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Announcing the winners of the 2022 LocalSmart Awards

Scoop News Group is thrilled to announce the winners of the fourth annual LocalSmart Awards, a program that highlights the people and projects making city, county and municipal government better.

Starting in August, members of the state and local government technology community nominated more than 150 leaders and projects for the awards. From there, the StateScoop team narrowed the list to 80 finalists. Readers cast more than 750,000 votes between Sept. 23 and Nov. 11. 

The 40 winners received the most community votes in their categories.

“As we close out 2022, StateScoop is honored to recognize these dynamic leaders in city, county and municipal government,” said Jake Williams, the vice president of content and community for StateScoop and EdScoop. “From Gallatin County, Montana, to Chicago, to Coral Gables, Florida, technology is playing an increasingly important role in residents’ lives. These leaders are the ones making that happen in an efficient, secure and prominent way.”

The LocalSmart Awards launched in 2019, and have recognized more than 150 people and projects since their inception.

This year’s awards recognize leaders from 15 different states and numerous cities and counties.

The winners:

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Reenie Askew

Chief Information Officer, Charlotte, N.C.

GoldenGov: City Executive of the Year

As an assistant city manager and the city’s chief information officer leading the Innovation & Technology Department, Reenie Askew oversees technology innovation, strategic planning and critical operations. Askew is focused on shaping the city’s technology vision, strategy and performance, and building on Charlotte’s reputation as a top-ranked digital city that leverages technology to enhance the resident experience, boost efficiencies, and increase government transparency and innovation.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Brendan Babb

Chief Innovation Officer, Anchorage, Alaska

GoldenGov: City Executive of the Year

Brendan Babb is the chief innovation officer at the Municipality of Anchorage, Alaska. In this role, Babb leads Anchorage’s Innovation team and innovation efforts. Babb has led efforts to improve digital services, build process improvements, utilize human centered design, leverage behavioral insights, and harness data to help residents and save money for Anchorage.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Lisa Kent

Chief Information Officer, Houston, Texas

GoldenGov: City Executive of the Year

Lisa Kent is the chief information officer for the city of Houston. Kent oversees the enterprise information technology services for nearly 22,000 city employees in 23 operationally-diverse departments ranging from public safety, utilities, transportation, community services, and financial operations. Kent’s focus is to shape the City’s technology vision, strategy and performance to position Houston as a top-ranked digital city that leverages technology to enhance the citizen experience, boost efficiencies, and increase government transparency and innovation.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Rob Lloyd

Deputy City Manager, San Jose, California

GoldenGov: City Executive of the Year

Rob Lloyd is the deputy city manager for San Jose California. Lloyd was an early pioneer of 311 and data-driven service delivery. Lloyd is also one of the defining voices in equity through data and digital privacy. Lloyd is also a trusted mentor for many c-suite leaders, and lead part of the COVID-19 pandemic response for 1 million people in San Jose.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Bianca Lochner

Chief Information Officer, Scottsdale, Arizona

GoldenGov: City Executive of the Year

Bianca Lochner is the chief information officer for Scottsdale, Arizona. Lochner has laid the foundations required to implement the city’s official smart cities roadmap. This process required a rapid assessment of the city’s existing infrastructure and, in turn, identifying technology solutions that will meet community needs by prioritizing the right initiatives to accelerate the deployment of those solutions, and rolling out processes that will ensure high-trust outcomes for the city residents. Through a series of newly established public-private partnerships, Lochner developed a pilot program to leverage and expand the city’s existing wayfinding and city data infrastructure to support the massive demand for information and connectivity from the annual influx of more than 11 million visitors to the city.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Nick Lucius

Chief Technology Officer, Chicago, Illinois

GoldenGov: City Executive of the Year

Nick Lucius is the chief technology officer in the Office of the Mayor of Chicago. In this role, Lucius is responsible for developing policy and ensuring the city’s technology strategy implements Mayor Lightfoot’s goals of equity and better service delivery. Previously, Lucius has served as the city’s chief data officer, overseeing Chicago’s data strategy during its response to the global pandemic and subsequent economic recovery.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Lindsey Parker

Chief Technology Officer, Washington, D.C.

