Gillispe was appointed executive director of the state's embattled Communications Network in January. In April, his duties were further expanded as he took over management of the ITD. Information technology has been moved into the Department of Administrative Services, he said, along with the departments of personnel and general services and the bill-paying portion of the Department of Revenue,
A consultant group examined the governance structure of the state to "figure out how to do things better and drive the cost of services down," Gillispie said. "The focus is to improve services to customers and ultimately to citizens and give customers choice." There are about 60 agencies in Iowa.
One of Gillispie's immediate goals is to listen. "I am engaging the CIO's of agencies in the CIO Council to get them to set standards," he said. "They've had some very unpopular standards that were set -- with business objectives, not technical. "I am really trying to engage the agency CIO and not make decisions on their behalf," he said. "It's more of a partnership approach. I've found that dictating things doesn't work very well in any environment."
Although Iowa is not planning a deficit budget for 2004, Gillispie said he is looking at some projects with a critical eye. "We have a number of projects that I am pulling back on," he said, adding that better technologies might be available. "Sometimes the customer can find better answers than a centralized group can."
In his role as head of the Iowa Communications Network, Gillispie will have to navigate not only technology management but also maneuver the political scene. The state-owned network has drawn fire from the legislature which has, more than once, voted to dismantle it. Gov. Vilsack vetoed the most recent bill that would have required the sale of the network. "The ICN was not included in the consolidation," Gillispie said, "and, for all the right reasons." Nonetheless, he says he is looking at opportunities to improve how the organization is run. "I am coming at it from a different perspective. I am starting to ask some tough questions like do we need to own this or not," he said. "Or, do we just have to have use of the service."
Gillispie said the consolidation of agencies has, thus far, created no personnel cuts. He has reorganized the IT department into four major functions -- infrastructure, network and security, LAN management and the help desk. He added that no more consolidation projects are currently planned.
Before to coming to Iowa to head up the ICN, Gillispie was executive director of infrastructure and data centers for Witel Communications in Tulsa, OK. He has a Master's degree in business administration from Oklahoma State University and a B.S. in business data processing from Southwest Missouri State University.
