 years of experience in the field of Information Technology, including the private sector, Fortune 500 organizations, academic and research institutions, health care industry, public safety and local government.

Behzad holds the Certified Government Chief Information Officers (CGCIO™) designation from Public Technology Institute (PTI) and Rutgers University of Public Affairs & Administration. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Information Systems from Cal Poly Pomona and Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of California, Irvine.

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What superpower do you want most?

Time travel would have been interesting. Think about how technology has grown in the past few decades. 40 years ago, you had a computer the size of this room and now you have an iPhone in your pocket that has ten times more processing powerful and fits in the palm of your hand. It would be interesting to see what technology looks like in the next 40 years. Will that consist of maybe a chip under your skin keeping you connected at all times, diagnosing what goes on in the body, etc. it would definitely be interesting to see where technology leads.

What did you want to grow up to be when you were a kid?

I wanted to be a pilot and loved to fly, I think I must have been a bird in another life! I always had a desire to fly and often dream about it, I grew up in Iran and moved to California in 1984. Wondering how you went from dreams of being a pilot to the IT industry? Selecting a career is different for people who migrate to the US, you don’t take things for granted and tend to think of what's available and needed than what you like to do. When I decided to major in Computer Information System, I thought about what’s hot what’s not in 20 years thinking software would run everything at some point, guess I wasn’t so wrong.

If you won the lottery what would you do?

Find a place in Hawaii some place far away from big cities… the island life and retire.

What’s the #1 area of focus CIO’s should concentrate on?

I personally feel that the most important thing for a CIO is to become s strategic business partner with other units. Being a business partner lets you align your IT mission with the organizations mission and vision and that should ultimately be the goal of every CIO. Some refer to it as “business alignment”. In my opinion, building partnerships with the departments is the key to IT’s success. If I'm able to accomplish what other departments want then that automatically aligns my goals with business.

In terms of initiatives, one thing we are seeing is cyber security becoming the main priority for a lot of organizations. One interesting thing I heard at a recent conference regarding state vs. local government priorities is that priorities aren’t the same for state and local government agencies. For example, states are still focusing on IT consolidation but local agencies have mostly consolidate to a degree and moved on to other priorities. Cyber security seems to be a hot topic for everyone. The last thing I want is to see our City becoming a victim of a cyber-attack so security is definitely one of the major concerns. In terms of automations and applications, enabling field workers to use mobile devices and providing more citizens engagement online systems, I see that as a stepping stone for connecting IoTs. At some point everything will be connected, city’s assets, pipelines, water meters, cars, roads, applications, etc, and you have the ability to monitor and manage everything remotely. As a stepping stone, richer mobile enabled applications would be the focus for government agencies. Empowering users to do work in the field and connected to a central system. We have developed an integrated work order system to manage Public Works requests but it’s missing the mobile functionality at this time. We are working with a vendor to build a mobile application that enables citizens to submit a request and field staff will soon be able to get the request immediately and respond to the request to take care of the problem.

A lot of people think of cloud as a strategy for IT but I see cloud as another tool to provide better level of support. There are multiple factors when you look using the cloud. Example of those factors are investment in your organization datacenter or the nature of the application, is this an enterprise application, does it require remote access, are there a lot of integration points, etc. Enterprise applications such as ERP software have proven to be more successful on-premises for larger organizations like us. On the other hand, simple applications that require a lot of interaction with customers/constituents such as online recruitment applications can be a good fit for the cloud. Additionally, some agencies like us must comply with security protocols and regulations so cloud isn’t always an option.

Do you feel IT still carries the title of a cost center rather than revenue driver?

I think that depends on the organization the administration view of IT. IT was viewed as a cost center a few years ago but in the past few years IT has proven to not only be potentially a revenue/cost saving driver but also a strategic business partner. During the recession we saw a big change in how departments viewed IT and utilized technology by automating their processes to save costs. Here is a simple example, our community services department used to print and publish magazines every month so we said let's cut the cost by creating a digital magazine on our website where the information was readily available to everyone.

Are there any hiring challenges? Specifically, from millennials?

