Alex Pettit stepped down in November to serve as Oregon’s digital transformation projects director, the state where he had been CIO from January 2014 to June 2018. He had been CTO in Colorado since January 2020 and had also previously served as CIO for the state of Oklahoma.
“We’re just looking for a leader who can help us continue to evolve and improve much of the ways Alex set us up,” CIO David Edinger said.
The state posted the CTO job listing Tuesday, and it closes on Dec. 22. More than 70 percent of the state’s Office of Information Technology (OIT) staff report to the CTO, Edinger said.
In OIT, the CTO is charged with defining and shaping the office’s service delivery, supporting agencies with deep technical expertise, and aligning IT standards across all state government entities on matters like applications and data, according to the job listing.
The move to Oregon government marked a “return home” for Pettit, as he shared in a LinkedIn post.
“I’m honored to once again contribute to Oregon’s technology future — helping modernize legacy platforms, evolve our enterprise architecture, and prepare for the demands ahead,” Pettit wrote.
Although the technology talent market can be challenging, with private-sector organizations sometimes attracting talent more easily — largely due to greater flexibility and pay — than those in the public sector, Edinger said the opposite is true right now. As such, he expects to see ”some really great talent” apply for the CTO role.
