State and Local Cloud Commission Has First Meeting

Nine public-sector IT executives were named Thursday, Oct. 6, as advisers to a commission of industry heavyweights that will develop recommendations for implementation of cloud computing in state and local government.

First announced in August by the TechAmerica Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on the education of industry executives and policymakers on technology innovation, the panel was selected in part through a nomination process.

The Commission on the Leadership Opportunity in U.S. Deployment of the Cloud – State and Local Government, or CLOUD2/SLG Commission, will be chaired by Tarkan Maner, president and CEO of Wyse Technology. The vice-chairs are David L. Cohn, program director of Smarter Cloud at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, and Daniel Kent, Cisco’s chief technology officer (CTO) for public sector.

The 47-person membership includes executives and subject-matter experts from nearly all the cloud market’s big competitors, including IBM, Microsoft, Google and Hewlett-Packard as well as smaller companies. A full list of the commission members is available here.

The nine advisers from state and local government are:

Kevin Acker, chief IT architect, Wisconsin Division of Enterprise Technology
Kyle Hilmer, chief of the Policy and Planning Services Bureau, Montana
Dan Lohrmann, chief security officer, Michigan
Alan R. Shark, executive director and CEO, Public Technology Institute
Greg Wass, CIO, Cook County, Ill.
Adrian Farley, CTO, California Technology Agency
Gary Lambert, assistant secretary for operational services , Massachusetts
Dugan Petty, CIO, Oregon
Gina C. Tomlinson, CTO, Department of Technology, city and county of San Francisco

The commission, which met for the first time on Oct. 5 in Denver, says it will formulate recommendations that will enable municipalities to rapidly access and deploy cloud solutions. Cisco’s Kent said via a statement that cloud computing can help government cut IT costs, reduce complexity and improve agility. “Cloud computing holds incredible promise for our state and local governments,” he said.

The CLOUD2/SLG commission mirrors a similar panel that’s focusing its effort on cloud computing in the federal government.

“If the federal government, the states and local government take similar approaches, the efficiencies will skyrocket,” said Phil Bond, TechAmerica’s president and CEO.