Kentucky, Utah, Oregon Name CIOs

Three new chief information officers were named to head state informationtechnology programs in Kentucky, Utah and Oregon.

Kentucky Gov. Paul Patton appointed the state's first CIO, naming AldonaValicenti, formerly an IT executive with Amoco Corp., to the new position.Chief among Valicenti's tasks will be to ride herd over the "EmpowerKentucky" program and to manage a new "strategic information technologyplan" designed to better coordinate state IT efforts.

Empower Kentucky is a mammoth business process re-engineering project thatpromises to save $700 million over the next seven years. Valicenti'sappointment followed a national search to fill the state's CIO position.Valicenti's former title at Amoco, a $36 billion petrochemical company, wasmanager of customer solutions, which put her in charge of all internal ITcontracting.

In Utah, Gov. Mike Leavitt looked to one of the state's most visiblehigh-tech companies in appointing the state's first CIO. Leavitt tappedDavid Moon, a WordPerfect Corp. and Novell Inc. executive, to spearhead ITendeavors in the state. While Moon served as senior vice president ofdevelopment for Novell and chief technology officer for WordPerfect, hemost recently was general partner and technology consultant for EsNET Ltd.,Provo, Utah.

Meanwhile, Oregon's new CIO took his position on Jan. 5. Donald Massiottiwas formerly the secretary of commerce for the commonwealth of Pennsylvaniaand founding executive director for the Pennsylvania Business Roundtable.He also held the federal position of deputy assistant secretary at the U.S.Transportation Department. Massiotti will work in the Information ResourcesManagement Division of the state's Department of Administrative Services.