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Training Blend, Episode 002 The Official Podcast of the State of Nebraska Training and Development Team

This features special guest; Nebraska CIO, Ed Toner. Written and Produced by Lisa Menke and the rest of the State of Nebraska Training and Development team for our Nebraska teammates across the state. Copyright 2019, State of Nebraska Department of Administrative Services

Participants in this episode:

Lisa Menke [LM], Ed Toner [ET], Dovi Mueller [DM], Renae Prieto [RP], Katie Ackerman [KA], and Mary Beth Pinckney [MB]

Training Blend Episode 002, Recorded July 23, 2019. Released July 31, 2019

Text Transcript of this Episode

[music fades in]

[LM] Hello, Nebraska! This is Training Blend, the official podcast of the State of Nebraska Training and Development Team. Episode 2 with special guest Ed Toner, Chief Information Officer for the State of Nebraska. Welcome, Ed.

[ET] Well, hello, everyone. Glad to be here.

[LM] Thanks for joining us today. We're going to spend the next few minutes getting to know Ed and talking with him about what's happening with OCIO across the state. We're going to start off, actually, with some hotseat questions for you.

[ET] Ok

[LM] That you have not seen

[ET] Great

[LM] Don’t worry, they’re not hard. We’ll go around the table and throw them at you, and whatever comes to mind first.

[ET] Oh, boy. This will be fun.

[RP] It's too late to leave.

[ET] Yeah, that was definitely not in the script.

[LM] Okay, first hot seat question, Apple or Android?

[ET] Android.

[RP] TV or books?

[ET] Books.

[KA] Marvel or DC?

[ET] Neither one. (stunned disbelief from the room) Technology guys that says neither one.

[KA] That's why you're here today.

[RP] We’ll cut that out so you don't get fired. (we didn’t cut it out, but we’re confident Ed’s job is secure)

[MB] Country or city?

[ET] Country?

[DM] Cats or dogs?

[ET] Dogs. Oh, these are easy. We can just keep going.

[LM] We’ve got more, don’t worry! Chicken or steak?

[ET] Steak.

[RP] Coffee or tea?

[ET] Tea. I'm from the south.

[RP] So sweet tea.

[ET] Sweet tea.

[LM] Is it actually tea?

[ET] Yes, real tea. With ice in it and a lot of sugar.

[MB] A little tea to go with your sugar?

[ET] Exactly.

[KA] Coke or Pepsi?

[ET] Pepsi

[MB] Cake or pie?

[ET] Pie.

[DM] Now this one's going to tell a lot about you. Beatles or Rolling Stones?

[ET] Rolling Stones.

[LM] Last one, chocolate or vanilla?

[ET] Chocolate.

[DM] You passed!

[ET] Funny story of the Pepsi thing. Why when you said that is I love Pepsi. And the headquarters for Pepsi is Dallas. And I used to have to go because I worked at Blockbuster Video, their headquarters where we would all get together all the different companies and we would host a technology get-together. And so I would host it with Blockbuster then JC Penney's and Pepsi. But in Texas, everything is a Coke. So, and I've made the mistake when I first came here. I went to subway [and they asked] “What do you want?” [I replied] “I want a Coke”. And I didn't mean a Coke. I meant let me look at what you got. (Laughter)

[ET] And so we got in trouble every time I went to Pepsi, because they also own Frito-Lay and all those. So they would always have chips. They’d bring us drinks and they would say, what would you like to drink? And we'd say well, what kind of Cokes do you have? (Laughter)

[ET] They would go “Oh, no!” It took me a while to go, okay, I want a Pepsi. It's funny because I love Pepsi and Pepsi is headquartered there. But yeah, we call it Coke.

[LM] I just recently had this conversation, I think on Sunday, with a friend who is from Georgia. Everything's Coke.

[ET] Yes.

[LM] And I was saying that once when I was in college, I went on a trip. And we were staying with some people in South Texas. And they said, Do you want a Coke? I love Coke. So I said yes.

[ET] And they brought you a Dr. Pepper?

[LM] They brought me a sweet tea! (Laughter)

[ET] Everything is Coke.

[LM] Everything is Coke.

[ET] You have to say what kind of Coke.

[LM] I guess so. Alright. Let's start with this question. Ed, can you tell us about the path that led you to your current role with OCIO?

