OLYMPIA -Washington Technology Solutions (WaTech) was recently honored by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) for their Washington State Employer of Choice IT project.
NASCIO Award recipients were announced on September 19, 2016 during the NASCIO Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida. For the past 28 years, NASCIO has honored outstanding information technology achievements in the public sector. Recipients of twelve exemplary initiatives were chosen from a field of more than 130 nominees.
"One of our strategic goals centers on workforce development. To that end, I applaud the work that has been done in our agency in general and by the Business and Digital Media Services group in particular to stimulate new thinking about building and recruiting talent for the next generation of IT employees for our organization and throughout state government," said Michael Cockrill, Washington state chief information officer and director of WaTech.
On behalf of the state of Washington, WaTech submitted eight nominations for the 2016 NASCIO awards. The nominations represented a range of business areas including education, transportation, health care, public safety, natural resources, and technology.
The Washington State Employer of Choice nomination notes that finding and retaining a cutting-edge technology workforce is the single most important and impactful challenge for the public sector. Moreover, in Washington state, nearly half of the government workforce is eligible to retire within the next five years.
"In the state of Washington, we recognize the need to attract talented people for our IT workforce. This recognition underlines the creative thinking that we have been putting into addressing workforce development issues and creating a unique environment for the workforce of the future," said Michael DeAngelo, deputy chief information officer, Business and Digital Media Services.
In lieu of acceptance remarks at the conference, an Employer of Choice Video was produced to honor the people and teams that made the award-winning initiative possible.
Contact:
Washington Technology Solutions: Laura Johnson, Communications | 360.407.8164