As part of Techwire’s ongoing efforts to educate readers on state agencies, their IT plans and initiatives, here’s the latest in our periodic series of interviews with departmental IT leaders.
Matthew Daley is IT analyst for the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, a state agency created in 2004 and charged with leading efforts to restore and improve the Sierra Nevada region’s natural resources and communities, while guarding against wildfires and climate change. A lifelong learner, Daley has had this role, in a two-person IT shop, for more than six years. He has been with the Conservancy for nearly a decade, having joined in May 2012 as a senior grants analyst, and before that, was an instructional assistant in foreign languages at Sierra College for nearly eight years.
He has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Nebraska at Kearney and a graduate certificate in Asia Pacific studies from the University of San Francisco. His professional licenses and certifications include being a AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner by Amazon Web Services; certified as an Agile Tester by the American Software Testing Qualifications Board; and being Microsoft Certified in Security, Compliance and Identity Fundamentals.
Techwire: As IT analyst at your organization, how do you describe your role; and how have the role and responsibilities of the IT analyst changed in recent years?
Daley: The Conservancy is a small state agency. We have 45 employees total, and out of those, two of us are IT. An analyst and a systems admin person. And because it’s such a small organization, you don’t really fit into a specific role and it depends upon the day. Some days, you are working on troubleshooting issues with Teams and other days ... you are setting up best practices for Azure. And then anything in between. I would say that in my six years ... as an IT analyst ... as I’ve developed more expertise in the area as well as a better feel for the organization, that you’re really getting pulled in all directions.
Since we are so small, we do wear a ton of hats. ... The other member of our IT organization, our systems admin, functions as our CIO. A couple of the big projects we’ve working on related to the last couple years ... we’ve always been a remote-first organization. We represent an area that’s like 25 million acres of California and with 45 people spread across six different offices, we’ve always been mobile. The last couple years has been really focused on, how do we continue to keep improving productivity, make life easier for people working remotely now that instead of 45 people in six offices, we have 45 people in 45 offices.
Techwire: How big a role do you personally play in strategic, executive-level initiatives such as writing your organization’s strategic plan?
Daley: Since we are so small, we all have a role to play there. I wouldn’t say that I write the plan by any stretch. The way that we’re organized is all around the board. The executives would create the plan soliciting feedback from key staff and then present it to the board for their approval. (I’m) not writing the plan, but definitely involved in fact-checking, “Can we actually do this and what would that look like?”
Techwire: What big IT initiatives or projects are coming up? What sorts of RFPs should we be watching for in the next six to 12 months?
Daley: I would say at this point in time, probably in the next six to 12 months, there’s nothing big, new on the horizon; that it’s a continuation of improvements to software technology that we already have in-house ... . Whether it’s improvements to SharePoint and Teams, migrating things to Azure, all of that. Nothing new, just all of that in continuation. (The migration) is super new for us, really evaluating what our options are to go ahead and see if there’s a better way for us to ... do what we’re doing. We don’t have a massive tech stack to move over but really, looking at using best practices, what do we have that should be someplace else and how do we do that.
Techwire: What term or phrase do you use to refer to what many call “digital transformation?” How far along is your organization in that process and how will you know when it’s finished?
Daley: I’ll answer that starting at the end and then moving backward. I think for our purposes, probably we’ll never be finished with it. That for us, being a remote-first workforce, even before the pandemic, that our digital transformation project really revolves around providing staff with the best tools to be able to do what they need to do. Most of what our staff does is related to the work on the ground that our organization provides as far as grant funding, working with partners in the area, things like that. So, for that to happen well, we need to be able to provide our field staff with appropriate technology to be able to do what they do and do what they need to do. I would say for us, the digital transformation project, which is what we call it internally, really revolves around taking processes that we’ve always done with a hard copy and two copies filed away, making those digital processes, improving the processes and removing a lot of the manual overhead. So, just simply from storage of files to submission of requests for payment from grantees to the application process, all of that is really at the heart of our digital transformation push. For us, we don’t have unlimited funding by any stretch, and so for us, it’s about taking the investment that we’ve already made and maximizing the return on those. Continuing to find ways to be able to do what we need to do with what we already have in a way that’s sustainable long term.