[ET] Oh, yeah, it was a little bit different than most CIOs, even in the private sector. This is my first time in public sector. I've been here about four years, little over four years. First time ever in the public sector, but even in the private sector, my role was a different path than a lot of CIOs take. I started out as industrial engineer, right out of college, and so process improvement, all that kind of thing. And so I started working for a large manufacturer of heating, ventilation, air conditioning. And then I went on to a chemical manufacturing plant. And at that time in the 80s, we didn't, write, we would do all this process improvement and a lot of it needed software. And we didn't have any COTS programs (or commercial off the shelf program), you had to write everything. So my background is also in computer science. So I wrote my own programs. And we also did our own networking, we did all of that, because there was nothing that we could just buy. So after doing that for several years, I realized, wait a minute, there's more money in the IT side. So let's move there. So I went to work for Blockbuster Video, I worked out of their data center in McKinney, Texas, which is north of Dallas. And I lead a team of store support analysts. So what they did was one of the stores credit card machine went down or anything like that. We walk them through the troubleshooting of that. And with 5000 stores at that time, and it was a lot of fun. And I did a lot of work with infrastructure, then because a lot of the problems were infrastructure related. And so my career just really stayed in the infrastructure realm. So from there, I got recruited, buy an old boss to come to Ameritrade, TD Ameritrade today, and I thought I was moving to Omaha, Nebraska, but then they decided they wanted me to start a team, an IT team, and asked me if I would do that in Fort Worth, Texas, where there was a lot more staff a lot more opportunity to build a team. So I built an IT team that's still there today in Fort Worth, Texas. And then after a few years, they decided now you need to come to Omaha, which was fine, I thought I was moving to Omaha back in the 90’s. So in the mid 2000’s, I came here and then ended up moving over to First Data. And the reason why I moved over there was again, a connection I had over there. And I had a chance to get out of an infrastructure role (infrastructure mean servers and all that good stuff, networking, all that). And I was able to, I was given the opportunity to lead an app dev team. I was given an even better bonus, because once I got there, I found out that the app dev teams were in England and in Argentina. So that was a lot of fun. Because I got to travel to both locations. I ended up after that; my last year there, I went back in infrastructure and led architecture teams, and we redesigned a lot of our platforms for First Data. And then here I am back with the Governor in the public sector.

[ET] So it kind of a roundabout way to get to where I am even for a traditional IT person but a kind of a roundabout way to get from a private sector to the public sector.

[LM] Do you notice or any different challenges in the public sector versus private?

[ET] You know, that there are there's a lot of similarities. One, the people are the same, right? And people always asked me that, you know, what's it like to work with, but the people are, you know, very passionate about their work, just like in private sector, they're very capable people. I think that the biggest difference is that we're all constrained with some of the policies and, and procedures, right, I think there's things that we would all like to do, but you know, the rules, right? For instance, the A-87 rule that I have to go by where I when we sell products and make sure that, you know, we can't have more than three months in reserve and things like that. It takes a little while to get used to the nonprofit mode of public, right? And so, and a little bit more of a slower pace, which I think government is meant to be slowed down a little bit, which is probably a good thing. But I'm used to things moving faster. But it's not because of the people. The people are ready to move faster. It's because of the way we're structured; we're not allowed to move faster, and I think that's the only difference.

[LM] Okay.

[DM] Good points. Okay, I’m next, next question. One thing we've all heard about recently, is the new plan for computer equipment. Can you walk us through how the new plan works?

[ET] Yes. One thing that we learned with consolidation was the natural impulse for agency leaders, especially those that are in the smaller agencies, and maybe their funding isn't as appropriate as they would like it to be; where do they cut costs where they cut costs on equipment. Because we do that at home, right? You have a computer and you say the last one more year? Well, it best practices, you replace the laptop, every four years, you replace a desktop every five years. And there's a reason for that there's a lot of studies that are done. You lose security, with an older workstation, efficiency is lost, the speed of them, they're always getting faster and better. And we can update them on a newer PC much easier. So one of the reasons is, if we [OCIO] own the PC, and you are leasing from us will make sure that you're always up to date that you're always at best practice. And those best practices that are laid out industry wide. The second thing that we can do with that is; it actually became an issue when insurance, for instance, when they had their fire and they had to move to another location well, because of the bureaucracy we just talked about. And the A-87 set rules, I can't subsidize another agency with someone else's equipment. So if I own the equipment, I'm not subsidizing anyone. So in other words, if I had an employee that left DAS after one year where they still have three years on their laptop, under the old way we did it with DAS owning it, I can only give that laptop to another DAS employee. Because if I gave it to an HHS employee to get federal funding, I just subsidized. I'm not allowed to do that.

But if I own and I charge everyone equally, I will never get into an issue of subsidizing an agency that gets already government subsidies.

[DM] Great information to know.

