A River Rat's Journey in Government IT ft. Chris Mertens

In this episode, Chris Mertens, CIO of Hamilton County, Indiana, shares his remarkable journey from rural Missouri to a leadership role in government IT. Growing up in the tiny town of Bonnets Mill, Chris's early fascination with technology set the stage for his future career.

Chris recounts his transition from a small, tight-knit community to Lincoln University, where he embraced diversity and broadened his perspectives. His career in government IT began as an intern, and he quickly advanced through various roles, gaining exposure to cutting-edge technologies and leadership opportunities.

Now at Hamilton County, Chris discusses his achievements, including implementing project management teams, enhancing cybersecurity, and transitioning to remote work. He emphasizes the importance of hiring passionate individuals dedicated to making a difference.

Key Takeaways:

• Embracing diversity and new opportunities fuels professional growth.
• Building dedicated teams and fostering supportive work environments is crucial.
• Proactive cybersecurity and project management significantly enhance government operations.

Tune in to hear Chris Mertens' inspiring story and gain valuable insights into effective IT leadership in government.

Creators & Guests

Guest

Chris Mertens

CIO/Director of IT | State and Local Government

What is IT Leaders?

The purpose of the IT Leaders Council is to bring together IT Directors and Managers for leadership training, educational content from guest speakers, and peer discussions in a vendor-free, collaborative environment. IT Leaders Councils are currently offered in Indianapolis, IN and Columbus, OH, with more cities coming soon!

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;22;12
Unknown
All right. Well, there must be a thing with Chris’s Doug, I know. I mean, you get Chris and Chris. Chris and Neville. Chris, if you get a chance to go a little while. Chris is a great guy. and works in government as well. And I don't know who else. I know. There's just a couple of people in government that are or have been in government a year, but I think them probably the majority of you have never been in government.

00;00;22;15 - 00;00;41;10
Unknown
So I've been in government my entire career. Doug asked me to speak and I reluctantly said yes. but I wanted to put together and I'm just going to talk about my journey and the the the title is part of the journey, the River rat. it's kind of good to go back to where I came from.

00;00;41;12 - 00;01;10;15
Unknown
I'm not from Indiana. I am from rural, rural central Missouri. And, you'll see you'll see why and how rule that actually is. So why River rat? I grew up in in these little dots here you can see two rivers there. the Missouri River is one of those rivers, and the Osage River is the other one. If anybody's familiar with Lake of the Ozarks, it's kind of a popular destination in Missouri.

00;01;10;17 - 00;01;32;08
Unknown
The Osage River is the river that flows from Lake of the Ozarks. And we were right there where the two rivers came together, Missouri and the, the Osage. This is balance mill, population 75. that is where I came from, is where I grew up. My grandmother owned the little store on the other side of that white building on the, corner there.

00;01;32;11 - 00;01;57;00
Unknown
there's really nothing there. the town looks just like that today. That's what it looked like when I grew up. and everybody knew everybody. we had a softball team, though. a men's softball team. You got to join when you were about 14, and we were affectionately called the River rats. And so that is part of the the title.

00;01;57;02 - 00;02;29;27
Unknown
I went to school for eight years in a four room school, two grades per room. first through eighth grade in a town called Frankenstein. It is a real place. You can look it up. that school still exist? It is still four rooms. It is still eight grades. supported by, the Catholic Church in Bonnets Mill and the Catholic Church in Franklin Street.

00;02;29;29 - 00;02;57;04
Unknown
I don't know what the population of Frankenstein is. It's not very many. but regardless, my first tech, probably some of you experienced the Radio Shack tech if you're a certain age. so that was what my parents spent way too much money on. It really didn't do anything. I got to play with it, though, and and kind of foray into the tech world and doing some coding, following instructions.

00;02;57;04 - 00;03;17;25
Unknown
That of a book. from there, I went to Fatima High School from a high school, took me to those small little towns and put them all in the school together. So I went from a class of about ten to a class of 100. and, so that was a big change. So ten times the size of the school.

00;03;17;28 - 00;03;40;27
Unknown
and that's where I graduated high school. The story really gets interesting there. Jefferson City, Missouri, is home to Lincoln University in Missouri. it's part of the University of Missouri system. But Lincoln University is a historically black college. There is not a lot of diversity in central Missouri. In fact, there was zero diversity in my high school.