Hiring as it relates to millennials has not been an issue for us. Of course millennials have all the information and tools they need to be able to just move on to the next company with a similar position if they don’t like it which could result in you losing a really good employee. Our challenge has been the high cost of benefits associated with government employees. We simply can’t afford to hire as many full time employees so what I try to do is “smart sourcing”. Outsourcing, use of contract positions, part timer or interns for what makes sense such as repetitive simpler tasks in IT such as helpdesk; and full time employees become smart managers of IT resources and work on mission critical systems that support the core of the organization; this is what I call “smart sourcing”. In my opinion that is the only way to manage technology with extremely limited resources with the ability to scale up and grow. We have 1100 FTEs citywide and about 500 seasonal and part time employees. We had 50 IT employees in 2006 and now only 30 FTEs, we lost about 40% of IT staffing resources to attrition and cuts in the past few years.

What kind of messaging is coming down from the CEO/Key Executives about their partnership with IT? What are they expecting you to look at?

Just like any other progressive organization, we, key executives, would like to see better customer service, better internal and external communication, a more robust IT governance, automation, technology to make people and systems more efficient and productive; and most importantly, technology to provide better service to our citizens, visitors, and constituencies. In terms of projects, cyber security, enterprise systems capable of providing online services, and of course technologies that helps public safety to be more effective and efficient. My role is to partner with departments and be sure to understand business needs and align IT goals with business.

What would be your top three goals for this year?

Cyber security is one of our top priorities, upgrading our legacy systems is another one of our top priorities. We are also looking at mobility, enabling field users to work remotely, public safety functions in particular, police and fire department remote access are some of our high priority initiatives. Providing added remote functionality to our Police and Fire vehicles and expanding mobility is a big-ticket item. We are also trying to look at broadband, perhaps in a public/private partnership model providing high speed Internet access to our constituencies and making the City an attractive option for technology companies. We are looking at laying fiber throughout the city to connect all City facilities and pole tops as the next big real estate market. ISPs will need access to pole tops for mini/micro cell towers and better connectivity. Another priority for us is business alignment, we are here to provide service to citizens and more automation in development services is a priority so we are in the process of replacing our land management system to provide a lot more online services. Online permit request, automated plan check, one stop shop for payment and other citizen engagement services is a high priority for us.

If you could give guidance to yourself looking back before you had the role of a CIO, what would you tell them?

To be patient and try to enjoy the process. CIO job comes with a lot of responsibilities so be careful what you wish for. It’s a fast-paced demanding role that requires high energy personality.

What advice would you give to others interested in pursuing careers as a CIO?

There are two kinds of people at work, some bring a character to their day to day job and some let their job to define them. Try to be in the first group, define your job and the environment you work in. The CIO role is about business more than technology, as a CIO you must understand and address business needs and technology is your tool. For me it was a natural move because I was on the business systems and applications side of the house. My suggestion would be to ask a lot of questions and learn a lot about the business, be sure to understand the big picture before attempting to be a CIO. Be very flexible, you want to be able to re-prioritize your tasks at all times. So if you want to be a CIO, be focused, keep your eye on the ball and you will get there, it's just a matter of the time.

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Meet the Tech Exec: Drew Martin, Vice President & Chief Information Officer, Jack in the Box Inc.

MEET THE TECH EXEC
Drew Martin
Vice President & Chief Information Officer
Jack in the Box Inc.

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To download the full magazine and read the full interviews, click here.

Drew Martin is Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Jack in the Box Inc.  He oversees the information technology functions across the enterprise, including both Jack in the Box® and QDOBA Mexican Eats® brands.

Mr. Martin joined Jack in the Box Inc. in 2016 with extensive experience in similar leadership positions with prominent companies like Sony, PepsiCo, Accenture and most recently, Lytx Inc. where he was Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer.  Before that, Mr. Martin was Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Sony Electronics.    

Mr. Martin is also the founder of Silicon Beach Advisors, Inc and co-founder of Seenager, Inc.  He serves on the IT Advisory Board for Sharp Healthcare.

Mr. Martin has a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Cornell University. 

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When you go out to eat, what do you order as your side?  

Curly fries!

What song best describes your work ethic?  

Tom Waits, Get Behind the Mule.

If you were stranded on a deserted island what you would bring and why?  

A Stand Up Paddleboard for fun … and to get home eventually.

What superpower do you want most?  

That one is easy … time travel. I could go back and make sure some bad things didn’t happen.

What did you want to grow up to be when you were a kid?  

I wanted to be a writer because my parents were both writers.

What’s the #1 area of focus CIO's should be concentrating on?  

Initially, I focus on building relationships and partnering with stakeholders, but ultimately I concentrate on getting aligned on strategies and priorities. In our case, we've really shifted to more franchise-owned restaurants. We need to provide our franchisees with solid IT systems and capabilities. We approach this like we’re a professional IT services provider to them.

