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“In my opinion, the value of digital transformation is most evident when we create meaningful efficiencies, increase transparency and improve the user experience. As with many agencies in the state, CALPIA is continually transforming. I do not anticipate a day where we say we are finished; only a day where we ask ourselves what we’re going to tackle next,” says Suzie Changus, CIO for the California Prison Industry Authority.

The retiring deputy state chief information officer opened up to Techwire about his professional accomplishments, his plans, and why he’s been a stalwart believer in mainframes.

California has consolidated Verily’s testing sites that remain with another vendor and is not renewing its two contracts when they expire this winter, according to the California Department of Public Health.

Limited communication, technical challenges and lack of transparency have resulted in delays for at least three counties, according to representatives.

The California Department of Transportation seeks a chief for an area of its IT organization, an IT Manager I classification, and someone who will help create a “dynamic” work team to provide “innovative solutions.”

In a Budget and Policy Post, the Legislative Analyst’s Office recommends approving a governor’s proposed budget request that would continue a slate of IT projects – but with input from lawmakers.

The Silicon Valley leader successfully brought technology to bear on a 311 system that was underutilized and creating pressure on the city’s 911 system — and longer emergency response times.

Two of the appointees are award-winning veterans of state government; the third is from the private sector. The appointments were announced Tuesday evening by the governor's office.

Techwire is pleased to welcome Yubico to the Techwire family. Palo Alto-based Yubico helps government and private-sector entities mitigate cybersecurity risk by securing access to critical business and customer data via high-assurance multifactor authentication with the YubiKey. The YubiKey offers strong hardware protection across multiple IT systems and online services. The company’s YubiHSM, a portable hardware security module, safeguards sensitive data in servers. Yubico is also a leading contributor to the FIDO2, WebAuthn and FIDO Universal 2nd Factor open authentication standards. For more information, visit yubico.com or contact Michael Santini, State and Local West lead.

The IT branch of the state Department of Housing and Community Development said in a request for offer that it needs “services of IT Data Modernization and Management project” as it begins a project to develop a data management strategy and processes.

Jessica MacLeod most recently served as co-founder and head of the Governments Team at U.S. Digital Response, a nonpartisan nonprofit that provides rapid response to governments through free technical assistance.

The county's chief information officer and registrar of voters, Tim Dupuis, reflects on how the tumult of 2020 helped prepare government for 2021.

The incumbent will be a senior manager of the Security Operations Center, overseeing the California Department of Technology’s Security Solutions Engineering and Administration groups.

Officials from the nation’s most populous county and the California Department of Technology offered takeaways from the rollout of the My Turn COVID-19 vaccination eligibility website.

The state Employment Development Department, hit by technological snafus and a crush of demand, awarded an $11.5 million contract last month for client call center services.

Yuba County systems were recently targeted by a cyberattack that forced IT staff to isolate affected computers to stop the malware. Officials say critical systems had backups and were successfully recovered.

Executive appointments and promotions, a large COVID-19 contract award, and a couple of state spending roundups were among the stories that made headlines last week in Techwire.

The Legislative Analyst’s Office is supportive of funding for the Department of Motor Vehicles in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed state budget, but recommends one key limitation.

Responsibilities of the job include managing and conducting ongoing risk assessments to identify potential vulnerabilities that could threaten the security, confidentiality and integrity of Lottery’s information assets.

Techwire is pleased to welcome Effectual to the Techwire family. Effectual, an AWS Premier Consulting Partner, holding the VMware Master Services Competency in VMware Cloud on AWS, is a modern, cloud-first managed and professional services company that works with commercial enterprises and the public sector to enable modernization and mitigate risk. Effectual provides the experience and expertise to procure, configure and execute complex cloud deployments, data center migrations and modernization initiatives. Effectual holds the exclusive contract to procure Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), ORock Technologies, and MIS Sciences Clouds for the California Department of Technology and is listed on the CMAS, FBI IT Triple S, DOJ ITSS-4, 4TNG, GSA IT-70, CIO-SP3, Navy SeaPort-NxG, Texas DIR, USAF LevelUp, and NMITS contracts. Effectual’s leadership team has a long history of delivering services to the public sector. The company acquired JHC Technology in January 2020. For more information about Effectual, go to effectual.com or contact Carl Pirie.

“Probably the biggest challenge right now is, the security is ever-changing and very dynamic. It’s my job to utilize all the available funds that we have and the staff that we have and the technology to stay on top of any and all potential vulnerabilities within the agency,” says Mike Marshall, agency information security officer for the California Environmental Protection Agency.