00;03;40;29 - 00;04;06;18
Unknown
And so Lincoln University gave, came to our school and said, hey, we need local students. We need people to come to school. We'll give you scholarships to come to school. So I took the scholarship onto Lincoln University. I became the minority in Lincoln University. I spent all four years there, had a great experience on campus. I look back now.

00;04;06;21 - 00;04;35;03
Unknown
I really got involved. Junior year, senior year. And, enjoyed, the diversity that that created. the and really, I think gives me a different perspective on different, people, and different views. today. So why government? Jefferson City. if you're not familiar with anything with Jefferson City other than is the capital of Missouri.

00;04;35;06 - 00;05;01;13
Unknown
It is a very small state capital. There's 35, 40,000 people total in Jefferson City. So it's smaller than, really all the major communities here in the county. and it's the state capital. it is by far the largest employer. My mom was a long time state employee. she was a big influence because she worked in economic development, and she would, deal with block grants for communities.

00;05;01;14 - 00;05;21;20
Unknown
They would do improvements within their communities. We would drive around the state, and she would point out, hey, that community did a block grant to improve that park or that building. And so she made a difference. And I think that was an influence on me and wanting to make a difference in what I did. I didn't go to school for it.

00;05;21;22 - 00;05;44;20
Unknown
I went to school. My my bachelor's degree is in business. But I realized as I was looking for, jobs at the state level because that was one of the biggest employers that if I got 15 hours of computer classes, I could qualify for an IT job. And it just opened up another kind of opportunity for me. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I just wanted an opportunity.

00;05;44;22 - 00;06;11;05
Unknown
And so I made sure I got the 15 hours computer classes so I can qualify for an I.T. job, along with all the other jobs in my business degree. Qualified before and took the it right. my history in government. As I said, I've been in government my entire career. That wasn't my intent. but the opportunities, as you'll see, just continue to present themselves.

00;06;11;08 - 00;06;32;16
Unknown
And so I started as an intern in, for the state of Missouri in their telecommunications area. I worked with the Lincoln University career placement and said, I want an internship. I don't care what it's in. I just really want one. They found one in telecommunications, so I got to go there. From there. I went over to, the Department of Natural Resources after I graduated.

00;06;32;17 - 00;06;58;11
Unknown
Worked with natural resources for a while. Office of Administration. And there IT Services division. I spent a lot of time in IT Services division. I worked for the governor in Missouri for a few years, support the governor's office, and then, went back to the it, services division, multiple supervisory roles, and then worked for the CIO before I left.

00;06;58;13 - 00;07;23;06
Unknown
and then at the state level, when the governor changes, the CIO changes. A lot of things change. That is when I made my move to Hamilton County, when I left the state and I was one of these people who was always looking, I never spent more than a couple of years in a position that even with the state, I was always moving to a to something different.

00;07;23;06 - 00;07;44;26
Unknown
And it was usually it was always upward, but I was always very, driven to go further. And, and I was like, I'm just going to go to, to Hamilton County and I'll be there for three years. And you got Indianapolis, and I'm going to just use that as another stepping stone, to move somewhere else. And, yeah, I've been at the county since 2009.

00;07;44;28 - 00;08;11;23
Unknown
Any and so that this county is great. I don't know. Probably most of you live here. I don't know, but, we we are blessed here in the county, and that has why I have stayed in this position as long as I have, because it just has provided that opportunity. what I've learned, the state has provided, the state provided a lot of exposure.

00;08;11;25 - 00;08;34;03
Unknown
You can just list. I can list all those things that they provided me exposure to. And and they threw me in the deep end. Telecommunication. I was an intern. I was programing telecom switches in and working with vendors on cut overs as an intern. I would never give an intern that much responsibility. I said, we we had an intern in our office.

00;08;34;05 - 00;08;56;00
Unknown
We let her help with the help desk and do things like that. but I had exposure to all of those things, including leadership, training, leadership opportunities. They paid for my inks when I was in the techie world. they paid for my master's degree. So I've got an MBA now, and it was all on the state of Missouri.