GoldenGov: City Executive of the Year

Lindsey Parker is the chief technology officer for Washington, D.C. In addition to this role, Parker also serves as assistant city administrator for internal service. With the support of Mayor Muriel Bowser, Parker is building a centralized new employee service center – a single platform for IT, HR and facility requests along with an extensive self-help knowledge base. She also unveiled a new state-of-the-art DC-managed data center with more than 573 pieces of new hardware with over 3,600 connections. Parker also launched a tech enablement team to ensure DC employees can fully understand how to use technology to work smarter and collaborate better.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Raimundo Rodulfo

Director of Information Technology, Coral Gables, Florida

GoldenGov: City Executive of the Year

Raimundo Rodulfo joined the city of Coral Gables, Florida, in 2004 and currently serves as director of information technology and chief innovation officer. He leads strategic planning, oversight and management of citywide IT operations, infrastructure and smart city initiatives.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Ted Ross

Chief Information Officer, Los Angeles, California

GoldenGov: City Executive of the Year

Ted Ross is CIO for the city of Los Angeles and general manager of the information technology agency. In this role, Ross leads a department of 450 employees and delivers enterprise IT services to 48,000 employees across 41 city departments and digital services to more than 4 million residents. Appointed by Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2015, Ross has more than 21 years of private and public sector technology experience.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Christopher Shorter

Chief Administrative Officer, Baltimore, Maryland

GoldenGov: City Executive of the Year

Christopher Shorter is the chief administrative officer for the city of Baltimore, Maryland.  Shorter has worked for the city under extremely unique circumstances. Not only is he the first CAO for the city, but he also established a Transformation Management Office, while undergoing an ERP modernization. The TMO is an innovative construct to shift the focus of the administrative function of the city from outputs to outcomes for its residents.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Grace Simrall

Chief of Civic Innovation, Louisville, Kentucky

GoldenGov: City Executive of the Year

Grace Simrall is the Chief of Civic Innovation and Technology for Louisville Metro Government. In this role, Simrall is responsible for advising the mayor and leading the city’s smart city, broadband, and digital inclusion initiatives, transforming the resident experience of digital government and facilitating co-creation of breakthrough civic innovations.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

William Zielinski

Chief Information Officer, Dallas, Texas

GoldenGov: City Executive of the Year

As Dallas’ CIO, Bill Zielinski has begun to change the entire technology culture and move the city toward becoming leaders in technology. Zielinski has focused on optimizing the city’s infrastructure to remove technological debt and improve the city’s cybersecurity to best in class for the region.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Margaret Brisbane

Director of Information Technology, Miami Dade County, Florida

GoldenGov: County Executive of the Year

Margaret Brisbane is the Director of the Information Technology Department for Miami Dade County. In her current role she is responsible for leading a team of IT professionals in servicing the technology needs of the County. The primary IT pillars are Security, Platforms and Applications along with Administration to support all operations. The team provides support to all County Departments including enterprise solution for Financial, Payroll, Human Resources, Public Safety, Legislative, Commerce and the PeopleSoft systems. The team also supports document and asset management and geospatial systems as well as  major technology projects, to include, but not limited to Criminal Justice, Permitting and Code Enforcement, Radio and INFORMS.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Dena Diorio

County Manager, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina

GoldenGov: County Executive of the Year

Dena Diorio, the County Manager for Mecklenburg County, effectively lead the organization through the pandemic and continued most services to the citizens of the county through electronic means. Most services were only offered face-to-face pre-pandemic. Diorio embraced staff providing the same quality of service through electronic means such as online collaboration tools and emails.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Mark Gager

