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."