00;08;56;02 - 00;09;01;00
Unknown
I didn't pay for a penny of.

00;09;01;03 - 00;09;28;00
Unknown
opportunities. You know, I think I was talking to some other people. I think, people sometimes view government is there's just as it's sort of the higher of last resort. You know what Mike said? And, I think there's a lot that that's not the case. I think there's a lot of talented people. I work with the state a lot here in Indiana, and the state CEOs that we've had recently have just been outstanding.

00;09;28;03 - 00;09;49;29
Unknown
And there are some really good people at the state. and I look at my staff and there's some of the smartest people that I've ever worked with. and so as I mentioned, I was programing telecom switches, and in turn, I supported, the state environmental lab when I was with the Department of Natural Resources. So I got I got access to environmental laboratory systems.

00;09;50;06 - 00;10;22;06
Unknown
Yeah. Things that I would have have never had exposure to before. I supported an environmental response unit. So if there was a an environmental incident around the state and in Missouri at the time, the people that went out to support that came right from the office I was in and we had to support them. mapping and GIS is a huge deal in local government, state government, and I was given early ESRI GIS training.

00;10;22;08 - 00;10;46;25
Unknown
again, completely paid for. They just send you to the training set, go and take advantage of it. with the Department Natural resources, I got to go to an EPA Superfund site and, and, and see how remediation worked and see how they clean the soil and, and support it, the people that work there. And so it's just a lot of unique individuals that I got to to see.

00;10;46;28 - 00;11;10;17
Unknown
I supported the governor's office. So the governor at the time, this was probably 96, 97. The internet relatively new for state government. he contacted the Office of Administration, said, we want someone to come over. Do we want to, give all of our employees email and we want internet on everybody's desk. And I was working on the help desk at the time, and I said, I'll do that.

00;11;10;17 - 00;11;29;23
Unknown
I want to I want off the help desk. I'll need more to do with this. So I got to go to the governor's office. I got the basically become an employee of the governor, but still work for the office. Administration, supported the governor, the first lady, and got to do things that people just didn't get the opportunity to do normally.

00;11;29;25 - 00;11;46;13
Unknown
had to go. One of the one of my favorite stories to tell is, I had our first child, my wife and I did when I worked in the governor's office. The governor of the state of Missouri gave gave my son a baby shower. And so I got a picture of the governor called my son when he was a newborn.

00;11;46;15 - 00;12;04;04
Unknown
the first lady, I would go help her with her computer problems and, she's like, let's just get out of the kitchen and see what they're cooking for tonight, you know, and try this recipe. so while I was there, the pope came to Missouri. Got to go be on the inside the church, the Pope, wanted to do that.

00;12;04;04 - 00;12;23;03
Unknown
And at the meet, the vice president got to go to the swearing in ceremony for U.S. senator, because the governor's office had offices in Kansas City and Saint Louis and Washington, D.C., and I traveled to all those those areas. I got to support all of that.

00;12;23;05 - 00;12;47;13
Unknown
you know, as I mentioned before, I had access to every technology from the mainframe, went state data center, all the way to edge devices. And then, when I was at the state, I got to speak at Google. I o right before I left there, is a part of, an initiative we did at the state, with Google search engines internally for the state of Missouri.

00;12;47;15 - 00;13;21;28
Unknown
and then since I've been here, in Hamilton County, I've spoken to Dell World via world, numerous other, county, it related conferences, commissioners conferences, council conferences, those things. Politics. Politics is real. and I've got a few examples that I'm going to go through real quick. But, you know, every job has politics. one of the favorite quotes I've had I heard, though, was from our county attorney here.

00;13;22;00 - 00;13;44;25
Unknown
and he was like, every job has politics, but in government you're dealing with professionals. And it's true. You know, that's what they do. And I will say in the county here, I don't how political the knowledgeable you are. Every county official here is in the same party as well. There's not a lot of diversity of party here in the county.

00;13;44;27 - 00;14;08;20
Unknown
that that is changing a little bit. But at the county, every elected official is in the same party. But that doesn't mean they all agree. and there's definitely politics that happens. and, and so we see that at the state level. there was even more politics, especially when I was in the governor's office. And, and as I said, I was still an office administration employee, but I sat in the governor's office.

