Bill Oates was named the CIO for the city of Boston by Mayor Thomas Menino in June 2006. Oates previously was CIO for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. Oates, who also spent 18 years with ITT Sheraton Corp. before it was purchased by Starwood in 1998, was inducted into the hospitality industry’s Technology Hall of Fame in 1996. Oates, 50, is the youngest of the 26 industry leaders inducted into the group, according to the city of Boston.

At City Hall, Oates is helping to implement a Wi-Fi network that will provide low-cost Internet access throughout the city, upgrading the city’s customer service infrastructure, and looking to fill several open IT jobs. Network World’s Jon Brodkin interviewed Oates in early March at his City Hall office.

How did you become Boston’s CIO, and what were the reasons you decided to take the job?

Well, I had worked in the travel/hospitality sector for most of my career, almost all of my career. After 20-plus years and six years as CIO, I left Starwood at the end of '05. I was looking at some other travel/hospitality roles. I was doing a little consulting, but I was really looking to do something different. I always had this kind of passion for local government and what you could do. I was chairman of the [Watertown] Board of Health when I was a college student at BC [Boston College]. . . . So as I was looking around, I saw a posting on one of the Web sites that said it was a CIO position. Did a little bit of research into it and found that Mayor Menino had made it a Cabinet-level job in Boston, that it reported directly to the mayor and that . . . Boston really wanted to push forward with a ton of technology initiatives. I thought, boy, it would be great to get into a different kind of industry.