Montana appoints new statewide CIO
Montana Gov. Steve Bullock announced Tuesday that Tim Bottenfield, the chief information officer of the state Department of Revenue, started this week as the statewide CIO. Bottenfield, who had served as the revenue agency’s IT chief since 2011, replaced Ron Baldwin, who resigned in January to take a job with the consulting firm Deloitte.
“I am looking forward to working with him to ensure that Montana continues to be a leader and utilize IT in secure, efficient and effective ways,” Bullock said in a press release.
The Montana Department of Administration told StateScoop that Bottenfield will be responsible for continuing the implementation of a statewide strategic IT plan that Baldwin launched in 2016. The plan established as the state IT office’s goals as reducing duplication across agencies, sharing resources between state bureaus and establishing stronger data protections and privacy policies.
The duplication reduction was outlined in an “IT convergence” plan Bullock issued in a 2016 executive order. The document set a deadline of last Dec. 31 to establish statewide use of a shared enterprise infrastructure. Baldwin told StateScoop that process was about “98 percent” complete when he stepped down.
Tim Bottenfield
Along with bridging the remaining 2 percent, Bottenfield will be tasked with a number of other IT goals, the Department of Administration said. Among those are beefing up the state’s information security, implementing scalable technologies and decreasing the costs of operating the state’s data centers.
“I don’t take this new responsibility lightly and am committed to ensuring Montana remains a leader in the digital age,” Bottenfield said in the press release.
Before joining the Montana state government, Bottenfield spent 25 years as an IT manager at the Auburn University School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences in Alabama. He hold degrees in forest management and forest biometrics from the Michigan Technological University.
Montana Chief Technology Officer Matt Van Syckle had been serving as CIO on an interim basis since Baldwin’s departure.