[ET] A lot of times, and good, I appreciate the question. Because a lot of people think, what are they trying to do? Right? We're trying to really make sure that you're up to date. And second of all, allow us that flexibility to get and I can take a laptop from one agency and give it to another and we're much more efficient that way.

[LM] I would have never thought of that as one of the driving reasons for it but it makes perfect sense now.

[ET] Right? HHS is 90/10 funded in some cases, and in others 65/35. So if they bought a laptop the federal government paid 65% of that laptop, then I go and give it to you. You're not federally funded, well, I just subsidized. I just took federal money and gave to an agency they shouldn't give them.

[DM] You can't do that.

[LM] Thank you for explaining.

[ET] Yeah. See, there's always a reason behind it. Unfortunately, a lot of times we don't get the message out very well.

[DM] Well, we'll do that today.

[ET] That was a great question.

[KA] All right, next question. Earlier this year, you were named by Gov Tech as one of the top 25 Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers of 2018. And a big, big congratulations from the training team. That's amazing.

[ET] Thank you.

[KA] Yeah. So what would you say are some of the factors that led up to you receiving this honor?

[ET] I think a lot of things happen in 2018, that kind of came together for us as a state consolidation was finished up in 2018. As far as the three phases, the we centralize the network, we centralized, all the servers are moved into our two data centers. And we now have the service centers, the eight service centers across the state to do desktop support, which has really improved our efficiencies and our service levels. So that definitely helped. And then I think at the same time, the officer the CIO, was recognized by the National Association of State CIOs for that project, because that was the number one technology enterprise technology project of the year. And we have our trophy sitting in our office there. So we got a national award from my peers, my peers actually vote on what was the most impactful thing done technology project done in all the states. And so we got that award.

[ET] And then I do a lot of, and I'll put a plug in for my blog. I write a blog every month, some of you might be on the distribution list for that. I have a pretty big following, actually outside of the state. But I'm the top 30 public, and state CIO, the top 30 state and city blogs for the last four years. So 2015, 16, 17, and 18. I am one of the top, the top blogs. If you just type in Ed Toner CIO blog, it’ll take you right to it. And I talked about everything I talk about the things we you know, that we just talked about today, a lot of the different things that we're doing and why we're doing them. And so it's actually; I was just at a meeting with CIOs and the CIOs all signed up, and they all read it across all states. Because I give my opinion on everything. That's the way to get noticed. That was just it. It was a big year. And I hope that 2019 is a big year.

[KA] Sounds like you need to do a podcast.

[ET] Definitely look up my blog, pretty entertaining, and some more about me. And you learn about what we're doing and why we're doing it. And it was meant to really allow the people within New CIO to understand how I'm thinking about things, they understand why doing things, why am I asking that we do these projects, and then it it just evolved into? We post our metrics out there so the state can see it. It's an external facing site. And then I just found out that now CIOs are reading it and their their big blog followers too, because a lot of times I say things that they're thinking.

[RP] All right, in terms of training and professional development opportunities, what would you say is the greatest need for teammates in your agency?

[ET] Well, I think the leadership program, and I'm not just saying it, because I'm in a group that does this leadership. I say it, because my team really does get a lot of pride out of that they've had me take their pictures with and things like that. So they're very proud of their accomplishment. And so anytime that they can get an opportunity to learn to be a better leader, or prepare themselves to be a leader, I think that's a fantastic thing. Because normally, IT folks are a little introverted, and they don't like to lead. So those few that do like to lead, they need that class, right, because they need to be prepared for what they're getting into. In some cases, they may decide from that class that they don't want to be a leader, right, they don't want to be a manager. That hasn't happened, everyone's come out of it has been more dedicated to that. I think the other type is sort of the non-traditional IT training that we need. They also need their subject matter expertise, right. So if they're in network, we always make sure they get their training and networking. Server Admin, they do that. And then they all really learn a best practices that are really shared by in the private sector more than the public insect fact, like even the food sector, we didn't have this. But there's different levels of certification, what's called ITIL, and it is Information Technology Infrastructure Library, which sounds like when does that and that's what I even say today.

[ET] But what it is, is it's really just a set of best practices for it. And it's tells us okay, this is the best practice is kind of like what I said, the best practice is to refresh your your PCs in a certain manner. Well, this sets out those best practices, and you can actually get certified at different levels of it. So there's developmental foundations. So it's the foundation level, this is okay, this is the basics that you need to know. And then there's another phase, where it's like change management. And it doesn't mean like organizational change management is more like how do you make changes in the IT world and not have all your customers have an outage? Right? Best Practices. Appreciate those.

