Managing Rapid Growth Through Innovation and Collaboration

By Shane McDaniel, CIO, City of Seguin. Shane “El Jefe” McDaniel is the CIO for the city of Seguin with 27 years of experience across numerous IT disciplines. His technology career began in 1996 in the Air Force supporting military intelligence. Shane is a published author with a B.S. and M.S.in Information Technology holding CGCIO, PMP, CISM, ITIL, and CompTIA certifications. 

Innovation through technology—words that were not closely associated with the historically rural city of Seguin, TX a few short years ago. With 52 new subdivisions and more than 15k homes in various stages of development today, change was needed to keep up with the rapidly growing community. Innovation was necessary. Between 2010 and 2020 the city saw a 20% growth in population. In the three years since the 2020 census, it is estimated an additional 10% have begun calling Seguin home. The secret is out. People have discovered this once quiet community on the Guadalupe River, and rightfully so. Seguin is a beautiful place to call home with a strong economy and forward-thinking leadership ideally located near many of the great things Texas has to offer.

For many, rapid growth constitutes excitement. In municipal government, it is representative of impending change, increased tax base, opportunities, and so much more. For a community that is living with the impact of rapid growth, municipal employees on the front lines have been scrambling to keep up with what once only existed on the horizon. It can be daunting to say the least. Established processes must adapt, legacy ways of conducting business must be reevaluated, and the investments necessary to embrace change must be made. Due to the foresight of community leaders, the city of Seguin was ready and willing to take on the challenge.

Seguin is old school Texas. It’s blue collar. Tough, resilient. The city’s tag line, "It’s Real" perfectly encapsulates the culture within the community. Walking the streets of this Texas treasure one may never assume this rural city embraced innovation as it has. Driving in from the north on any given evening you may notice the water tower lit up by a myriad of colorful lights that can be seen from several miles away. Hiking the trail that interconnects the city from top to bottom, on Nolte Street downtown you’ll see an absolute marvel of modern architecture in the city’s library. Walk a little further south and you’ll be at Starke Park and Golf Course, a popular destination for locals and golfers nestled on the banks of the Guadalupe River. Seguin has a beautiful and active downtown. Surprises are waiting seemingly around every corner.

Of the countless astonishing aspects about this community, there’s one many are not aware of. This historically rural community has become a hotbed for technological innovation. The city of Seguin has been recognized 15 times since 2018 for its technology driven advancements. In 2022, Seguin was the only local, state, or federal government entity to receive the prestigious CSO50 award for cybersecurity. In 2020, the city received the StateScoop IT Innovation of the Year award for the radio infrastructure initiative that changed interoperability in the once disconnected region. Everything from the city’s cyber program to its network enterprise, radio infrastructure, CAD, ERP, and GIS division has been recognized for its innovative implementation and resulting impact.

Seguin technology innovations have been featured in case studies, podcasts, and magazines numerous times, most recently in an interview discussing municipal cybersecurity tactics published in the French periodical Marianne. As the CIO for this beautiful and endearing community, I find myself in the middle of much of the communication for how the city has embraced innovation. Five years into my role it still brings a smile to know that a small city in Texas continues to garner interest from those far away.

As for the innovative projects, they are plentiful. It started with interconnecting the city’s three data centers through fiber. Ten miles and eighteen sites have been added to the fiber ring since 2018, and all but one city owned facility is on fiber at this time. In conjunction with fiber, a complete network rebuild was in order. In 2018 the city had a flat network with data traffic dictated by legacy design. Dynamic routing was added in 2019, and between the new network and enhanced fiber connectivity, network resilience was vastly improved. For a city with a strong public safety presence and critical utility services, this was paramount.

But it didn’t stop there. The radio infrastructure project was also impactful. A new radio site affectionally referred to as the Seguin radio shack was constructed to withstand substantial weather events. A P25 radio service was incorporated allowing city first responders to connect with more than 20k public safety professionals across central Texas. The city’s 911 Dispatch center was rebuilt, adding consoles for the impending growth. Five years ago, the city’s first responders could not communicate with neighboring entities via radio. Today, everyone across the region has the ability to leverage shared radio channels for interoperability.

A new video management system was established that has seen a 350% growth since 2018. Trail cams were built in house at a 70% reduction over vendor costs and deployed around the city. The systems architecture was upgraded providing the virtual backend to meet the needs of city departments impacted by rapid growth. Grant funding was leveraged to move several city services online to include park rentals, open records requests, citizen engagement, and a full rebuild of the city website. Fire station alerting was incorporated improving call out efficiencies, the CAD was replaced, new body/dash cams were deployed, a document management system was established, and SCADA connectivity was modernized.

GIS was incorporated in 2021 and has taken off to an exceptional degree. Disaster recovery was incorporated. Enterprise battery backups have been addressed. The city’s Wi-Fi infrastructure has been upgraded, as has the more than decade old telecom infrastructure. 5G is being utilized around the city, most recently as the backend connectivity for free public Wi-Fi downtown. 5G has also been embraced by the city’s library via a service for citizens to utilize the incredible speeds through hotspot checkouts. This has been extremely well received by the community. Five facilities have been either built or upgraded since 2018, all of which are baselined to city technology specs.

That is but a few of the many technological innovations Seguin has successfully implemented in recent years. Much of the organizational success is dictated by the values of the community. Seguin is a roll up your sleeves and get after it kind of place. Elected leaders and city management operate in the same manner and continue to push this once quiet community forward. Innovation starts at the top with the rapport and trust of senior city officials. The city of Seguin is the benefactor of great leadership. When everyone is operating from the same page the results can be magic.

Working in Texas local government there is another incredibly beneficial asset that can and should be leveraged by those driving innovation across our great state. That asset is the knowledge of others. Believe it or not, very rarely does the wheel need to be reinvented when it comes to innovative technology. There are many great organizations across Texas with a wealth of knowledge to lean on. For local government IT professionals, that organization is the Texas Association of Governmental Information Technology Managers, or TAGITM as it is more commonly known.

TAGITM is an incredibly collaborative organization. The organization and its members are reflective of the values and culture that is Texas. The annual conference is the flagship event for the organization, seemingly breaking attendance records every year. Registration for sponsorships and exhibitors sold out in under two hours for the 2023 event being held in April at La Cantera in San Antonio. Its popularity continues to thrive and is well deserved.

As a member of TAGITM, Seguin IT staff has benefited from a direct connection to some of the greatest minds in Texas local government IT. When a question is fired off via email to the wildly active TAGITM listserv, a world of knowledge and experience is immediately accessible. Lessons learned can be attained. Red flags are discussed. Real world experience is leveraged and shared throughout the community with some occasional good-natured banter thrown in. Regional members get together to break bread, talk shop, or just catch up a few times throughout the year.

Having spent several years working for the federal government and a few more in private industry, unfettered access to the vast experience and knowledge possessed by TAGITM members has proven to be vital. Communication flows freely and concerns are discussed which in turn can greatly benefit project efforts being pursued. It’s a think tank and pseudo consulting firm rolled into one. For $175 annually, local government IT professionals have a world of insight readily at their disposal.

Innovation has different connotations for everyone. It can be achievable regardless of budgets, resource limitations, or the countless other roadblocks that exist. What the city of Seguin has done may or may not be applicable to what is needed in your community, but if crossover exists there is absolute value in leaning on the knowledge and experience of others to avoid potentially costly pitfalls. That’s the beauty of local government. We can help each other achieve success on behalf of our communities. What works for one can work for others. Here’s to keeping our great state moving forward through innovation!