AUGUST 20248GOVERNMENT CIO OUTLOOKIN MYOPINION ADAPTING GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS WITH INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONSrecall nearly two decades ago, Emergency Management was a new business term in government that was gaining traction. Everyone wanted an "Emergency Manager," and there were many varieties of these specialists. Origins in local government officially were set by Presidential Policy Directive/PPD-8 written March 30, 2011, which established we implement formal preparedness programs. Earlier in 2004, the Department of Homeland Security first published the National Incident Management System (NIMS), which laid a framework for organizing command and control for handling incidents that can disrupt businesses and government operations. We built our program and educated staff in phases over time. During the early years, none of our first variations came with a budget. Hi, I am Eric Hayden, Interim C.T.O with the City of Tampa municipal Government. My former title for seventeen years was IT Infrastructure Services Manager. My role was to run the organization's data centers, technical support, networking, disaster recovery, and all field services for IT. I have very special teams, and I am so proud of their contributions to the city. I myself have held many positions within our IT department over my 38 years with the organization. If you ask most of my friends, my superpower is making something to fit a situation out of what is available around us. Emergency Management on a budget means teaching the concept of Emergency Preparedness and NIMS/ICS framework to all accountable leaders across each department in the city and then exercising in borrowed spaces. Prior to Directive-8, operational managers such as myself did our own version of preparedness, disaster recovery and planning individually. When we appointed our first Emergency Manager, he was authorized by the mayor to produce a citywide plan for Emergency Management and begin the education awareness of all that it entailed. My IT teams built the first Emergency Operations Center using our Police and Fire dispatch center training room. Why here? Being in Florida and with no budget, our first requirement was to at least choose a place in a facility hardened to withstand a Cat 5 hurricane and have its own internal data center plus generator backups, kitchen, meeting, and sleeping areas. If this had been dedicated to Emergency Management, that would have been outstanding at the time, but 99 percent of the time, this center is dedicated to round-the-clock 911 dispatching, and all rooms were basically in use. It was a tight fit, and strangers were rarely welcome.As each year passed, I witnessed an evolution in mindsets and adoption among our leaders, and as our program began to gain ground in credibility, city leaders took it seriously, and soon, it wasn't difficult to branch out to a larger dedicated site. I was fortunate to have a private business partner relationship with a financial institution that shared a common fear of uncontrolled chaos if the city were to be harmed by IEric Hayden, Director of Technology and Innovation and CIO, City of TampaByEric Hayden
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