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For all its rich and colorful history, the city of San Antonio has a distinctly modern edge. When you’re the second-most populous city in the southern United States and now the sixth-largest city in the country, having a robust IT infrastructure in place is mission-critical.
And robust it is, thanks to the hard work, distinctive vision and technological expertise of San Antonio’s Information Technology Services Department (ITSD). Led by outgoing CIO Craig Hopkins, the team is laser-focused on making sure San Antonio is ready for the future.
“We’ve got a portfolio of about 700 enterprise and line of business applications that the team is responsible for,” Chief Technology Officer Kevin Goodwin says.
“That’s a core engineering product through to peripheral support. At any point in time, we’ve got about 75 ongoing projects happening, either new systems, system replacements or system modernization.”
While Hopkins’ direction has provided the team with the principles of product management, Goodwin says they’ve taken that ball and run with it.
“As our technology vendors have shifted, our consistent approach has been to manage servers in our data center because that’s what we’re good at. We have a high competence, a lot of capacity and capability, and we’ve taken that in the direction of cloud and hybrid environments.”
While ITSD’s core vendors introduce cloud platform technology, the team has leaned on its data center expertise to manage applications jointly with vendors in the cloud.
“We talk about ‘run, grow and transform’ as the reasons IT does things,” Goodwin says.
Joining Goodwin in this work are Assistant IT Director of Infrastructure John Rodriguez, Digital Experience Division Head Catia Jendrzey and CISO Shannon Lawson.
“They’re the ones who really have to build customer relationships and engage with matrix teams to get things done,” Goodwin adds.
“Happy city employees provide great service to our residents.”
- Catia Jendrzey
Jendrzey says her priority has been to streamline digital operations, which were unsurprisingly complex.
“We have 17 case management systems that we’re trying to consolidate into a couple,” she says. “Our business relationship managers (BRMs) are responsible for strategic planning with customers, but when I first started, they were just taking orders from the departments, not helping them strategize and plan.
“It’s taken a while to change the behavior not just of the BRMs but of the customers and their expectations. But they’re finally realizing the value of having a strategic partner that helps them look ahead.”
ITSD’s efforts, along with strategic partners such as managed IT service and support provider Computer Solutions, have enabled San Antonio to offer business system solutions and enterprise infrastructure to businesses operating in the city.
From solution development and configuration to SAP and web applications, companies looking to make San Antonio their base of operations are well looked after.
“We’ve also established the Tech Hub, an opportunity for customers to get hands-on, in-person help,” Jendrzey says.
“People like that. Many customers would rather not talk on the phone and have an opportunity for live, in-person help. It’s important because happy city employees provide great service to our residents. That’s really been our push.”
Rodriguez thinks of ITSD as a traditional ‘keep the lights on’ organization but with a modern twist.
“We’re the builders of technology within the city,” he says. “We’ve got responsibility for a large organization of networks, data centers, cloud platforms, aviation and public safety agencies. We have about 1,400 traffic intersections, and we manage every single one of them, and we’re a little unique in that we also manage San Antonio’s public safety regional radio system.”
With so much in its remit, Rodriguez says the team’s challenge is managing the data within the environment.
“You’ve got to add autonomous vehicles into the traffic system, for example, because Waymo and other technologies are out there trying to take advantage of our infrastructure that is in place,” he says.
“AI is another development; it’s very quick to mine data, and if it’s not properly labeled, you could be releasing confidential or strategic information. The biggest challenge we have is how quickly this environment moves.”
At the heart of ITSD’s ‘One Team. One Mission’ philosophy is trust – both within city leadership and between departments – to be able to hand over so much of the city’s operations to this team. It’s also why they’ve partnered with firms such as Accela, a trusted provider of cloud solutions to government.
“We’ve actually been given more responsibility than a typical IT organization because we have that trust,” Rodriguez says. “That’s on Craig, who has done a great job at inspiring the team and building and maintaining trust.”
“Our purpose is grounded in serving the greater good – together.”
- Craig Hopkins
One of the team’s newest arrivals, Lawson only joined ITSD as CISO in January. Previously CISO for the state of Alaska and the city of Phoenix, his experience meant he was able to hit the ground running.
“Every organization is different, so I’m assessing the team and determining what exactly we’re doing. Based on my experience, we are realigning certain operations and talent so we have people doing the jobs they are best at.”
Just as well, as the caliber of ITSD’s people instantly impressed Lawson.
“This team is already ahead of many organizations I’ve worked with,” he says. “We’ll keep refining and improving what we do, building on our strengths. As we continue to get better, we’ll be ready to move forward with confidence and purpose.”
With a strong team in place and real momentum carrying ITSD and San Antonio forward, Hopkins felt it was the right time to pass the helm to the next steady hand. He emphasizes that it has always been a collective effort from a strong crew.
“Nine years went by quickly,” he says. “I was new to public service when I arrived, and we were entrusted with several critical operational responsibilities that were not traditionally IT but all in service of advancing digital government and strengthening continuity of operations.”
Through the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, Hopkins is most proud of what the team has accomplished together and the meaningful impact they have had on residents and employees across the city.
“I hope I’ve helped reinforce the philosophy of ‘People first. Mission always’ and ‘One Team. One Mission’, where we pursue excellence together every day, without losing sight of each other,” he says.
“Like any strong crew, we stand the watch for our community, look out for one another and stand ready to answer the call. Our purpose is grounded in serving the greater good – together.”
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