GMIS International Announces Annual Public Sector IT Awards

GMIS International Announces Annual Public Sector IT Awards

GMIS International recognizes public sector IT leaders at annual conference.

Santa Fe, New Mexico – June 16, 2011 – GMIS International is pleased to announce its 2011 public sector IT award winners. The awards were presented recently at the organization's conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The annual event was attended by over 150 public sector IT leaders and technology vendors, including international delegates from Belgium, Sweden, Canada, The Netherlands, and New Zealand.

Newly elected President Rick Bareuther congratulated this year's award winners and new Emeritus members and stated, "These members join a distinguished group of individuals who have been recognized by GMIS International for their contributions to GMIS, their organizations and their communities. In these challenging times, it is humbling to see the dedication, leadership and innovation of our GMIS colleagues who have, and continue, to accomplish so much!”

With over 400 member organizations across the United States and international sister organizations in six countries, GMIS International is possibly the largest professional organization for state and local IT leaders in the world. To learn more about GMIS, visit http://www.gmis.org/. For additional information, please contact GMIS International Headquarters at (877) 963-4647 or via email at: headquarters@gmis.org.

2011 GMIS International Award Winners

GMIS Best Practices Award

The GMIS Best Practices Award represents trailblazers and risk takers who find innovative, exciting, and sometimes genius ways of delivering citizen services. The City of Asheville, NC, won this award for its creative and cost effective point-to-point wireless system connecting the city's emergency response network. The city's efforts became mission critical due to a change in state law that limited the city's right to use a multi-million dollar fiber optic network connecting more than 22 city facilities. Facing new costs of $450,000 annually, the city opted to take a different direction and embarked on a project to build its own replacement network. The time and money constraints made the project very challenging, yet the City of Asheville was able to successfully build its new emergency response network for less than $20,000.

GMIS G2 Award

The GMIS G2 Award recognizes a public sector agency whose exceptional G2 project serves as a shining example of how governments should be expanding their reach in their delivery of public services. Projects eligible for this award are government-to-citizen (G2C), government-to-business (G2B), and government-to-government (G2G). Portage County, Ohio won this award for its Enterprise GIS system. The original project estimate was near $6 million, but through creative, collaborative, and innovative efforts, the project was successfully completed in under $1 million. In addition to a successful project, Portage County also set the bar high in collecting meaningful metrics, and using those metrics to showcase success.

GMIS Outstanding Professional Award

The GMISOPA Award recognizes IT professionals whose meritorious performance is representative of service delivery excellence in the public sector. This is our oldest award, having first been presented in 1985. This year, our 27^th addition to the GMISOPA Hall of Fame was Doug Hislop, Software Development Manager for the South Carolina Retirement Systems. Doug was honored for leading a major departmental transformation to the Lean Agile methodology, as well as for his many organizational successes and contributions to his agency. Additionally, Doug has been very active in his South Carolina State GMIS Chapter, and has twice been elected to serve as one of the SC.GMIS Vice-Presidents. Doug was nominated by Lisa Phipps, his agency's Director of IT. Lisa states that Doug has "earned the respect of peers, subordinates, and managers at the SC Retirement Systems as well as IT Directors and staff in numerous organizations around the state.”

GMIS Herschel Strickland Award

The GMIS Herschel Strickland Award is our most sentimental award. Once called the GMIS Ambassador Award, in 2008 this award was renamed the Herschel Strickland Award to honor the memory of Herschel and his genuine love of GMIS and for his tremendous contributions to strengthen our organization. This year we honored a state chapter that had an impressive increase in membership of 25%, and which was one of the few state chapters that had a 100% membership retention and renewal rate. In 2011, the Herschel Strickland Award was presented to the state of Connecticut for the type of growth that can only result from happy members who believe that they receive tremendous value from their state and national GMIS organizations.

GMIS Champion Chapter Award

The GMIS Champion Chapter Award recognizes a state chapter for its many GMIS activities and overall GMIS contributions. The state of Georgia won this award for being one of our most active chapters. Georgia has hosted two internal state conferences every year for well over a decade, it has helped grow other state chapters, and through its excellent conference last August 2010 in Atlanta, it was able to bring in a net profit of well over $65K. Our accolades go to Georgia for being such a premiere state chapter.

GMIS Diamond Award

The GMIS Diamond Award is our highest honor bestowed on a GMIS vendor partner. It recognizes a GMIS partner who has a long history of being a significant contributor to our organization during many of our annual conferences and also throughout the year. The Diamond winner must also have a strong reputation of providing exceptional products and services to our GMIS membership. In 2011, the GMIS Diamond Award was presented to Cisco Corporation for its stellar professional reputation and for its many years of service and contributions to GMIS International.

GMIS Ruby Award

The GMIS Ruby Award is our second-highest honor bestowed on a GMIS vendor partner. It recognizes a GMIS partner who has been a significant contributor to our organization during one or more annual conferences and also throughout the year. The Ruby winner must also have a strong reputation of providing exceptional products and services to our GMIS membership. In 2011, the GMIS Ruby Award was presented to Microsoft Corporation for its stellar professional reputation, for offering our first CGCIO scholarships, and for its significant service and contributions to GMIS International.

GMIS Emeritus Awards

Three members of GMIS International were officially recognized with Emeritus status in recognition of their long term contributions and dedication to the mission and goals of GMIS International.

Jerry Pinkard, retired from Mecklenburg County, North Carolina

Ken Keen, retired from Sedgwick County, Kansas

Jerry Cornish, retired from the City of Savannah, Georgia.