What’s your take on Public Cloud?  

I think the challenge with new technologies, whether they’re public cloud, big data or artificial intelligence, is always about understanding the potential and how to apply it to what you're trying to accomplish as an enterprise. It's not about getting caught up in the hype or doing it just because everyone else is. Within public cloud there is certainly game-changing scale leverage, but it also creates new challenges around security, integration and custody of data. It's something that every CIO is at least looking at, if they're not already doing something with.

Do you feel IT still carries the title of a cost center rather than revenue driver?  

IT is still a cost center from an accounting point of view, but we should also have a revenue driver mindset. IT should be extremely focused on ROI and supporting sales growth. Also, I think what’s changed is that these days, digital is part of the product and customer experience. There's hardly a product I can think of where the customer experience doesn't have some element of digital in the product offering and we’re no different in that regard.  That’s forced IT to get out of a predominately support role and more engaged with helping to enable the digital guest experience. In our industry, Domino's says they are a technology company that happens to deliver pizza and Starbucks has invested a lot in its mobile app user experience. Our industry is just like others in that it’s clearly investing in IT to drive revenue.

What are you (the CIO) doing to support innovation in the company and its own organization to deliver better solutions?  

To deliver better solutions, I’m trying to make sure we’re engaged in the conversations around innovation. We have to be collaborative and balanced in our approach. CIOs can't be too far out ahead of the conversations. We can’t do innovation for innovation’s sake or fall in love with a particular technology. It has to be in the context of what the strategic objectives of the company are. On the other hand, when CIOs aren’t involved in those conversations, companies can get caught having issues with speed to market, security, integration or support.

What kind of messaging is coming down from the CEO/Key Executives about their partnership with IT?  

Senior management is trying to provide clear direction to the entire company and set the tone. Our company mission is to Nourish the Pursuit of Dreams. On the Jack in the Box brand, the purpose is to Make Busy Lives Better and Qdoba’s to Bring Flavor to Life. The messaging coming from key executives is for IT to partner to deliver on this corporate mission and on the brand promises.

Are there any hiring challenges in general?  

It's always a challenge to get the right skill set and match in terms of culture and career objectives. And the best candidates usually have several options, so having a fun and engaging corporate culture can really help. In hiring for IT, it's also important for us to have a clear idea what's core to what we do and where we'll partner instead of hiring. Candidates want to understand that along with the broader IT vision so they can get comfortable and excited about what it could mean to their potential career path with the company.

How is hiring millennials different from traditional hiring?  

From an IT perspective, we have to provide tools the millennials are used to. This includes things like chat, cloud based email, and collaborative team sites. I'm personally very comfortable on primarily using email to communicate whereas millennials may want to operate differently. Millennials are also very interested in the social aspect of the job so we need to make sure the tools are engaging and allow them to collaborate with their peers while also getting the job done.  Of course, we hire a lot of millennials in our restaurants. We have to provide them with mobile capabilities that help make their busy lives better. This includes capabilities like being able to check their schedules and swap shifts with peers on their phones and not have to always call into the restaurant manager.

If you could give guidance to any CIO, IT Manager Director about how they position their careers what would you tell them?  

Over the years as I've mentored people, any conversation that starts with title or money issues tends to be problematic. Have passion around impact. People who come in and want to do better, make the enterprise faster, smarter and add more value are the people that I have great conversations with and lead to better professional outcomes. Lead with those ideas on how to have more impact and good things tend happen from there for the company, the department, the team and of course for the individual’s career.

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Meet the Tech Exec: Jonathan Behnke, Chief Information Officer, City of San Diego

MEET THE TECH EXEC

Jonathan Behnke

Chief Information Officer, City of San Diego

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To download the full magazine and read the full interviews, click here.

Jonathan Behnke is the Chief Information Officer for the City of San Diego. He has over 20 years of IT experience managing and implementing technology for a broad range of industries including public sector, contract services, oil, construction, automotive, distribution, consulting, and manufacturing.
In Jonathan’s current role he is responsible for the technology strategy and operations for America's eighth largest City including data center, network, voice, public safety wireless communications, web services, enterprise applications, portfolio management, cybersecurity, GIS, and data analytics in support of over 10,000 users and 1.4 million citizens.
He also serves on the Board of Directors for SanGIS, a joint powers authority between the City and County of San Diego responsible for maintaining a regional GIS land base and data warehouse. In support of CA Governor's Office of Emergency Services, he also serves on the California Cybersecurity Task Force. Jonathan is also a member of the MetroLab Network Smart Cities Initiative, Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, The Municipal Information Systems Association of California, San Diego Infragard, and Metropolitan Information Exchange representing a group of CIO’s from the largest cities and counties in the USA.