[ET] And so my team is really starting to online with Lynda.com (LinkedIn Learning), you have all of those levels of training in that offering. And so our teams go through there, and a lot of folks are assigned those two, were the different levels of best practices. Right? Now, we're probably one of the few professions that actually have best practices laid out for us, and they change them every year, they get updated for the newest technologies.

[MB] So kind of along the lines of training, what's your most memorable learning experience?

[ET] You know, I just talked about my blog, and you can read, you can read this one in a blog. And it was a blog on leadership. And I actually do speeches around the country on leadership. Now. I've been asked at a lot of summits and things to talk about transformational leadership, because that's really what we did here with the, with the consolidation. And I always start off by talking about just leadership in general. And I always talk about there's, there's transactional leadership, which a lot of people are transactional. So in other words, as a leader, you just do the job, right? You react, that's a transactional, and then there's transformational leaders.

[ET] And I really put myself more in the transformational because I always looking to change what we're doing. And there's no way to make better change, then for people to really respect you for what you do. Right? I always tell people, your title is the last thing that people should know about you. Right? They should respect you for what you do, your knowledge, or how you treat them, things like that, at the very end, if they find out that you're the CIO, then that's fine. But other than that, they should already have a respect for you. And so my best learning experience was exactly that.

[ET] I was 21 years old, when I graduated from college, went to work for an HVAC company. And as an industrial engineer, industrial engineer to process improvement and we do layout plant layouts we do. We try to, to redesign our products for to be more cost effective when we build them things of that sort. And so I did a lot of plant redesigns and a lot of putting in automation and things of that sort. And my first week there, my boss came in and said, oh, by the way, that the latest hire, as far as the engineers, the last one in always gets to manage the maintenance team. Okay, maintenance for a huge plant. This is you know, I've never done that before. And I'm sitting there thinking, Okay, well, this would be a challenge to do. It really is an engineer. I didn't think I was going to be a leadership position for years, right? You work your way up. And I'm 21.

And a guy comes in, named John, and he sits down. And he's like, the roughest looking guy I've ever seen. And he's smoking a cigarette, and he uses my cup of coffee for his ashtray. And I thought, who is this guy? And he turned out he was my foreman, maintenance foreman that was coming in to meet me. Well, I didn't know that really was training. And I sat there. And he looked at me and he says, (he said something else) (laughter) But he said, you know, I've got tools that are older than you. And I looked at him and I said, Yeah, you probably do. And he says, you know, come on out. Do you want to meet the team? I said, Sure. I'm meeting about 18 people at the time. And so I walked in and on the way there, it was a union shop, and on the way there he says, you understanding union rules.

I’ve only been there three days. I never thought I had to worry about the union because I didn't think I was managing people I didn't you know, there's not I'm not really familiar with the new rules at all. My boss wasn't a really good didn't really prepare before. And he says, well, there's a rule you need to know before you meet your team. And I said, What is it?

And he goes, the punishment for striking your boss is three days off without pay. For the first offense, the second one, it's a firing offense, first one three days off your boss or anyone else. But he made sure that I understood, that I understood, boss [is] me. And I said, Really? And essentially, I said, Well, how many of them have had their first strike? And he said, Well, that's the thing. None of them had their first strike. And they all like to fish. (Laughter)

[ET] And I thought, Okay, well that's, that's a really good lesson to learn. So probably the best lesson I learned is, don't make a mad enough that they're going to hit you because they'll go fishing. So I was required, this was back in the days before it gets labor walls. But I would work Monday through Friday as my engineer as an engineer and managing them. And then I was required to come in and put in at least four hours every Saturday. And they didn't care what I did. I didn't understand that rule. I still don't understand it today. But I get all my work during the week. And of course, on Saturday, I'd come in like I was supposed to, but then I would go out and do maintenance chores with my maintenance team. So I sat there with them every day, and I will did with them. And I did all the things that because I could come in on Saturday and my jeans and they didn't have to wear my tie and all that. And so I worked with and I worked right next to him every Saturday and they knew that you know, and that's where you kind of gain respect of Okay, I'll do that. I'll do the work. And then I'll understand you all crawl inside of that cooling tower with you. And will you know, acid wash, it will do all those things. And then when I asked you to do it, you know, I've done it with you. Right?

[ET] And so that was my best experience was to have these really rough guys. That told me exactly what they thought. And they taught me to be a better leader. You know, because I really did learn from them about how to how to manage different people and how to gain their respect. And yeah, it was it was a great learning experience and some of the stories, yeah, when we have more time I can tell you the whole story.

[LM] Okay, well, we have one more question for you.

[ET] I'm having fun.

