Maryland CIO opts for county role

• By Dibya Sarkar
• Apr 10, 2001

Maryland's chief information officer is leaving her post to become the top

technology official for Montgomery County, a suburb of Washington, D.C.

Alisoun Moore, who was state CIO for the past two years, was named the

county's CIO and director of its Department of Information Systems and Telecommunications

on April 3. She will start her new job Apr. 18, pending Montgomery County

Council confirmation, which is expected.

She cited quality of life as a reason for the switch.

"The demands of this [state] job were incredible...and Montgomery offered

probably a better spot for me in terms of family well-being, and they offered

better compensation. The decision to leave was personal," she said.

Moore, who will make $135,000 a year, will be the highest-paid female

department head in the county, said county spokeswoman Sue Tucker. Moore

will head a department of 129 full-time employees and oversee a $21 million

budget.

In regard to salary, she said municipal governments seem to have become

more competitive with states to attract technology experts. But she said

people are also looking at the quality-of-life issues when considering opportunities,

and therefore states may have a harder time attracting applicants in the

future.

Prior to being Maryland's CIO in the Department of Budget and Management,

Moore served as CIO in the state's Department of Transportation for three

years.

Among her accomplishments, she cited the launch of a statewide high-speed

backbone, an IT procurement vehicle and the expected launch of a new state

portal in the spring.

With the county, she'll oversee several technology programs.

Barbara Garrard, the DIST computer center chief, said an 800 MHz radio

system is being planned for county public safety agencies that would include

laptop computers in police and fire vehicles as well as another upgrade

of the computer-aided dispatch system. The county, along with several other

public-sector organizations, is also planning to lay a fiber-optic network

to improve communications.

"County governments and municipal governments have always done very

innovative and cutting-edge things," Moore said. "Those things really appeal

strongly to me."