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.
Push for public Wi-Fi: Q&A with Bill Oates
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.
“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.
“This network will be built out on top of school buildings, other city buildings, traffic signals and street lights,” Oates says. “We’re finding the typical things out there that every city finds when they do this. You know — the light pole that would be a great place for an antenna doesn’t have power 24 hours a day. . . . We’re working through it and everyone’s been really cooperative.”
The city of Boston has about 20,000 employees in 60 departments, and the school department alone has 16,000 computers, Oates says. His 110-employee Management and Information Services department performs such tasks as supporting PeopleSoft, supporting the network and telecommunications, and maintaining the city’s Web site.
Oates is trying to fill about a half-dozen vacancies, including some IT leadership positions, he says. The city is getting many inquiries about the open jobs, and despite his private-sector background, he doesn’t have a preference for either private- or public-sector employees, he says.
“In terms of where we find people, I think we’ll find some from the private sector. We’re finding some talent within our own organization and other agencies in the city that can populate these jobs. And we’re finding university and public-sector people who also are interested, because we’re developing a nice buzz about the stuff we’re working on and what we can get done over the next few years,” Oates says.
One project in the works will revamp the mayor’s 24-hour hot line so the people answering the phone will be more connected to the employees who deliver services. Getting a pothole filled or a streetlight fixed should be a lot simpler once hot-line attendants have all the necessary information at their fingertips, Oates says. Boston’s IT department also is considering using Second Life, a three-dimensional online world, to hold community meetings — or someday unveil a design for a new City Hall.
Oates has noticed a few big differences between working in the private and public sectors. Government rules surrounding the bidding process in procurement and contracting has taken some getting used to, he says. In addition, the budget challenges are different: At Sheraton and Starwood, there were many IT projects designed solely to raise revenue, making it easy to justify investments in infrastructure, applications and employees, he says. Working for the city, the focus is on delivering services to residents as efficiently as possible. “There’s such an opportunity to implement things that can last beyond me, beyond the mayor, you know, that we can look back on at some point and say we fundamentally changed how the city delivers services,” he says.
