Wyoming’s new CIO wants to build trust with agencies

Wyoming has had significant turnover in the chief information officer role in recent years. That’s why the state’s current CIO, Jeff Clines, said building trust with agencies is a key part of his job.

“I want to be that trusted business partner for the agencies, where they can come to me rather than a vendor or third party,” said Clines, who started in the role last October.

He said building trust includes creating a strong “technology foundation” for agencies to innovate and embrace new technologies like generative artificial intelligence. 

“I think we’re at a point in technology where there is going to be a lot of transformation,” Clines said. “We’re going to look back 20, 30 years from now and see how quickly we [changed].”

Clines said a centralized IT agency’s role is to focus the state government’s technology strategy, which can improve the experiences of residents.

“Generative AI and other technologies have the opportunity to kind of split the direction where, depending on who a state agency’s listening to, we could go in 20 different directions,” Clines said. “I need to be the one that’s driving a citizen-first mindset. Focus first on the services and how they impact the citizen and how it makes their lives easier, and then we’ll worry about the backside.”