Editor's note:
IT leadership in local government is perhaps the fastest-paced job a CIO can find in the public sector. Decisions made today can literally end up in tomorrow's news. Interaction with citizens and businesses is a daily occurrence. Small budgets and a voracious demand for services require a CIO who is both resourceful and entrepreneurial. Many hold the job of local CIO, but only a few stand out and make their mark.

One of those exceptions is Gail Roper, CIO of Raleigh, N.C. With more than 25 years of experience, Roper has been active in IT from the early days of COBOL programming to today's Web-based world of XML and service-oriented architecture. But her abilities as a local government IT leader are most evident at the strategic level.

In Kansas City, Mo., Roper significantly increased the applications of technology both internally and externally, and gained national recognition for her efforts. Her solutions have been cited by both the Taubman Center for State and Local Government, and the Center for Digital Government.

Roper's leadership on the soft side of technology is also well known. A signature piece of her work includes helping disadvantaged communities connect digitally with government and businesses. Overall, Roper has been widely lauded for being both a compassionate and professional leader in public-sector IT.

She has been named Administrator of the Year by the American Association of Public Administrators, received the Black Family Technology Leader award, the Technology Leadership Award from Public Technology Institute, was one of Government Technology's Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers and most recently named one of Government's Five Most Influential Women CIOs.

In this essay, Roper writes about her experiences breaking into a male-dominated industry, the decline of women in the IT work force, working in local government and turning the job of CIO into a truly public service role.
-- Tod Newcombe, editor, Public CIO

In the Beginning
IT has changed dramatically since I entered the field several decades ago.

I went off to college not really understanding what data processing was all about. My dad didn't work in corporate America with access to a mainframe computer -- a fairly common advantage for many of my fellow classmates, most of whom were men. There were few women in data processing classes back then.

The talk of the classroom was punch cards, bits and bytes. Back then, I evoked so much of the code's glitter in my programs that my professors found it humorous. I sometimes felt like the "Flo Jo" -- Florence Griffith Joyner, the flashy Olympic gold medalist -- of my COBOL programming class.

The creative side of my brain drew me to the programming aspect of data processing, and I later developed a knack for business applications and desktop tools like Lotus 1-2-3.

I was charged with teaching the first generation of Lotus to the accounting department, and I dazzled them with Lotus macros to save time on complex calculations. I wasn't as interested in the programming logic as much as the final product's feature-rich capabilities and its applicability to the real world of efficiencies and productivity gain.

I advanced my career around my natural talent for understanding what the tools could do for people and having a great deal of patience with the users. An individual with this kind of ability became indispensable to the organization.
 

Men Build, Women Share
In some ways, I feel I've come full circle in my career. I'm still very interested in how technology can enable people to do their jobs better, be more informed and have information that aids in their quality of life. And the development of