[LM] It's always surprising how quickly the time goes. Last question here, tell us something about you, we may be surprised to learn.

[ET] Probably being from Texas isn't going to be a surprise for anybody. But I think a lot of people don't realize I'm an Army brat. And so I lived all over the world. And I actually didn't come back to the United States. I spent my entire Middle School in Germany. So I went to fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. Because that was the longest time I'd ever been stationed anywhere. And it was in Hanau, Germany. And we didn't have TV. So I should have been reading Marvel Comics, but I didn't. I learned to read books. And so it probably was the best thing ever, was to live for years without a TV. Because I ended up having to entertain myself with reading and things of that sort. And so I came back to the United States for high school and before Germany was we're in Alaska, before Alaska, we're in Washington, DC before DC we were in Colorado Springs for Colorado Springs. We're in Seattle, Washington. So we moved a lot as a kid. And so the really interesting part of the story is that I lived in Hanau, Germany.

[ET] And when I did my work for First Data, and developers in England, I also had to visit the data center in Germany. Well, in my first visit to the data center in Germany, and I was doing so much trial and really didn't pay attention. But when I got to the town of Bad Bevil I walked in and talk to the security guard and said, Hey, have you ever heard of Hanau? He goes, Yeah, it's just down the road. It's two or three miles down the road. So I thought, well, Hanau, I was where I spent four years of my life. So I thought, well, I'm gonna take an afternoon and go to hang out and find my old house. Well, I couldn't find my house. So I called up my 80 some year old dad. And I said, Hey, and he had no idea I was even in Europe, I’m in Hanau, Germany and I'm lost, I can't find our house. (Laughter)

[ET] And he acted like he knew. He said, Tell me the two streets; the intersection where you’re at. I told him and he directed me directly to our house that we used to live in. So that was, that was kind of so that's kind of funny, because, you know, I never expected to ever see that house ever again as an Army brat. But to have to visit that area for my work was pretty interesting.

[LM] Was it like you remembered?

[ET] You know, it was it was we had some pics, I took some more pictures and brought them to my dad so he could see them. And they shut down the post there but the homes were still there, they're renovating them making them into apartments. And the middle school was already converted into a school for mentally disabled. Because I was standing there taking pictures and one of the teachers came out I think she thought, what is he doing? You know? I had to explain to a real quick, I was there. I had gone to school there for four years. And so she was really nice and asked me if I wanted to tour it. Everything was very nice.

[DM] Did you get a tour of it?

[ET] Yeah. It was much smaller than I thought it was. Yeah, I got there. I thought I thought that was a big school. And then it was pretty small room.

[LM] That's cool. Anybody have anything else you want to ask Ed? Anything else you want to tell us?

[MB] How did you get to Texas after all of that?

[ET] My father's last tour of duty was for Texas. And so and then I have an accent because everyone in the Army is from south. That's kind of funny because my dad's from Michigan. My mother's from California. And when I was growing up, my grandparents would say, give the phone your mom or dad, I'm tired of listening to your accent.

Best friends. And that's another really strange coincidence. My best friends were two Texans, one from Mineral Wells, Texas and one from Baytown. And both of them born and raised Texans. Their dads were Texas Aggies. And I when I ended up going to Texas A&M myself, they were both there.

And I hadn't seen anything since middle school. Yeah. So we found each other. And you know, so I ended up I'd always known about Texas Aggies growing up because they were always around in the Army especially. And so I end up being one myself. So the accent I had before I even moved to Texas. And it's nowhere near what it was. My parents even say that I have lost most of my accent but that it comes back like within a few weeks.

[DM] Yeah, we haven't heard a y'all.

[ET] See, there’s two y'alls. So like, this is y'all. But if I'm in a meeting, a big talk, it's all y’all. And like in TV, no matter what they say, we never say to one person, y'all. It's got to be at least two Texans you're talking about right? Yo and you would say y’all, you’d say hey, you! So, but my dad's from Michigan, so he says you’ns. My mom’s from California so she just she says whatever.

[DM] Where at in California?

[ET] She was born raised in Sacramento, California.

[LM] Dovi’s from California

[DM] San Diego/Las Angeles area. Yeah.

[ET] Her family. Weird. I didn't know there was a business that did this. But they made lampshades for a living. That was her family business was lampshades. And they ran for Hearst Castle. That was the big one. They would have to do a room at a time. And then when they got done they had to start all over again. Because the shades we get old, you know, old and they want to keep them up.

[DM] Yeah, yeah. Great tour.

[ET] Yeah. Great business, lampshade. Yeah, there's a job there for everybody. Yeah.