Government Technology/David Kidd
Kehoe, a longtime, award-winning technology leader, joined the Jay Inslee administration as state CIO and WaTech director in August 2021. Inslee has been serving as governor since 2013, and chose not to seek a fourth term. Ferguson, who is expected to be sworn in Jan. 15, announced the CIO's reappointment Dec. 19 according to The Olympian. A spokesperson for the administration did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
While in Olympia, Kehoe has been instrumental in expanding the cache of digital services available to residents, and making the government service experience feel more like the interactions residents may have with companies like Amazon, Netflix or Uber.
The CIO has also advocated for legislation that would establish a “legacy modernization fund” to supply grants to agencies as they undertake the technology modernization process.
Last month, WaTech released a new service catalog aimed at simplifying the access to and understanding of technology services offered by the state IT agency.
Prior to his tenure at the state, Kehoe served as CIO of the nation’s most populous county, Los Angeles County, for nearly four years; and as CIO of King County, Wash., that state’s most populous county, for more than seven years before that. In 2015, during his time at King County, Kehoe was recognized as one of Government Technology’s Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers.
During a session at the National Association of State Chief Information Officers’ 2024 Annual Conference this fall, Kehoe underlined a longer-term vision of making government services more digital and more mobile, by coming to understand the existing experience and using human-centered design practices to improve upon it. “It will take not only CIOs but collaborations with governors, legislators and agencies,” he said then.