00;14;08;20 - 00;14;31;03
Unknown
I was a part of that staff. I was seen at events with them. I was and so there were things that happened there. I saw those like, man, this is this is real stuff. And it's even worse today. I mean, this was 15, 20 years ago. what example kids page how much politics could there be with a kids page kids website?

00;14;31;05 - 00;14;53;23
Unknown
So in fact, when I took the governor's office to to email and internet, we decided we're going to create a governor's office website and a kids page. There were a handful of governor's offices around the country at the time that had a kids page, and it was essentially like teacher resources, downloadable coloring pages and facts and things that you could have for kids.

00;14;53;25 - 00;15;18;11
Unknown
So we created this page. We modeled it after, some other pages that we found. we had links out to other pages, other kids sites, resources. And I got a call one night about 7 p.m., 8 p.m. from our press secretary that said, hey, our kids site links to inappropriate material. And I'm like, no, no, it does it like in.

00;15;18;16 - 00;15;37;04
Unknown
And he had someone from the AP call him who was called from someone on the other side of the aisle and he said, hey, your kids page. If you go to this site and then you go to this site and then you click off of that site and then you click to it was six degrees removed from our kids site.

00;15;37;06 - 00;16;04;17
Unknown
They got you to inappropriate material, and I would venture to guess that you could go to any site and, you know, six degrees from anywhere. It's going to get you to inappropriate stuff, but that's how political it got. We had to take down that page. We had to remove all the links externally. And and so that kind of clued me out at that point to what we were dealing with, with, the, the other side of the aisle, the politics that happens with a kids website.

00;16;04;19 - 00;16;27;22
Unknown
the other one was, an email scandal. So I had gone back to the Office of Administration. I was the director of it for the for the IT Services Division, and we supported the governor's office still. So we provided email to them on a centralized email system, their staff, someone on their staff or a number of their staff figured out that in outlook.

00;16;27;22 - 00;16;49;19
Unknown
If you deleted an email and then you went to the deleted items and you deleted it from there, and then you went into recovered deleted items and deleted from there, we call this the triple delete that, that that email didn't exist anymore and we were only doing backups. So at night our backups would run. That email didn't exist, so it didn't get backed up.

00;16;49;19 - 00;17;14;01
Unknown
So therefore it didn't then wasn't there anymore. And, I think the governor's office was questioned on it or an email or a policy or some document, and they said, we don't have it. And the reporter had a printed copy of it and said, here it is. And therefore that started the email scandal. I'm pretty sure that's why the governor didn't run.

00;17;14;04 - 00;17;34;24
Unknown
And there was a governor change in Missouri, which is why I came here. But, you know that there was a day I remember walking over was the deputy CIO to the governor's office, and and I'm thinking I'm going to call my wife here at the end of the day and tell her I don't have a job anymore.

00;17;34;27 - 00;17;57;15
Unknown
I walked into that office, and the chief of staff was so mad he threw a, you know, wouldn't in and out boss across the room. But, you know, he had attorneys on his staff saying we shouldn't be doing that. And that came out, and it just created this snowball, up in emails. The first project I did.

00;17;57;15 - 00;18;23;21
Unknown
Well, then just to back up. So the governor then reacted, as all politicians do and said, hey, officer, administration, you need to create an archive system and we need to archive all the email forever. So so we swung from just doing backups to we're going to keep everything for our which wasn't an ideal solution either. But that was what we had to do.

00;18;23;23 - 00;18;58;24
Unknown
first project I did when I got here was put in email archives, but. So I didn't want to go through that again. the other issue, county politics, is and as you know, I don't have the AP call on me and, the other side of the aisle stuff to deal with at the county level. But at the county, especially in Indiana, the way it's structured is there's a lot of people who don't report to any the commissioners at the county are the executive body, but they don't control a lot of departments.

00;18;58;24 - 00;19;28;01
Unknown
They only oversee a handful of departments. And and having to navigate that politics is in, in getting people to kind of go in the same direction and move in the same direction. this is something that is a challenge, and it takes time to figure out and learn how to do it. How far can I push, you know, a change or a project before I have to kind of veer off course and, and bring the people back together?

