With little more than two months until he retires, Joe Panora of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is taking a national cybersecurity award home with him.
Panora, director of CDCR’s Enterprise Information Services (EIS) at the California Department of Corrections was recognized among the best public-sector cybersecurity professionals in the nation at the FOCUS 14 Security Conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
The winners of the 2014 Cybersecurity Leadership and Innovation Awards marked those in state and local government and education who have, in recent years, driven forward cybersecurity efforts in their own communities, and also led American government at large. The Center for Digital Government, the research arm of Techwire’s parent company e.Republic Inc., presented the awards.
Among those recognized for excellence were Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Enterprise Information Security Office, the city of Dallas, Florida International University, and Stanley Jorocki of the Phoenix Children’s Hospital.
"This year’s winners demonstrate they are serious about cybersecurity defense by putting into place systems, practices and policies that detect and mitigate vulnerabilities, keeping information safe for citizens,” said Center for Digital Government Executive Director Todd Sander, who congratulated award recipients for succeeding in the face of a growing cybersecurity threat landscape.
Panora has served as Enterprise Information Services director and agency CIO for CDCR since January 2008. He started his career in state government in 1980, and over the past 35 years has worked at Caltrans, the Franchise Tax Board, Employment Development Department (EDD), State Controller’s Office, California Youth Authority and CDCR.
In recent years, Panora has overseen a project portfolio valued at more than $800 million. Projects led by Panora include a new enterprise resource planning system, and the Strategic Offender Management System, a centralized offender database and management system that saves $4 million annually. Panora was named as a Government Technology Top 25 Doer, Dreamer and Driver in 2013.
He is slated to retire from public service on Dec. 30.
