Virginia CIO Sam Nixon Says He Will Educate Public About Purpose of VITA

As newly appointed Chief Information Officer of the Virginia Information Technology Agency, Delegate Sam Nixon has plans to modernize government workflow and educate the public about the purpose of VITA, the IT services provider to state employees. “I’m looking forward to the challenge,” Nixon said.

By Avery Fellow | April 6, 2010

What are your top priorities with VITA in the next 12 months?
My main objective is that VITA will be viewed as a service organization – work with its customers, the state agencies, so the agencies view us as a go-to partner to meet their business needs.

I don’t want us to be viewed as an organization that creates obstacles or gets in the way of agencies doing work they need to do. We’re there to provide guidance around procurement, IT management and IT services.

We’re working very hard to better align our contractual relations with Northrop Grumman. We want to transform that from simply being a contractual relationship to being a true partnership.

I need to do a better job of explaining why VITA was created in the first place – why it is the appropriate model for taxpayers for the delivery of IT services for government.

We have all the ingredients in place, particularly with the new structure, to succeed.

Why was VITA originally created?
In state government, almost every agency was operating separately for IT services. That was enormously inefficient, expensive and not a good use of taxpayer funds. VITA was created in order to have a unified, consistent infrastructure across the span of state government.
 
The State has an IT services pact with Northrop Grumman, a 10-year deal worth $2.3 billion. How will you work to ensure they are delivering on their contractual obligations, which has been a recent issue?
We need to move the relationship from being a purely contractual relationship to a partnership. There needs to be better clarification about what is or is not included in the existing contract, the costs need to be predictable.

They have ownership of our networks, our server infrastructure, our desktops, our help desk, our email systems and our voice systems. It’s important that we have clear, measurable performance objectives and that our service level agreements are unambiguous and clear.

We had 200 separate and distinct service level agreements with Northrop Grumman. That’s entirely too many for any entity to manage and measure. That needs to be moved down to a more reasonable number.

When Northrop Grumman took over the IT infrastructure, they refreshed the technology across the entire enterprise of state government. Northrop Grumman spent $270 million upfront to build two operating centers in Virginia, which the state had never had before. Now we have a unified email and messaging platform and consistency for operating support from agency to agency.

What is the importance of the state having private-sector relationships to deliver IT services and management?
There are some fundamental misunderstandings surrounding the true costs of technology and the fact that the business of government simply cannot be accomplished without technology.

We want to encourage more IT vendors to participate in our technology procurement.

Are there any specific new technologies you would like to see the state of Virginia embrace?
There are a lot of exciting things happening with electronic forms and signatures. We still use a lot of paper. It’s not a new technology, but we need to start moving towards e-forms and signatures. It would be a tremendous productivity improvement for the Commonwealth. There are so many things we can do to drive productivity gains and enable state employees to do their jobs. If there is an agency that needs a new system, perhaps they could look at software-as-a-service models because they make ramp-up time so much quicker.

How do you feel about the restructuring of the reporting structure at VITA?
It absolutely proves accountability. Agencies need to cooperate. The restructuring improves transparency and allows us to predict costs and monitor services – all the things you need to do to be successful.

What experience are you bringing to the new position?
I’ve worked in the IT industry since 1983. I’m bringing my legislative experience and my IT industry experience together to this position.

My approach to working with people has always been to do a whole lot of listening. Talk only when you really have to, provide leadership and direction, lay out a clear vision of what it is you are trying to accomplish and what individuals need to do in order to meet those goals and objectives.

When you are not working what do you enjoy doing?
I play keyboards for my church band almost every week. I enjoy motor sports of all stripes. I enjoy spending time with my family. And that takes up most of my time.

What is your favorite personal technology?
The one that is most important to me is my smartphone.

While transitioning to my new job working for the Governor there was talk of me having to go a weekend without my phone and I knew that just wouldn’t work. I couldn’t imagine going two days without my phone.



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