00;19;28;04 - 00;19;48;23
Unknown
so knowing how to navigate that the county is more important and these scandals and things like that, that come up. It is everywhere in the county. and I don't think that's thought of as much either or got right. You know, how how big is it to you, the county. You know, I've got a staff of 25 people.

00;19;48;25 - 00;20;15;24
Unknown
we have all the the normal kind of, groups that you would think of with I.T. We have a helpdesk, we have a web group, we have a applications group, a project management group, a GIS group. We support everything from public safety to parks and everything in between. and so what what we saw is outside of highway projects, out the building, the roads, if we're involved in everything.

00;20;16;01 - 00;20;46;22
Unknown
And that has only gotten more and more over the years. we were really struggling, probably 15, 16, with just having projects get down on time. Yeah, we finished them. But did we do? Well, did we review, did we make sure we were doing things in the most efficient manner? and it took me a couple of years to convince the council that needed approve a a formal project manager.

00;20;46;24 - 00;21;14;18
Unknown
We brought on a project manager in 2019. and then since then, we brought in three business analysts, and we really created the project management group that works with us, and works with all the departments to help identify new projects, helps, improve efficiencies, and really push things forward, you know, on time, on budget, all those, those key buzzwords, that we have.

00;21;14;18 - 00;21;38;26
Unknown
And so that's been a big thing for us. And that's probably one of the most important things we've done, or I've done is create this project management. It's really helped us at the county at a formalize how we move things forward, cyber security, cyber cybersecurity, we all deal with that. But there's the county level. That is another thing that has just continued to grow and grow and grow.

00;21;38;29 - 00;22;04;04
Unknown
if you're not familiar, two counties here in Indiana have been hit with cyber instances this month. So Monroe County, not a small county, was hit the week of July 4th. They were essentially shut down that entire week. And then, another county, Kettering, Clay County, a small county, was shut down as well, this month.

00;22;04;07 - 00;22;26;20
Unknown
And so last year I worked with our council here in the county, and they approved the first, a new position, CSO position for the county. And I've finally been able to fill that position. And so we the new and first ever CSO for the Hamilton County starts next Monday. and so we have that position moving forward.

00;22;26;20 - 00;23;01;22
Unknown
But we, we have, HIPAA with our health department that we have to deal with. We have seizures with our criminal justice data that we have to deal with. We have FBI audits in our child support, office. And so there's just a lot of security that goes on. our county attorney came to me recently and said, hey, when we do bond hearings for the county, you know, for the bond rating for the county is as high as you can get that for any municipality across the country.

00;23;01;24 - 00;23;27;23
Unknown
And they said the bond rating agencies are now wanting someone to discuss cybersecurity as a part of how they're going to rate the county. And so that it's extremely important because that impacts how we could borrow money and the tax rate and all of the things that go with that. And so the CSO will be involved in all of those things, including elections, which is obviously a big thing for this year.

00;23;27;25 - 00;24;06;08
Unknown
Hiring. Hiring is changing. and we all struggle at times with hiring, I think over the last really, I think 5 to 7 years I've seen a big shift. And I know the pandemic probably changed that a little more, and had a big influence on that. But, I think people that I kind of mentioned, I was looking for that next thing that chasing, that chasing the dollar, I, I knew if I wanted to really chase the dollar and have to get out of government, but, I see more and more now people are wanting to make a difference.

00;24;06;10 - 00;24;43;13
Unknown
work life balance is extremely important. I the business analyst, for example, we've hired since the pandemic, two of the three of those came from the corporate world. All three of them have master's degrees. All three of them are extremely qualified, but they all live in the county, and they all three said separately from each other, we want to make a difference, our county, because we live and we don't want to contribute to the bottom dollar of some organization or some big group or some individual that that really doesn't benefit us.

00;24;43;16 - 00;25;12;26
Unknown
And so, I've seen that a lot. more people want to make a difference. Hybrid remote work is important, in it, especially prior to the pandemic, I worked on the commissioners for like a year or two to say, please let me hire people and let's let me do remote work for people. They need that. They expect that because they can go to any of your organizations, probably.