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What’s the #1 area of focus you are personally focused on?

We have so many initiatives and projects underway, I can talk about the top tier. Top things: modernization and expansion of services to San Diegans. We rolled out a mobile app called Get it Done San Diego. It allows residents, neighbors, and community members to report things like potholes and the reports to go straight into our backend system. It's really quick for San Diegans to take a picture of an issue and send it to us. The request is routed to the correct department and when the City completes the work they can take a picture and send back indicating that the work is finished. We're seeing a great level adoption and high level of satisfaction for the app. We are looking at broadening the functionality to other areas. The app does geotag issues and we have it plugged into our GIS systems to produce the issue on maps for City workers. It's really efficient for the City and our residents because we’re crowdsourcing the reporting of issues. Many neighborhoods are really excited about this are walking through their areas reporting all of the issues they can find to improve their neighborhood. San Diegans win by getting their issues fixed more quickly and the City wins by crowdsourcing the reporting more quickly. The Get it Done app has been out since this last May. Last March a new city website was launched, which won Best of the Web Award from the Center for Digital Government for ease of use. We surveyed over 5,000 San Diegans to develop the new website. There is now a set of drop-down menus to fast-track our residents to the information that they need. We have another initiative to replace PDF Forms on the website. Instead of downloading forms now we have a new solution that converts the PDF’s to online forms to fast-track the entry into our back-end system, making things more efficient for San Diegans and the City employees. We are also working on making permitting available online and looking to release that sometime later this year.

As we roll out these capabilities, we are also working on a single-sign on portal for residents to get to multiple city services. We make Cyber Security a priority in everything that we do and are constantly managing new threat vectors. Anytime you are traversing through the internet, there are all kinds of vulnerabilities and new ones appear every day. The City requires all 11,000 employees do annual cyber security training. You can have a rock solid system but it only takes one person to get a phishing email and all the cards fall if they click on it. I have heard about incidents in other companies where someone finds a flash drive in a parking lot with a child's picture on it. Someone will pick it up and take it to the computer and plug it in to see if they can find the owner, releasing a payload of malware into the company’s network. We got an email last week that was signed by a student from a local university. It said they were doing a cybersecurity survey and it had a link to respond. We knew it was a scam because we get emails like this all of the time. We have also seen ransomware as a growing problem. A legitimate website gets hacked and when someone goes into the site and it dumps malware onto their computer. After someone encounters ransomware, we'll get a phone call that says, hey what's BitCoin? We know immediately it's ransomware with a message on the person’s screen that says to give the hackers BitCoin and they’ll get their data back. We approach cybersecurity from multiple angles. We've got tools in place that isolate compromised computers from our network and then reimage the computer. Cybersecurity is a 24/7 job.

If you won the lottery what would you do?

I think about the people that completely self-destruct, so I wouldn't do that. I think I'd give it back to the community somehow. I would build a new football stadium and bring the NFL back to San Diego.

What superpower do you want most?

I would say flying because I commute from North County. I take transit to San Diego and get work done during the trip, so it's great to take the transit down here. They do a great job. A lot of city people take advantage of that.

What’s your take on Public Cloud?

We look at government compliant cloud offerings and cloud providers out there. We currently do some work with Sales Force apps. The "Get It Done" app is based on Salesforce technology, using their government cloud. We also have a private cloud, using our own infrastructure allowing us to spin up virtual machines quickly. We have a lot of efficiencies built into the private cloud already. We use Amazon and Azure for business cases that are a good fit for that and continue to evaluate cloud offerings for Back Up and Recovery.

We have a hybrid environment. We see a lot of our new applications being SaaS applications. If we have big projects need infrastructure for a short time it might make sense to use cloud for that because it's no longer needed after the project is done. It gives us some agility to provision those resources quickly and then we haven't had to make a capital investment.

