Page 47 - GCN, April/May 2018

Q&A
Inside Kentucky’s strategy for
improving IT operations
CIO Chuck Grindle is building a deeper understanding of strategic goals into all levels of his organization
Kentucky CIO Chuck Grindle is leaning on his military experience to modernize and improve the state’s enterprise services. The retired Army colonel, who started his job as the commonwealth’s IT chief in October 2017, spoke with GCN’s Sara Friedman at
the National Association of State CIOs’ Midyear Confer- ence in April. His answers have been edited for length and clarity.
consolidates nine dif- ferent vendors down to one single contrac- tor.
How are IT opera- tions structured in
nder the consoli-
dation memo in
2012, infrastructure
came under our
purview. However, application develop-
ment stayed within
the agencies. A new executive order after
I came on board gives
me authority over the funding. People who want to do certain projects have to map out the project and the costing for it. COT is responsible for approving it, providing the funding and making sure that it fits into our enterprise architecture.
training for my folks and provide an ac- tion plan.
For example,
when it comes to
a breach, network access control has
an action plan that allows me to get the folks who are in the networking branch in telecommunications to install the proper communications
so we can evaluate everyone who is connecting to our network. I want to get this intelligence
down to the lowest-level staff members so they know as they use a device that they are feeding network access control.
That’s nirvana to me since it is just like training
a soldier to take the hill. If
a soldier says he is taking the hill because an officer or sergeant said to do that, it is the wrong answer. If
he says he is taking the hill because the objective is to secure this piece of terrain and set up a perimeter, he knows why — which is what we are trying to do with this strategy: build understand- ing into the lowest levels of our operations.•
What are your major riorities as CIO?
pT
tion of our x86 infrastruc-
across the commonwealth. I ultimately see the potential of us getting legislation ap- proved that will allow us to openly share data across the cabinets.
How does your Army background influence
our work as a CIO?
n the military, you
transition about every
18 months to a new job. In Kentucky, we see a lot of individuals who will be in
a position for years, maybe even decades. I’m working on a strategy with four lines of effort: security, enter- prise services, contracting, and training and education. Those lines of effort bring
he first thing we’re doing is an optimiza-
ture, which involves 1,100 physical and 3,300 virtual servers in a Windows-based environment. There was a consolidation in 2012 that brought all of that equip- ment to us at the Common- wealth Office of Technology \[COT\], but it hasn’t been optimized. We started with the new environment on April 16, and essentially over the next six months, we will be moving the physi- cal and virtual servers into the new environment.
This will help us stream- line the way we deliver services. This move also
yI the sharing of siloed
entucky?
KU
How are you tackling nformation?
hired a chief data officer
and a chief compliance officer. The data officer understands the siloes of excellence that we have out there, and the compliance officer deals with the priva- cy issues that we have with sharing this information
iI
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