00;25;12;28 - 00;25;34;08
Unknown
And a lot of them provide hybrid work for it especially. And so, commissioners, finally approved a pilot project in 2018, 2019 where I could have people work remotely. We set up all the policies we set up, all the, the, the things that were needed for that to happen. And then the pandemic hit and we had already been doing it.

00;25;34;08 - 00;25;53;27
Unknown
We knew how to do it. We had the tools in place to work remotely. And then I had HR come to me. Do you get those policies you put together for people working remotely where they need those now, and one will modify yours and and not have to start from scratch. And so we were able to do that.

00;25;53;29 - 00;26;22;02
Unknown
other government people especially, hate for me to say this, but retention has not been a problem. Your account. and I think it goes somewhat to the talk we had earlier. I think the, the work life balance is really good at the county. that doesn't mean we don't work hard. but, you know, we're we're most likely not working 12, 14 hour days, to get things done.

00;26;22;04 - 00;26;45;11
Unknown
Yeah. And and I think I've provided an environment where people are given the freedom to do the work they need to do and have, the autonomy to function and be self-sufficient. But they know that I'm going to be there to back that up. And so, we are also very blessed in the county. Most counties don't have the resources.

00;26;45;11 - 00;27;07;00
Unknown
We do, to provide the tools, the things that we have here in the county. And so, retention really hasn't been an issue. And I've been able to hire really good people, here at the county. So what's been achieved? And this is sort of just some of the things we've done. I look back over annual reports.

00;27;07;00 - 00;27;33;19
Unknown
I've done, just to pick out a few of the highlights. we've been a top ten digital county every year. that was just announced again, this week. So we are another digital county again, and that's in a population category of 300,000 to 500,000. So across the country, counties submit their applications and fill out of survey.

00;27;33;22 - 00;27;55;24
Unknown
And we've fallen into the top ten every year, MFA security for all users. We we've implemented MFA for all of our users. I mentioned mapping. Mapping is a big deal in the cabin. we've we've on our website, if you go to our website, one of our main links that you'll see there is our Geo Hub.

00;27;55;26 - 00;28;19;10
Unknown
It's our open data for maps. we also recently released a park finder application against citizen facing. How do we make life better for the citizens and the citizens of Hamilton County? Expect put parks. Now you have a way to go find the parks and the amenities you want to find. Just go. Go to our website, look up the park finder.

00;28;19;13 - 00;28;37;20
Unknown
If you want to show me all the parks with pickleball courts, know that we're turned to search and you'll know if there's a pickleball court there. we are also going to be releasing a trail finder app that is mirrors, much like the park finder. So if there's trail, you want to go walk, you can go search for distance.

00;28;37;20 - 00;29;00;23
Unknown
You can search for what kind of material is on the ground and, and kind of get an idea of what kind of trail you're going to go to. we were the first county in the state on office, 365. So we've been on office 365 probably for ten years. So we had we had rolled out, and had deployed teams and Skype for business prior to that, before the pandemic hit.

00;29;00;23 - 00;29;38;27
Unknown
So there wasn't a reaction for us necessarily just to show people how to use teams. It was now we're going to use teams when you're working from home. and so, teams was deployed prior pandemic. artificial intelligence is a big way. we dipped our toes into that now. And so with our mapping that was done this year, we are you utilizing AI, to help us build layers onto our maps that we wouldn't have normally been able to, to really capture in, in a cost effective manner before.

00;29;39;03 - 00;29;59;04
Unknown
So AI is helping to build the layers that that people will utilize on our maps. public safety is a huge use of those layers. So they'll be able to see how tall buildings are, where the entrances are, where the bridges are, where the bridge decks are, things that they may have not been able to see before.

00;29;59;06 - 00;30;22;08
Unknown
And then this one, if I was ever close to burnout, it was during this project here. And, so we moved the county, about four years ago. We went through an RFP process and, went out to bid, for an RFP for an ERP system. And, we were on a system for about 25 years.

00;30;22;15 - 00;30;54;07
Unknown
That was being sunset. It, we had a lot of. Paper processes just heavily, manual processes. We selected workday. we decided we wanted to do a big bang implementation of workday. So we did payroll finance, HR. we also implemented Ukg in the cloud. The side of that, so we did all those things all at once.

