From hospitality to municipality

Bill Oates, who moved from hotels to city government, discusses his IT agenda for the city of Boston

When Bill Oates was named CIO for the city of Boston last June, it seemed like a big career change for someone who had spent more than 20 years in the hospitality industry.

Public service was nothing new for Oates, however: He had been chairman of the Board of Health in Watertown while a student at Boston College a quarter-century ago. "I surprised my family by saying I want to get into this stuff. It was nice because you'd get elected to the system and you could have this tangible effect," Oates says.

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When Bill Oates was named CIO for the city of Boston last June, it seemed like a big career change for someone who had spent more than 20 years in the hospitality industry.

Public service was nothing new for Oates, however: He had been chairman of the Board of Health in Watertown while a student at Boston College a quarter-century ago. "I surprised my family by saying I want to get into this stuff. It was nice because you'd get elected to the system and you could have this tangible effect," Oates says.

Oates, 50, spent 18 years working in various technology leadership positions for ITT Sheraton and another five years as CIO of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, which purchased Sheraton in 1998. He left Starwood at the end of 2005 when the company decided to consolidate IT leadership positions during a restructuring. Oates says it was clear that it was time to go.

Within a few months he found a way back into public service when he saw that Boston was looking for a new CIO and that Mayor Thomas Menino had made the job a Cabinet-level position. The job paid less than Starwood, but a meeting with Menino helped convince Oates it was the right move.

Click to see: Bill Oates, Boston CIO

"He talked to me about what his vision of technology was for the city, how critical he thought it was," Oates said in a recent interview at his City Hall office, two floors above the mayor's. "I was getting sucked into it, seeing the tangible benefit, changing things and doing things in the city environment . . . for constituents and the different agencies. It just really appealed to me."

In his first months on the job, Oates has begun implementing the mayor's goal of providing low-cost wireless Internet access across the city. Free Internet access has been available in much of the City Hall vicinity since October, he says. The city is getting ready to launch pilot programs in small areas to test the technology and pricing structure (right now pricing is set at 30 days' free access followed by a monthly access charge of $9.95). Low-cost wireless access could be available citywide by the end of 2008, but it's going to take a lot of work, as well as coordination among city departments and a nonprofit entity that is building the network.