Gomez will oversee four operational areas, according to the Chancellor's Office: Management Information Systems; Network Support and Operations; Research and Data Analytics; and Telecommunications and Technology.
Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley issued this statement Tuesday: "Gomez is an established leader in the area of digital technology and will be a key member of the Chancellor's Office team dedicated to achieving the goals of the Vision for Success, which includes closing achievement gaps and improving economic and social mobility for our 2.1 million students."
Gomez began his IT career in the private sector in 1994, moving to state service in 1999. Among his assignments, he served as manager of operations for the California Office of Systems Integration (OSI), part of the California Health and Human Services Agency. Gomez worked on the California Healthcare Eligibility, Enrollment and Retention System (CalHEERS) project in his role at OSI. Gomez had been named CIO of the FI$Cal project in fall 2011 before joining the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), whose project portfolio, estimated to be worth about $1 billion, includes the Medicaid Management Information System (CA-MMIS) service contract and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) II compliance project.
“I am thrilled to join the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, focused on improving student access to higher education and overall student success,” Gomez told Techwire via email. “I look forward to working with the team to support and strengthen the office’s information technology services program systemwide.”
The IT veteran had served on the advisory board of the California Public Sector CIO Academy, for which he's led numerous seminars over the years. This year, he co-led a CIO Academy breakout seminar on software innovation in the public sector. Gomez also won an IT Leadership Award this year for, among other things, overseeing his department's transition to Office 365; upgrading the department from Office 2010 to a Microsoft Office suite subscription, resulting in significant cost savings for the state; and transitioning Incident Management Services to the cloud.
The timing of his arrival at the Chancellor's Office is good: California Community Colleges are at the forefront of an online-college initiative in the state, according to the chancellor's press release this week.
"Since the passage of the California Online Community College proposal in June, the Board of Governors has convened twice to make decisions on infrastructure and other practical elements that will get the new college up and running by the fall of 2019," Oakley said. "Monday’s Board of Governors meeting marked the first meeting of this body in its role as Board of Trustees for the California Online Community College."
In that meeting, trustees approved hiring a search firm to identify candidates for the presidency of the new online college and approved the retention of a law firm to handle the legal paperwork to begin operating as an independent, state-funded body.
This story was updated at 4 p.m. Aug. 8 with comment from Barney Gomez.