We've been on Microsoft Office 365 for 3 years. We are one of the largest municipal governments on Office 365 and we were one of the first out there. Our police department is not on Office 365 yet as we are just getting through CJIS compliance. CA law enforcement requires CLETS backgrounding for employees accessing CJIS information. Chula Vista PD was just approved by the State last month for Office 365 and now the door should be open for approval for other agencies, so we expect to get our police department on Office 365 soon. Currently, we've got an on-premise system and a cloud system in our hybrid environment, so we've got the challenge of getting the two synced up. We were on the early edge of large organizations going to the Cloud -- Office 365, and there was a little hesitation at first because we wanted a high level of confidence.

We also want to get the user’s home drives moved over to Microsoft OneDrive. That is something I’d like to do this fiscal year. We've got to work out the logistics to get ourselves there, but we see a lot of benefit to that.

If you were 80 years old and speaking to your younger self about life what advice would you give?

My theory is if you make it 80 then you're playing on house money after that. I would say live life to the fullest and pass along your knowledge to the younger generation about your mistakes as well as your successes.

Tough question: Side salad, curly fries, sweet potato fries or onion rings?

I would pick the side salad but if I need that rush I'd go with curly fries. I'm a huge carbs person.

IOT what does it mean to you?

We hear from a lot of vendors in the technology sector and when we talk about it as a local government, IOT is discussed alongside Smart Cities. There is a lot of discussion about improvements to transportation, development, and energy. We see a lot of potential for the City and surrounding governments to partner and make life better for our residents, neighbors, and community members. The city announced a partnership with Google WAZE, and are looking at how we can use that data to really improve transportation. Our traffic engineering department can take that data and potentially implement changes. The City also has a project to deploy LED streetlights, and some will have sensors to generate new data and drive analytics that the City can make improvements from. If the regional governments can take advantage of IOT and aggregate that information into a single source, there are some great possibilities. You can take analytics and data from multiple organizations and aggregate it and put up a heat map, and do some really cool things. The city has an open data portal releasing a lot of data sets to the community. As we look at IOT, we really look at a lot of future potential, data and analytics, which could ultimately bring improvements to the everyday life of citizens.

What are your top 3 concerns in technology today?

Security, mobility, and the cloud.

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MEET THE TECH EXEC INTERVIEWS

Managed Solution is conducting interviews as part of an outreach initiative to share trends and engage technology enthusiasts in the southwest.

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Meet the Tech Exec: Ken Lawonn, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Sharp HealthCare

MEET THE TECH EXEC

Ken Lawonn

Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Sharp HealthCare

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To download the full magazine and read the full interviews, click here.

Ken Lawonn is the Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Sharp HealthCare. In his role he is responsible for continuing to move Sharp forward in the implementation of advanced technologies to support the transformation of healthcare through the Sharp Experience. He joined the Sharp team in February 2014.

Lawonn has over 35 years’ experience in healthcare technology leadership. Prior to joining Sharp, Lawonn served as the Senior Vice President for strategy and technology at Alegent Creighton Health in Omaha, NE. Under his leadership, Alegent was recognized as a leader in the deployment of technology to support integrated clinical care. Lawonn also served as the Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Banner Health and Lutheran Health Systems in Fargo, ND.

Lawonn received his bachelor’s degree in computer information systems from Moorhead State University in Moorhead, Minnesota and an MBA from the University of Nebraska. He is a member of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) and a fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE).

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What are the top 3 areas of focus for IT executives?

Security is one of the top 3 areas because it can cause both financial and reputational damage. Analytics is a big focus for us, especially in healthcare because we spend so much time automating our data, now we have to spend time figuring out how to leverage that data. The 3rd one is incorporating a digital strategy and how we transform operations. In healthcare, we have to move out of this operational model toward a digital model and how we leverage clinical data to make better decision making. Healthcare is data rich, knowledge poor. We have all this unstructured data and have to figure out how we bring all of that data together.

What’s your take on Public Cloud?

We have been hesitant because of privacy issues. Early on the public providers couldn't support business associate agreements. Cloud is revolutionizing the way computing is provided. It's changing the way we think about computing. Hybrid clouds have shifted an alternative view to the public cloud. It's really large scale computing served up on demand. It's changing the way we think about it and the way other providers think about computing services. I think It's the early phase of where we are headed.

We don't use Office 365 yet. We use SAAS and most are run in private datacenters. We are looking at if we really need to own this stuff and run a mixture of cloud services and on premise services. We are moving out of our primary datacenter. We are looking at both Las Vegas and Phoenix because of cost and concerns about environmental issues like earthquakes and fires, they can protect us in those areas.

What superpower do you want most?

