County CIO Earns “Best of California” Award

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Harold Tuck is going out on top.

A couple months before he plans to step down as the County’s Chief Information Officer, Tuck won the Best of California 2012 Award for Demonstrated Leadership in Management of Information Technology. The competition is held by the Center for Digital Government.

“I appreciate getting singled out, but I think this award validates that we as a County are ahead of the pack in using technology to help our customers,” Tuck said.

The award comes four years after Tuck took over as CIO, whose primary responsibility is overseeing the County’s IT Outsourcing Contract. He quickly went about establishing a vision for future technology improvements by working with the five business groups to create an IT strategic plan. Its four goals: put customers first; increase workforce effectiveness; provide access anytime, anywhere; and enable sharing of data internally and externally.

Here are a few highlights of projects in which Tuck has played a leadership role:

  • The award-winning  Juvenile Electronic Library System, which automates the creation and sharing of Probation reports among multiple agencies.
  • A Mobility Roadmap that lays out a course to make workers more mobile and county services more accessible from mobile devices.  Early efforts include improved VPN for field workers to access the County network and an initiative to launch mobile applications for citizens.
  • The Enterprise Information Exchange will enable County departments and external agencies to access and share data about customers. The system is designed to show when an individual is using multiple County services.
  • An Innovation Council comprised of private sector IT firms and County staff, which Tuck brought together to focus on IT solutions.
  • Oracle Financials Upgrade, an extremely complex program involving three separate projects,  multiple vendors, and close collaboration between all parties. With Tuck on the governance team, the program was completed within the original budget and schedule.

One of the best indicators of success, and a priority for Tuck, is the recent results of the annual IT satisfaction survey of County employees. Scores put the County just shy of Gartner’s “Best in Class,” category.  That’s up from a score from four years ago – when Tuck started in the position.

“My job is to help employees do their jobs,” Tuck said. “So when their satisfaction level is high, I do get satisfaction from that.”