Virginia CIO uses federal experience in new role

Virginia Chief Information Officer Nelson Moe has only been on the job since June, but he said his experience at the federal level has made his transition a seamless one.

Moe worked for the U.S. House of Representatives for nearly 14 years before heading to Virginia, including three years as the chamber’s CIO. These days, Moe said that he deals with a wide range of customers in his work at the state, as he provides IT support for departments from the Alcoholic Beverage Control to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

He said the challenges those diverse stakeholders present closely mirror the interests he had to juggle in his old job.

They represented everybody in the country and we had a very large, spread network because of it, Moe told StateScoop at the National Association of State Chief Information Officers annual conference in October. We had equipment and circuits in every single state and territory.

Beyond preparing him for the scope of his new role, Moe’s time at the House also taught him about building an environment to help the government keep pace with innovation, he said.

What I learned from that is the need to move up and keep up with technology and move fast, and be innovative as best you can, because it changes very rapidly, Moe said. The challenge for government is to be able to create the environment for that success. How do you move as quickly as technology is?