Leaving His Mark

For the fourth time in four years, Virginia Gov. Mark Warner strode to a podium to address a large crowd of business and public-sector executives who gathered to hear his remarks on IT, government and economic development. Speaking at the Richmond Convention Center in September, Warner outlined the state IT program's accomplishments and where it's headed. Clearly he was at ease with the subject matter, with the audience, and with discussing his undertakings and plans.

Over the four years that the Commonwealth of Virginia's Information Technology Symposium (COVITS) has taken place, it has attracted a venerable who's who of CEOs and senior executives from major IT companies including IBM, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, Northrop Grumman, Accenture, CGI-AMS, MCI, EDS and countless other mature and budding high-tech firms. They come out for several reasons, but one of the most important has to do with the man speaking at the podium.

Many state governments hold fairs, conferences and events for technology, but few attract the kind of IT top brass who attend COVITS, perhaps because few governors are as comfortable speaking about technology to the titans who run the country's IT industry as Warner. With the exception of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Warner is perhaps the only other politician/CEO who not only gets IT, but does IT as well.

Unlike Bloomberg -- who used his tech-savvy background to launch a multi-billion dollar financial news service enterprise -- Warner's pre-government business experience, while quite lucrative, always had a softer side. As a businessman, Warner helped found the Virginia Health Care Foundation, which provides health care to more than 476,000 poor Virginians in rural and urban areas. In 1997, he developed the Virginia High-Tech Partnership, which helps students from the state's five historically black colleges and universities pursue technology careers.

Warner was elected governor of Virginia on a reform platform, but was immediately stymied by a multi-billion dollar deficit -- much larger than was expected, based on what his predecessor had said. Where other politicians saw serious problems, Warner saw opportunity. Yes, he had to make deep cuts in spending, including the elimination of nearly 3,000 jobs, but Warner also made significant changes in government operations.

In 2004, Warner received the Public Official of the Year award from Governing magazine for launching two critical initiatives. The one that made the most headlines was his landmark overhaul of the state's tax code, the largest in nearly four decades. This was especially significant because Warner, a Democrat, pushed through a package of income tax increases on the wealthy -- along with some sales tax reductions -- with the support of a Republican-led state assembly.

Warner's second bold move was putting Virginia government operations on a more business-like path. He used his business acumen to inject modern management reform into the state's bureaucratic operations.

Warner's most significant action occurred within IT, where he unleashed change by pushing through legislation that ended state silos for technology funding, resources and infrastructure. Warner replaced them with a new agency -- the Virginia Information Technologies Agency (VITA) -- and a new IT governance structure called the IT Investment Board.

Starting slowly, VITA began moving individual IT personnel and operations agencies under its control, eventually taking over 90 executive agencies. Like any good business executive, Warner is very familiar with exactly what occurred.

"We now have a single e-mail system, a common [computing] platform and nearly $69 million in savings," he said. "We no longer have different agencies buying different systems with different platforms without thinking about compatibility. Any company of the size of Virginia would do exactly what we're doing."

Despite some bumps along the way, the transition has succeeded, and Warner points out how IT staff members have also benefited. "As an IT person working for