Chief Information Officer, Bexar County, Texas

GoldenGov: County Executive of the Year

Mark Gager, Bexar County, Texas’, chief information officer, has more than 20 years of leadership experience in multiple industries. Gager has specialized in establishing and leading all aspects of enterprise-wide information technology, project management office (PMO), and strategy management office (SMO), and performance excellence functions.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Imre Kabai

Chief Information Officer, Santa Clara County, California

GoldenGov: County Executive of the Year

Imre Kabai is chief information officer for the Santa Clara County, California, and head of the Technology Services and Solutions (TSS) Department. Prior to accepting this role in February 2020, Kabai was the county’s chief technology officer and headed the architecture, innovation and Mode 2 solutions development division of TSS. Kabai brings to the county more than 25 years of IT experience from a variety of industries, including construction, healthcare, federal government, academia, biotech, manufacturing, software development and retail.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Melissa Kraft

Chief Information Officer, Dallas County, Texas

GoldenGov: County Executive of the Year

Melissa Kraft is the chief information officer at Dallas County, the eighth largest county in the United States. She oversees the information technology systems for approximately 6,600 county employees and the electronic records for more than 2.6 million residents. Prior to coming to Dallas County, she was the chief technology officer at City of Denton where she led the technology and infrastructure transformation, including a data center upgrade and consolidation, a data academy, 911 quality assurance program and assisted in launching the city’s first co-working space for technology startups.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Peter Loo

Chief Information Officer, Los Angeles County, California

GoldenGov: County Executive of the Year

Peter Loo is the acting chief information officer of Los Angeles County. With more than 30 years of public sector IT experience, Loo serves as the principal adviser to the CIO and provides strategy, leadership and guidance on enterprise IT initiatives, IT governance and the delivery of information technology capabilities to support the County mission.  Currently, Loo is responsible for the county’s information management and information security committees at the Office of the Chief Information Officer.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Christopher Nchopa-Ayafor

Chief Information Officer, Tarrant County, Texas

GoldenGov: County Executive of the Year

Chris Nchopa-Ayafor has been the Tarrant County, Texas, chief information officer since 2014. As the county’s top technology executive, Nchopa-Ayafor oversees a department of 200 staff delivering technology support to over 4,000 county employees. He is a Vice Chair of the NACo IT Standing Committee.

Prior to joining Tarrant County, he served as Deputy CIO of Maricopa County, Arizona. Prior to Maricopa County, Nchopa-Ayafor spent several years in the private sector and academia as an information technology engineer, consultant, researcher and college faculty. He has received several industry awards in recognition of his contributions to IT transformation in both the public and private sectors.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Mark Pfaffinger

Chief Information Officer, Larimer County, Colorado

GoldenGov: County Executive of the Year

Under Mark Pfaffinger’s leadership as CIO, Larimer County has improved citizen safety, operational efficiency and services to citizens. His progressive approach has enabled Larimer County to respond to changes in cybersecurity and pivot to address emerging priorities like zero trust. As a result, the county is better able to serve remote and hybrid workers.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Samantha Simpson

Chief Data Officer - Assessor's Office, Cook County, Illinois

GoldenGov: County Executive of the Year

Samantha Simpson, chief data officer of the Cook County, Illinois, Assessor’s Office, has a longstanding track record as a steward of technology-powered civic engagement. As CDO, she leads the office’s work in transparent data-driven platforms. This work provides visibility to property owners who wish to understand how assessments are established and increases speed to market.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Nathan Wiebe

Chief Information Security Officer, Contra Costa County, California

GoldenGov: County Executive of the Year

Nathan Wiebe, the CISO for Contra Costa County, California, recognized that their security posture was only as strong as their weakest link. Looking to improve cybersecurity, visibility, control, as well as ease of infrastructure maintenance, Wiebe approached the county board to launch a countywide security initiative. This initiative standardized key IT security components and moved workloads from on-premise to the cloud, resulting in efficiencies in the county’s IT workforce and a stronger cybersecurity posture.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Ed Winfield

