Office of Governor Gary Locke
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - May 7, 2001
Contact:  Governor's Communications Office, 360-902-4136

State's chief information officer Steve Kolodney will join private sector

OLYMPIA - Steve Kolodney, former director of the Washington State Department of Information Services, will join Virginia-based American Management Systems at the end of May to lead the company's eGovernment public sector initiatives.

As head of the agency that provides computer and telecommunications goods and services to hundreds of state and local government organizations in Washington, Kolodney led Washington through a technology transformation using the Internet. As a result, Washington won three consecutive Digital State Awards from the Progress and Freedom Foundation and the Center for Digital Government.

Locke commended Kolodney for his outstanding leadership and thanked him for helping Washington earn the Digital State title three years running.

"Steve's leadership brought Washington to the national forefront using technology to improve delivery of state government services," Locke said. "His vision and dedication will be missed."

"Because of Steve's fine work and the national reputation he has created for Washington," Locke added, "we expect to see a number of high caliber candidates vying for the opportunity to head the state's information technology agency."

Among the technology advancements under Kolodney's leadership:

Every university, community college and K-12 school in the state is connected via the high-speed K-20 Educational Telecommunications Network, enabling Internet access and videoconferencing in all of Washington's educational sectors.

Washington's businesses, citizens and state employees can access more than 240 different resources and interactive services online, 24-hours-a-day through the Access Washington state Internet portal at access.wa.gov.

Transact Washington, the nation's first secure business-to-government gateway, allows customers to use digital certificates to access multiple transactional state services in a single Internet session.

The Washington State Digital Government Academy helps government organizations quickly launch web-based services in collaboration with private sector experts. The academy model is now being emulated and replicated in other states.

Washington reached such e-business milestones for government as being the first state to deliver a bill and receive payment over the Internet, and to receive a legally binding bid over the Internet.

The state's Intergovernmental Network improved internal government operations by reducing costs and paperwork while combining service delivery across traditional agency boundaries.
Washington state led the nation in Year 2000 readiness.

Other national and international acknowledgments for Washington state include the "Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Information Technology" award from the National Association of State Information Resource Executives, the "2000 State and Local 50" award from civic.com magazine, and solid "A" grades in technology from Syracuse University's Grading the States survey.

Kolodney was recognized as one of the nation's Public Officials of the Year 2000 by Governing magazine.

» Return to this month's News Releases

» View News Release Archive