Two Techwire briefings this week will offer an opportunity to learn about the plans and priorities of the IT leaders of two key agencies in state government – the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California Highway Patrol (CHP).
The first event, scheduled for 2 p.m. Wednesday, will run about an hour and will feature two CalPERS leaders -- Chief Information Officer (CIO) Christian Farland and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Liana Bailey-Crimmins.
Farland, who was named CIO in February 2018, manages CalPERS’ IT services and strategy and provides leadership and counsel to the board and executive team. He oversees the 600 people who make up the agency’s IT team, and he also manages the technology portfolio that makes up CalPERS’ $100 million IT budget.
Farland has served in a number of leadership roles at CalPERS since joining the agency in 2002. Before going into state government, he held consulting and management positions in the private sector.
Bailey-Crimmins, an award-winning leader in state IT governance, was named CISO last August after having served previously as chief health director and CIO. In the CIO role, she was named CIO of the Year in 2015. The CISO provides direction and policy guidance to the Information Security Office, the Information Technology Services Branch, and the CalPERS enterprise. Bailey-Crimmins has been with state government since 2003, beginning with the California Youth Authority and subsequently with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and California Correctional Health Care Services.
Alan Cox, executive vice president of e.Republic* and publisher of Government Technology magazine, will serve as moderator for the hour-long briefing.
“CalPERs’ CIO and CISO report to different parts of the organization, which makes for more challenging but highly effective collaboration as a result,” Cox told Techwire. “I’m excited to hear how things work and what their plans are.”
Wednesday’s briefing was originally planned as an in-person event, but it was moved online due to social-distancing guidelines enacted amid the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Registration is available online.
In this week’s second briefing, Cox will moderate a conversation with CHP’s CIO, Chief Scott Howland, who heads the Information Management Division. Howland provides oversight for the CHP’s IT and telecommunications environments and is responsible for the technology infrastructure that supports the CHP’s 24/7 operations statewide. He is also responsible for providing communications for all CHP commands, the CHP’s mobile fleet, and 24 communications centers statewide. Additionally, he oversees the CHP’s Computer Crimes Investigations Unit, which investigates computer crimes involving state IT resources.
Hearing from a first-responder IT executive is especially timely amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has upended the way many government and private sector entities operate.
“The CHP is serving the community throughout the shelter-in-place order,” Cox said, “and Scott Howland will be able to share how things are going and what changes may become the new normal now that staff and leadership have experienced disruption in how things work.”
The CHP briefing begins at 10 a.m. Friday and will run about an hour. Registration is available online.
More details are available online about the CalPERS briefing and the CHP briefing. An audio recording of both presentations will be made available after the fact; watch Techwire for details.
*e.Republic is the parent company of Techwire.