Chief Information Officer, Maricopa County, Arizona

GoldenGov: County Executive of the Year

Ed Winfield is the Chief Information Officer of Maricopa County, Arizona, and leads the Office of Enterprise Technology. In that role, Winfield has responsibility for all aspects of county information technology strategy, operations, service and security. Winfield is an accomplished executive IT leader with a passion for maximizing customer satisfaction through innovative business solutions and an unwavering commitment to technology leadership. Prior to joining Maricopa County, Winfield served as the CIO for Wayne County, Michigan.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Aman Bhullar

Chief Information Officer - County Clerk's Office, Los Angeles County, California

Local IT Leader of the Year

Aman Bhullar is the assistant registrar-recorder and chief information officer for Los Angeles County, California’s county clerk’s office. In this role, Bhullar oversees the strategic planning and modernization initiatives of information technology, information security and data management for the office. Bhullar provides vision and leadership in the development and implementation of technology applications and infrastructure supporting the department’s more than 1,500 employee workforce, serving 5.8 million voters voters; including the development, implementation and support of the Voting Solutions for All People (VSAP) – the largest voting system transformation in history in the nation.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Matt Bunko

Chief Information Officer, Gallatin County, Montana

Local IT Leader of the Year

Matt Bunko is the chief information officer and chief information security officer for the Gallatin County, Montana, government. Bunko and his team are responsible for implementing technology that allows county departments to function more efficiently, while providing for the security and integrity of county systems and data. 

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Suneel Cherukuri

Chief Information Security Officer, Washington, D.C.

Local IT Leader of the Year

Under Washington, D.C. CISO Suneel Cherukuri’s leadership, the District of Columbia has been modernizing remote employee access and accelerating cloud adoption to improve both user experience and security. Cherukuri has led the development of a strategy for the city that involves a combination of traditional cybersecurity and automation, as well as focusing on the risk management framework and city employee education. To efficiently scale remote work, Cherukuri is implementing a TIC 3.0-compliant cloud environment to enable secure work from anywhere, leveraging a zero trust architecture.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Michael Dent

Chief Information Security Officer, Fairfax County, Virginia

Local IT Leader of the Year

Michael Dent is the chief information security officer for Fairfax County, Virginia. A veteran public servant, Dent joined the County in 2002 after managing the information technology security program at the Virginia Department of Corrections. Dent has been the catalyst for establishing an enterprise-wide IT risk management vision and strategy for Fairfax County, including development of a county-wide comprehensive IT security risk and privacy program.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Cyd Harrell

Chief Digital Services Officer, San Francisco, California

Local IT Leader of the Year

Cyd Harrell is the chief digital services officer for San Francisco, California. In the role, Harrell oversees a robust initiative to redesign digital services in the city and address critical public needs like affordable housing and economic recovery. Harrell was previously a lead researcher for the Center for Civic Design, a product director at Code for America and the chief of staff for 18F.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Michael Hicks

Chief Information Officer, College Park, Georgia

Local IT Leader of the Year

Michael Hicks is the chief information officer of College Park, Georgia. Hicks has made major improvements to the quality of the IT infrastructure, and believes that the city’s IT department should no longer be considered or seen as a break/fix shop. Hicks makes sure that IT is represented in every aspect of the city’s core values. He has also embraced SaaS solutions in the city’s technology strategy and implemented smart city initiatives.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Shane McDaniel

Director of IT, Seguin, Texas

Local IT Leader of the Year

Shane McDaniel is the director of information technology for Seguin, Texas. Through a mixture of capital funding, certificates of obligation and grants, McDaniel has spearheaded the city’s efforts to transform its legacy technology to meet the needs of the rapidly growing community. The investments have paid off for the historically rural city, with numerous successful implementations upgrading everything from the fiber ring to the network enterprise, systems architecture, radio infrastructure, cybersecurity and GIS. The technology evolution has proven invaluable with 48 new subdivisions and 15,000 new homes currently in the planning process alongside strong commercial and industrial growth.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Mark Wong

Chief Information Officer, Honolulu, Hawaii

Local IT Leader of the Year

Mark Wong is the chief information officer for the city and county of Honolulu, Hawaii. In this role, Wong oversaw a major expansion of IT while reducing spend. Wong was previously the founder of Commercial Data Systems, a consulting business that grew into the largest local IT company in the state. 

