Howdy TAGITM!

Here it is another month down and thankfully we have more TAGITM awesomeness to share with y’all! I’m sitting here on day 1 of an 18-day vacation waiting for a flight in a few days to whisk Mrs. Mc and I away to our beach paradise chock full of cold fufu drinks and hopefully no cares to speak of. It’s the longest I’ve taken off since I’ve been in my current role, and I’m stoked because for the first time I’ve delegated as much as possible. No timecards, no req approvals, no p-card stuff, nada. For the first time in over 6 years, I can truly step away and it feels pretty dang good. I wrote about this last month, but as a reminder I encourage all of you to ensure you take advantage of your hard-earned time off. Take care of yourselves, y’all!

That said, we got some stuff done leading up to my taking a step back. A couple weeks back the board met up at JW Marriot Hill Country, TAGITM’s new home come 2026. It was my first time seeing the facility and I want to tell all of you now, y’all will not be disappointed. If you recall I was all happy because we got the strategic planning session on the books earlier than usual. Wouldn’t you know it there was a bit of weather happening in San Antonio over the days we had scheduled that created some concern. Everything worked out at the end though as it tends to do, and we had a great couple of days setting the stage for another awesome year!

First off, and clearly most important, the strawberry jalapeno margaritas at the Cibolo Moon restaurant inside our future home were the truth. I was disappointed hotel management wouldn’t entertain my idea to rename the place “Seguin Moon,” that aside, I’d highly recommend, y’all check them out! I also mistakenly had the breakfast of another group that was meeting adjacent to us on our last day. I can vouch the facilities breakfast was on point (lol).

As for actual business, we did some of that too. My goal as president to do a pseudo reset carried through to our strategic planning. Scott Joyce and Kevin Cameron presented their recommendations to reformulate our RMG groups, which the board fully supported. We decided to take a step back from our data analytics efforts as well. We’re still going to collect data, but we’re going to ditch the iPads as that has been more of a hassle than anything in my opinion. I’ve never been one to do something just because. If tedious actions are not bearing fruit, I am of the mindset we move on in life.

After reviewing GIS attendance, I am thrilled to announce the board committed to the 1-day GIS regional in DFW. We know it’s going to be in Lewisville, but we don’t have a date just yet. The GIS Committee will be asked to formulate a full day of content, which I know they will be game for! Here’s the thing though. TAGITM’s GIS event won’t be just for our GIS homies, I would advocate IT leaders should attend as well. Particularly if your shop is like mine, having just integrated a GIS division a few years ago. I saw the incredible potential of IT and GIS working together firsthand in Seguin. Aside from our GIS team asking for everything under the sun (Travis!) and operating on something called “GIS time,” enterprise GIS has been a phenomenal value add to our city. If your entity has yet to make this transition, or maybe you’re in the early throws of it, I would suggest our GIS Day is for you as well! Perhaps there will be a session/panel at the event about leveraging the power of GIS to the benefit of IT. Count ya boy in for that convo!

That’s it y’all, month three is in the books. A couple of days back, the state’s deputy CISO reached out about having a TAGITM seat on the Texas Cybersecurity Council, so I hope to have an update on that next month. It was suggested our very own Cyber Committee Chair Kevin Joyner fill that seat on behalf of TAGITM. I love a great no brainer, so I pinged Kevin about it. He’s checking to make sure his schedule will allow it, but if anyone wants to do me a solid and pepper Mr. Joyner with some good ole’ peer pressure I’d appreciate it. I kid I kid, but if you do, I’ve got a Shiner Bock with your name on it next time we cross paths! Until next time, I hope each and every one of you have a fantastic few weeks. Thank y’all for reading!