2014 GMIS International Award Winners Announced

On Monday, August 18, at the Annual Awards Luncheon at the Savannah Conference, GMIS International presented 2014 Awards. Awards given were as follows:

The GMISOPA Award recognizes IT professionals whose meritorious performance is representative of service delivery excellence in the public sector. This is our oldest award, having first been presented in 1985. This year, our 30th addition to the GMISOPA Hall of Fame was Joseph Hallbick, Senior Application Support Specialist with Richland County, South Carolina. Joe was nominated due to his body of work, attitude and professionalism during his 25 years at Richland County. Joe is recognized throughout the County as a person who is a professional and that will go to tremendous lengths to help other people. He has shown a unique dedication to his job, the people he works with and to Richland County. We congratulate Joe on his selection for this award.

The GMIS Hershel Strickland Award is our most sentimental award. Once called the GMIS Ambassador Award, in 2008 this award was renamed the Hershel Strickland Award to honor the memory of Hershel and his genuine love of GMIS and for his tremendous contributions to strengthen our organization. This year we honored Michael Leiker, CGCIO, Director of Information Technology, Ellis County, Kansas, for his service to GMIS International with this prestigious award. Michael, currently Kansas Chapter President, has done an outstanding job reinvigorating the Kansas Chapter. Through Michael’s efforts, Kansas achieved a growth rate of more than 17 percent during the past membership year. We commend Michael for his service to GMIS by making the commitment it takes to build relationships and share ideas constructively

 

The GMIS Champion Chapter Award recognizes a state chapter for its GMIS activities and overall GMIS contributions. The state of Connecticut (CT-GMIS) won this year’s award for being one of our most active chapters. During the past membership year, CT-GMIS retained 100 percent of members and increased membership by almost 14 percent. CT-GMIS has been active in the state holding bi-monthly meetings with a different relevant topic each meeting. CT-GMIS also successfully advocated for development of full statewide connectivity of a public fiber network, connecting libraries, schools, public safety and municipalities through their state.

The GMIS G2 Award recognizes a public sector agency whose exceptional G2 project serves as a shining example of how governments should be expanding their reach in their delivery of public services. Projects eligible for this award are government-to-citizen (G2C), government-to-business (G2B), and government-to-government (G2G).

In the Government to Government category, the State of New Jersey Office of Information Technology was recognized for the Establishment of the New Jersey Big Data Alliance. The New Jersey Big Data Alliance is a partnership between higher education institutions and government. It was established to promote collaboration among New Jersey government, academia and industry that will enable all parties to address the significant and immediate challenges posed by big data in a strategic and coordinated manner.

In the Government to Citizen category, two projects were recognized.  

The Town of Longboat Key, Florida, was recognized for a project focused on fiscal transparency. Internally developed, the program provides a unique level of transparency in municipal budgeting using the Town’s legacy financial database. The graphical user interface application provides a high level "Executive" view of the Town budget, providing five (5) years of Town current and historical expenditure data.  

Richland County, South Carolina, was recognized for their QR Code Tax Payments project. The purpose of the QR Code Project was to improve the ability of residents of Richland County to accurately and quickly pay their property taxes. The stated goal was to help alleviate long lines in the Richland County Treasurer’s office prior to tax due dates. The QR Code project allows taxpayers to scan the QR Code printed on the tax bills and make payment via their mobile devices.

 

 

The GMIS Best Practices Award represents trailblazers and risk takers who find innovative, exciting, and sometimes genius ways of delivering citizen services. The State of New Jersey Office of Information Technology was recognized for the establishment of a Data Governance Office. Throughout New Jersey over the last thirty years, agencies have struggled with providing integrated data capabilities to meet management needs. Various approaches have been used, and all shared common weaknesses. Data definitions were not standardized, resulting in inconsistent data quality. Redundant efforts were spent on extracting and publishing data in multiple places and for multiple purposes without leveraging data, effort, or understanding. The business rules for the transformation of the data were locked in the heads of multiple analysts. The reporting infrastructure was expensive and did not provide all of the desired functionality. The data was often only available in the format required by one report community, and not in the format required by others. All of these problems share a common route cause – the lack of data governance. 

 

Three members of GMIS International were officially recognized with Emeritus status in recognition of their long term contributions and dedication to the mission and goals of GMIS International.

 

R. Richard Bareuther, Richland County, South Carolina 

 

The GMIS Diamond Award is our highest honor bestowed on a GMIS vendor partner. It recognizes a GMIS partner, or partners, who have a long history of being a significant contributor to our organization during many of our annual conferences and also throughout the year. The Diamond winner(s) must also have a strong reputation of providing exceptional products and services to our GMIS membership. In 2014, the GMIS Diamond Award was presented to SHI and the Ruby Award to Amazon Web Services. Both awards are in recognition for their stellar professional reputations and for their many contributions to GMIS International.

 

President Janet Claggett presented certificates to members of this year’s Advisory Committee. From left to right are pictured, Bob McQueen, Karen Knight, Sue Farni, Bill Bauer, Laura Gonzales, Jim Lawson, Jack McCoy, Will Lyons and Doug Taylor. Also receiving certificates were Gray Cassell, Chad Davis, Dan Morgan, Rob Petty and Jason Roberts.

 

GMIS International congratulates all of the award winners for 2014! I encourage all agencies to start thinking of potential nominees for the upcoming membership year. Being recognized is a big plus for the individual, their department and their agency.