Techwire: What is your organization’s estimated IT budget, and how many employees do you have? What is the overall budget?
Daley: I don’t have the exact numbers on me. What I can tell you is that, from an IT standpoint, we don’t have a large discretionary IT budget. Most of what we have is focused on putting money on the ground in our area and doing work on the ground.
Editor’s note: Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed 2022-2023 Fiscal Year budget – which will be revised in May – calls for 43 positions at the Conservancy, up from 40 in the current fiscal year, and for a $19.6 million budget overall.
Techwire: How do you prefer to be contacted by vendors, including via social media such as LinkedIn? How might vendors best educate themselves before meeting with you?
Daley: That’s a really interesting question, because I’m sure like anybody, you get multiples of cold-call emails every day. For the most part, those are too many and not specific ... to even look at if you had the time and the means to be able to go through and parse through, to be able to see what they are. The solicitations that get feedback from me are usually the ones from LinkedIn because ... it’s easy, I think from a sales standpoint to be able to see exactly the organization, your role and the structure from LinkedIn. So, it makes it easier than the cold-call email. And also, for us, we’re the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, and if I had $1 for every cold-call email or cold-call phone call that referenced the Sierra Nevada brewery, I’d be a rich person. That is easy to avoid on LinkedIn. It’s bulletproof, where that is potentially problematic, getting the organization wrong that much.
I think for us there are really three types of cold calls that we get: the ones ... that are completely wrong person, wrong time and not even close enough to your wheelhouse to make it worth your while to point them in the right direction. It’s just totally off-base. And then, there are the cold calls that potentially someday might be interesting, but right now just are not relevant. And then there are the ones that are either relevant in that, “We just had that conversation and I’m glad you reached out to me” or yeah, this is something, typically for us, that yeah, next budget cycle would be interesting for us. And for vendors to have an easy way to be able to ... present that in a way that’s digestible for us makes their job and our job a lot easier.
Techwire: In your tenure in this position, which project or achievement are you most proud of?
Daley: That’s always a difficult question. ... I would say there’s been a lot of stuff that we’ve worked on over the last six years that is specific to, like, a tangible process. My background really, in addition to the IT part, is project management, Scrum, process improvement, change management. For me, those projects where we’re able to go ahead and make a significant change in how we do things, based upon need, and then iterate on that feedback really are the things that I would hang my hat on. Currently, we’re still working on a redesign of our website that was based upon actually taking a look at who’s using our website, how they’re using it, how we can provide the tools and resources to them in a way that works for them and us as well. I would say currently, our website redesign would be a project that would definitely fit in. We have a backlog of needs that have been identified and now it’s just a matter of verifying those are actual needs, identifying “who, what, when, where and why, how,” and then developing it, testing it with those end users to make sure it’s what they need, adding that functionality and then doing the same thing all over again.
Editor’s note: The project is in implementation.
Techwire: If you could change one thing about IT procurement, what would it be?
Daley: That’s a loaded question, right? From my standpoint, the things that we can control are the communications, both with potential vendors and from the vendors to us. And just making sure that those avenues of communication are transparent, and people stay on top of that.
Techwire: What do you read to stay abreast of developments in the govtech/SLED sector?
Daley: A couple of the items that I get in my mailbox that I do make a point to parse through, one of them is CIO.com. Good general information. The Government Technology* emails as well. Those two would be the ones that jump out, as those are ones that I pause on and review when I see them in my email.
Techwire: What are your hobbies, and what do you enjoy reading?
Daley: I would say ... spare time in IT is kind of a funny thing. But I think what really drew me back to IT, so to speak, was the fact that I am a career student. That I’m happiest when I’m in class learning. IT really lends itself to that. Right now, I’m taking classes in Python to better support our GIS team here. I also volunteer with the local PMI (Project Management Institute) chapter, and just started a few months ago as their director of IT, really taking advantage of the time to implement some of the same process improvements that we’ve had here. Outside of that, spending time with family, getting out of the home office and going for hikes, going to the ocean, getting out into nature. I wish I had another 10 hours a week to be able to learn. I would definitely be able to use it all up and more.
*Government Technology magazine is a publication of e.Republic, which also produces Techwire.
Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for style and brevity.