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Feng Yang

Chief Information Officer, Brookline, Massachusetts

Local IT Leader of the Year

Feng Yang is the chief information officer for Brookline, Massachusetts. In this role, Yang leads all of the IT operations for the town. Yang and the department work to provide and support automated systems that facilitate the flow of information within and between departments, as well as that connect residents and public school districts.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Community Health Needs Assessment

Ventura County, California

Local IT Innovation of the Year

The Community Health Needs Assessment is a project in Ventura County, California. As an accredited health department, Ventura County Public Health is required to complete a Community Health Needs Assessment every five years but committed to working collaboratively every three years with area healthcare agencies. In 2022, VCPH used Qualtrics to conduct the assessment enabling decision makers to see data reflected in real-time dashboards. This expedited time to insights and allowed for adjustments in distribution to address gaps in response rates of demographic groups.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Internet Edge

Maricopa County, Arizona

Local IT Innovation of the Year

Maricopa County, Arizona’s, Internet Edge Project simplified the edge infrastructure while providing increased bandwidth and redundancy across geographically separated data centers. As more services moved to the cloud, there was a strong driver to increase redundancy, resiliency, and bandwidth at the edge. The project put Maricopa County in an excellent position to increase consumption of SaaS and other cloud-based platforms driving resilient digital business opportunities for our citizens and making operational support easier.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Mutual Aid Project

Austin, Texas

Local IT Innovation of the Year

The City of Austin went live in February 2022 with its Mutual Aid Project. Working with partners in Williamson County, the city used a platform called Tellus that allows fire dispatchers to see where the fire units of Georgetown, Cedar Park, Leander, Round Rock and Williamson County are when dispatching an incident. If one of those units is close to an incident, the system will automatically dispatch that unit.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

myGuilfordCounty

Guilford County, North Carolina

Local IT Innovation of the Year

Implemented in March 2021, myGuilfordCounty made a positive influence immediately in the cities of Guilford County, North Carolina. According to Tax Director Ben Chavis, residents “overwhelmingly adopted” the new digital property tax payment solution, leading to $43,667,220.55 in revenue collected since March 2021 — a dramatic increase over the year prior. Taxpayers have recognized that Guilford County now offers cost-effective payment solutions like those they are accustomed to using in the private sector, with fewer fees for residents than associated with prior payment systems.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

People-Centric Client Case Management System

Los Angeles County, California

Local IT Innovation of the Year

The Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office is the largest and oldest-established public defender office in the nation, and the volume and complexity of the evidence called for urgent modernization. The county designed an intuitive new people-centric Client Case Management system enabling all 1,200 employees across 32 offices to access current and past cases easily. This system improves the quality and accuracy of information, distribution management, and speed to complete administrative tasks.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Revenue Mobile App

Cook County, Illinois

Local IT Innovation of the Year

The Cook County, Illinois, Revenue Mobile App was developed by the county’s GIS department. The smartphone-based solution allows users to enter newly-discovered taxable businesses while staff are in the field using the ArcGIS Survey123 product. The form also includes a method to record the location of the business using the phone’s GPS. Previously, field staff would gather data manually and consolidate their new business discoveries in Excel back in the office. A user can click on a parcel on the map and transfer data from the parcel layer into the form, automatically populating it with information like address, property identification number and municipality.

2022 LocalSmart Awards

Tech Enablement Team

Washington, D.C.

Local IT Innovation of the Year

Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer launched the Tech Enablement Team in early 2022 to serve as ambassadors for IT products and services and provide trainings, creating DC-specific how-to videos, showcasing agency success stories, and capturing and analyzing feedback to help to make continuous improvements to our products and services.