State Department Names New Tech Leader

A new state department has named its technology leader, roughly two weeks before its first anniversary.

The California Department of Cannabis Control (DCC), created July 12, 2021, when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 141, has chosen longtime state IT leader Sean O’Connor as its next chief information officer. O’Connor’s first day was June 23; he replaced Jason Piccione, agency information officer at the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency (BCSH), who was serving concurrently as acting DCC CIO.

O’Connor’s state career dates to July 2009, when he joined the California Board of Behavioral Sciences as outreach coordinator/associate governmental program analyst. O’Connor joined the California Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) in July 2010 as a business project manager in its Office of Information Services, a post he held for more than four years. O’Connor moved to C-level at DCA in August 2014, as chief of the division of program and policy review, holding that post for more than a year before becoming chief over IT legislation and data governance from October 2015-October 2017; and, most recently, chief of project oversight and administration at DCA from October 2017-June 2022. In that latter role, he was project director for cannabis licensing enforcement and reporting.

DCC Director Nicole Elliott told Industry Insider — California via email that the department is excited to welcome O’Connor to its leadership team and said he has “an enormous amount of important work ahead, including helping DCC grow our IT Services Division and expand and improve existing services to meet the needs of our growing department.”

“He will lead the consolidation of our licensing and enforcement database systems and other key initiatives that will unify our internal frameworks and help us better serve cannabis stakeholders,” Elliott said. “Sean has a passion for providing critical data so teams can accurately measure and identify trends within their work and looks forward to enhancing DCC’s data reporting capabilities.”

In a budget change proposal submitted in January, DCC suggested using roughly $13.7 million from the Cannabis Tax Fund in the 2022-2023 Fiscal Year budget for an IT assessment of a “unified cannabis licensing system, consumer awareness campaign, and data collection and sharing efforts.” Newsom signed the FY 2022-2023 budget Thursday, however, a full copy of the enacted budget has not yet been made available on the state website. This article may be updated.

DCC’s search for a permanent technology leader dates almost to its inception. Its creation, which consolidated regulatory, licensing and enforcement functions previously done by three other programs, according to a news release, merged the Bureau of Cannabis Control under the Department of Consumer Affairs; the CalCannabis Cultivation Licensing Division under the Department of Food and Agriculture; and the Manufactured Cannabis Safety Branch under the Department of Public Health. The new DCC is part of BCSH.