The longtime staffer has worked in Dubuque’s IT department since 2001, when he joined as an IT specialist according to a news release. In April 2023, he was named the city’s inaugural chief information technology security officer, and set up mandatory cyber training, a phishing simulation program, vulnerability scanning and a password manager program. Pregler was elevated to interim CIO in March, and to permanent in April.
That tenure has given him considerable perspective on his home city, its unique features and the growing need for IT services for residents and city employees.
“We just finished building a new data center, so we’re actually moving our offices and then moving our server room — our main room here, that’s basically in the basement of an old funeral home, out to more of a state-of-the-art data center,” Pregler said.
The move does more than provide modern facilities, it relocates critical systems and staff out of a floodplain along the Mississippi River. Situated at the convergence of Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin, Dubuque’s location brings both opportunity and risk, the CIO said. The city’s new data center strengthens its resilience, while bringing its IT department and 911 dispatch under one roof. Dubuque’s 13-member IT team supports around 776 staff, and a city of about 59,000 residents.
A priority for the new CIO is developing a citywide AI policy, as employees want to use it and vendors are integrating its features into their platforms.
“We’ve adopted Microsoft Copilot for our use internally … we’re right in the middle of creating AI policy for that,” he said. “Once we have that, we’ll start to roll it out. I think the admin frontline staff are very interested in using it to begin with, so we’re going to roll it out to them first, see how they use it, do a lot of testing with them.”
Information security remains a constant concern, though Dubuque has an incident response plan and cybersecurity insurance in place. Staying within budget requires careful prioritization, Pregler said, especially as support from federal agencies like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which traditionally provides assessments and technical assistance, shifts. Officials are working on a job posting for the security officer role, he said, and intend to begin the recruitment in coming weeks.
Dubuque continues to invest in public-facing tools that support transparency and utility management. “We want the citizens to be able to understand the budget process and understand the budget, where their tax dollars are going,” Pregler said.
The city’s website offers access to line-item budgets, vendor spending and a smart water platform that lets residents track usage and receive leak alerts while away. These are examples, Pregler said, of how IT can deliver everyday value while building long-term trust.