00;30;54;10 - 00;31;16;06
Unknown
we did we were slightly delayed in that, by six months. But instead of going live in July, we went live this January on all of those products. we paid all our people. We've been to all our vendor and all that time, so, so that from that point, it's a success in my book. but being the first in Indiana was not an easy thing.

00;31;16;07 - 00;31;34;21
Unknown
We, we really had to do a lot of discussion with the state. to try to get them to modernize some of their thinking. State Board of Accounts has some very archaic ways of looking at, statute that's just been in place for a long time and no one really questioned it. And that that's what we had to do as well.

00;31;34;21 - 00;31;58;05
Unknown
In some areas we had to question, like, why are we doing things this way? Why is why are we printing out that paper and the signature on it when it's been approved in the system and moves through the system? I will say politics played a role. I mean, there were some areas there's things that I wish we could still do, I think we may do over the coming years, but there's other areas like H.R.

00;31;58;08 - 00;32;19;17
Unknown
Where the county has moved light years forward in HR are onboarding, and our recruiting process is so much better now than it was before. everything is done paperless. it is a seamless transition. People are used to applying when they go to a website and they see workday. You just upload your resume, it fills it out for you and you submit it.

00;32;19;17 - 00;32;40;29
Unknown
You go, that's what we have now at the county. So, those are just some of the things that we've done. I've thoroughly enjoyed my time at the county. I never would have thought. I have been here for as long as I've been here. but because we continue to grow, we continue to change.

00;32;40;29 - 00;33;07;29
Unknown
We continue, to add new things, we continue to do new things and and keeps the job interest. and so, but with that, I think that if anybody has any questions about the county government. One of the things that I didn't mention, the the support that we have in the county, we're centralized IT organization, and each department functions kind of independently.

00;33;08;01 - 00;33;28;27
Unknown
We have probably 20 or so departments that we support, and it's almost like support 20, businesses, small businesses, because they all do different things that don't really interact with each other for the most part. But, you know, you can you can envision we're supporting in Parks Project while we're supporting a public safety project. Those two things just don't mesh.

00;33;28;27 - 00;33;59;00
Unknown
They don't go together. They're getting dependent. And so it really keeps the job interest and keeps it fresh. Nowadays we have about 25 people now, about 8 or 9 of those are dedicated supporting public safety. That that means 901 dispatch the sheriff's office, the deputies are the road community corrections, probation. so they're out at the sheriff's office, and the rest of us are in downtown Noblesville.

00;33;59;02 - 00;34;33;13
Unknown
Did you just go any other questions that. Yeah. Putting first lay not Lewis steam. When you're dealing with timelines like three years to hire a contract manager. yeah. I don't, you know, I don't I didn't hear those ice cream make. Handouts. Yeah. You saw me. So yeah. One of the big this group obviously is a is a way to handle that.

00;34;33;16 - 00;35;06;21
Unknown
I belong to another group. I the government CIOs and it, organizations around the state that are not around the state, around the country that are large or leanness obvious like ours is. So there are some common ality there. We get together once a year. We have an active group on mine. how we approached hiring a project manager, how we approached the RFP was really gleaned from, those other communities are much, RFP was heavily based on Chris is from Louisville.

00;35;06;24 - 00;35;29;04
Unknown
Louisville was about 18 months ahead of us. And so it lined up perfect place for me to get some information for him to see how he approached the project. How about how he was moving forward with it? ultimately we passed him up, though. He got delayed. He's he's got a big machine that. Yeah, he does, but but so that that's what I've used.

00;35;29;06 - 00;35;51;27
Unknown
project managers description was heard from multiple other municipal CIOs where I'm country. you just take take pieces and put it together form it into what you need to see. So it was much the same way. and so the CSO, I'm excited for him to start. He starts so, Monday, you may know, some of you may know him.

00;35;51;27 - 00;36;13;25
Unknown
Timothy Renick from the city of Carmel is coming over to work for the county now. And so, he is he passionate about cybersecurity? He's worked heavily with the state on and, it's going to bring a lot of information to the county, but thank you very much, because.