I don't have any interest in having a superpower. Reading people's minds might be kind of fun. I always felt you're better to be seen as more of a partner and equal. If you have a superpower you come across as superior and is truly hard to be effective that way.

When you were a kid what did you want to grow up to be?

After I got through the Hercules phase, I really wanted to be a major league baseball player, center field. I just couldn't hit a curve ball. I've always been a NY Yankee's fan.

How is IT helping to drive revenue through the company?

We are looking at taking our current assets to expose those services to more people and make them more readily available through things like telehealth, video based, online services which allows us to extend services without having to build new buildings, or have people come to us. Using technology makes things more convenient for individuals. You can schedule an online visit with a physician, or a nurse practitioner and use it for follow up visits. It doesn't always make sense for you to come back in. Very easily you can do things online, at your convenience, and even after hours. We use technology to understand if we are providing the best treatment, and make sure we are not penalized or making sure we are effectively leveraging our payment process. and that we are effectively leveraging technology to help increase revenues.

We partner with Cerner primarily and do some work with Allscripts. We look at what technologies can run those platforms, then we pick a storage partner to work with. It's not unusual for a healthcare organization to have hundreds of applications that they are supporting.

We are hearing so much about the internet of things – what does or could the internet of things for your business look like?

We see it as huge. Both in what it is able to provide us and the elements to support it. Today we have invested heavily into integrating medical devices into our electronic data records, from pumps to monitors. We are going to actually make all the devices able to communicate, in kind of a standard that we can accept and look at. We have chronic patients with diabetes or congestive heart failure. We need to keep track of them at home to see if they are weighing themselves, etc. We have devices that can relay that information automatically to us so we don't have to go out to their home. We see tremendous advantage in using those kinds of capabilities. We can monitor and track patients to provide better care at a lower cost. Having a connected world of all these devices, helps healthcare leverage continued monitoring and the movement toward consumer involvement in their health. Some data is meaningless so we are learning how do we collect, interpret and leverage that data. Adding more data that in unactionable or not meaningful is a challenge.

Are there hiring challenges based in the economy we’re currently facing today? Or is it a challenge of finding the right skillsets and expertise?

In our business, it's often a combination of skillset and cultural fit. The provider side of healthcare doesn't always pay the best compared to biotech companies. We are looking for people that are attracted to serving and helping people. We hire more for fit. Our challenges are in a couple areas like management level positions, and those high sought after skills like security, data scientists and web developers. We mostly hire Southern CA based individuals and they don't need a healthcare background in certain positions. We are very service oriented and deliver the Sharp experience, which is our brand- a team approach. You can't bulldoze change. We are an organization that changes very slowly.

What kind of messaging is coming down from the CEO/Key Executives about their partnership with IT?

We've gone from IT being a backend service, to being partners with the business, which is still a critical approach. It is the engine for business transformation and growth. There is hardly anything we look at that doesn't have technology involved in some way. There is so much technology available, pick the right technology and hold people accountable to leverage it and provide value. We have to think about how we bend the cost curve. We can't keep increasing the spend if there isn't some return. We have to work together and they want us to make it simple, make it work. How do we transform to become a different kind of business, become more of a digital, real time business. You can't just keep adding on cost. Everyone likes to add stuff, nobody likes to take things away.

CIO's are becoming more like change agents and transformational leaders. The message is we've got to be nimble, faster, more accessible. One of the biggest challenges is everybody seems to be an expert in technology today, with our watches, our phones, they have this sense about what things should be able to do and they don't always understand the complications in how to make it work and make it easy to use.

Has the idea of using cloud changed your mindset of using outsourced/Managed Services?

It's changed the outsourcing model, we used to think it was turning it over to someone else. Now we think of purchasing services, and renting storage as a service. It's just different thinking. The message we keep saying is let's stop worrying about who owns it or where is it physically. Let's think about what's the best way to provide a service to our organization and that's just different today than it used to be.

If you could give guidance to any IT Manager/Director about how they position their careers what would you tell them?

If they want to be successful they have to invest in knowing the business and the customers they are serving and how to form a partnership with key business leaders to support, grow and sometimes transform that business. They are relying on you to help them understand what can be applied and what the requirements are and how to leverage them. Think about your resources differently. Do you have to own it or can you rent it.

MEET THE TECH EXEC INTERVIEWS

Managed Solution is conducting interviews as part of an outreach initiative to share trends and engage technology enthusiasts in the southwest.

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