Agriculture and Wildlife CIOs Talk Big Changes for IT

Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) Chief Information Officer Chris Bunton and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) CIO Jamie McClanahan spoke at an Industry Insider — Texas member briefing on Wednesday, where they hinted at big potential changes for IT in their respective agencies.

For TPWD, McClanahan explained that IT has become a priority at an agency level. This is reflected in the agency’s Fiscal Year 2026-27 legislative appropriations request (LAR), which includes an $8 million request for technology modernization. According to McClanahan, all 13 of the agency’s divisions proposed initiatives requiring technological components, including network expansions, expanded data center services, low-code application development, a data management program, robotic process automation software licenses and other relevant software procurements.

According to Bunton, TDA’s LAR includes funding requests for the consolidation of the agency’s licensing systems into a single solution, a new Texas automated nutrition system, an application for the Go Texan program and network infrastructure upgrades.

Despite planned modernization efforts, Bunton stressed his agency’s conservative approach to introducing artificial intelligence solutions:

“We are cautiously looking for opportunities to introduce AI,” said Bunton. “We want to make sure we have guardrails in, we want to measure the ROI, and we’re starting communities of practice with business.”

Similarly, McClanahan explained that TPWD is focused on improving its data management in the upcoming biennium to be better prepared for emerging technologies:

“Emerging technologies ends up, for me, leaning on a lot of that foundation,” said McClanahan. “I want that to be solid, safe and secure before we take off to some crazy place we can’t come back from.”