2024 Awards
IT Professional of the Year
Awarded to: Sarah Campbell - State of Michigan
An IT Training Analyst for the Client Service Center at the State of Michigan. Sarah has successfully trained 50 new hires for the State of Michigan's largest IT help desk, in just the last year. She did so while reducing the time to train a new hire by 25%, with no degradation in training standards. In addition to streamlining the training process, Sarah also created a scorecard for trainers as well as revamping the training assessment program. This allows the CSC to effectively gauge agent progress while assessing trainers’ effectiveness. These enhancements enable the CSC to effectively monitor both agent progress and trainer performance. All the new hire classes have provided feedback after completing their training, and they have consistently praised the new hire process as the best they have experienced. Recognizing the importance of engagement in adult learning, Sarah introduced gamification to the training process. This initiative has resulted in more interactive and engaging sessions, enhancing information retention among new hires. In addition, she redesigned the CSC's weekly staff meetings to be more impactful, using these sessions to present training and performance metrics directly to the entire team. All changes have been introduced while she also plans and schedules training for these meetings. Along with all other training responsibilities, Sarah jumped at the opportunity to spearhead the CSCs conversion to a new call center platform. This process will completely change the way the CSC conducts daily operations. She submersed herself into being the subject matter expert by created a training program for the entire CSC. She meticulously worked with her team of trainers to go step-by-step through every aspect of the new platform. By doing this Sarah was able to outline every action required in the new system, allowing her to identify and resolve potential issues before the system's launch. Her hard work and preparation ensured that over 100 staff members, in a multitude of different roles, were trained and familiar with the system before implementing the new process. Sarah was also crucial in the HDI call center recertification process, achieving a perfect score from the auditor in Skill Assessment and IT Training Plans. Her oversight on the Quality Management section earned the State of Michigan CSC a perfect score in that area, helping to gain recertification for a third consecutive cycle. She collected and analyzed data for our Quality Rewards and Recognition program, ensuring that agents are rewarded for the excellent work that they do. Sarah Campbell has been exemplary in her role as the Training Analyst in the CSC ensuring Customer Satisfaction is over 97%. Her dedication and skill are unmatched. She has become the gauge in which all training is measured.
IT Rookie of the Year
Awarded to: Tate Swan
Tate is a member of the Michigan Department of Management & Budget Client Service Center. Tate Swan has demonstrated exceptional skill, dedication, and a remarkable balance of technical brilliance and customer service excellence. Tate has always shown an admiration for technology, beginning his career path as a student intern in computer networking and servers at Calhoun Christian Schools. His commitment to expanding his technical knowledge continued through a two-year hands-on course at the Calhoun Area Career Center, where he focused on cybersecurity, software, and hardware support. Following his high school graduation, Tate embarked on a professional journey with TEK Systems and secured a job with the CSC as a contractor. Only a year later his exceptional performance earned him a full-time position as a State of Michigan employee. Despite having only minimal prior experience in customer service roles at Walmart and Kentucky Fried Chicken, Tate’s dedication to merging his technical knowledge with a customer-centric approach has significantly contributed to the success of the Client Service Center. During the past year and a half Tate has actively improved the CSC through his volunteer efforts and willingness to go above and beyond his standard responsibilities. Tate’s performance in the Client Service Center has been nothing short of extraordinary. He has been named Agent of the Week three times, showcasing his consistently high performance and dedication. In both 2023 and 2024 (so far), he has been the top contender in receiving the most positive feedback and messages from clients. Additionally, he achieved Employee of the Month three times in 2023, as well as earning the highest honor of being named the CSC Employee of the Year for 2023. Notably, he was selected for cross-training in MiCJIN, our 24/7 helpdesk that supports all Michigan State Police. Through this certification he stepped up to support customers requiring MiCJIN assistance, demonstrating a commendable level of adaptability and a commitment to meeting the needs of our clients. These accolades underscore his exceptional work ethic and the high regard in which he is held by both clients and colleagues alike. Tate Swan embodies the qualities of an outstanding rookie through his dedication, technical prowess, and commitment to customer service. His rapid ascent from a newcomer to a leading performer in the DTMB Client Service Center is a testament to his hard work and talent.
IT Project of the Year - Citizen Impact
Level 2 Project - Tulip Time Eats - Awarded to: City of Holland
Level 2 organizations have IT budgets ranging between $250,000 - $999,999.
The City of Holland’s Tulip Time brings many tourists to come and enjoy the tulips every year. It also brings some amazing food trucks with people always asking where they can get a certain product from the food trucks or want to compare prices before they venture out. City of Holland’s GIS Specialist, Alex Ebenstein, worked within his ESRI platform and marked out the locations with pictures of menus/prices for each food truck vendor and plotted them on an interactive website. The website URLs Tuliptimeeats.cityofholland.com or tuliptimeeats.com were created for public access. There were a lot of positive responses from the public on the City of Holland’s social media pages after the tool was launched. City of Holland plans to continue to offer this website moving forward, going out each year to confirm locations and menus/prices and updating accordingly.
Level 3 Project - Historic Park Audio/Visual Improvements - Awarded to: City of Westland
Level 3 organizations have an IT budget ranging between $1M and $2.99M.
This project had a huge impact on the City of Westland’s residents. The Historical Park Commission Chair wanted to increase their programming at the City of Westland Historical Park. After some discussions between the Historical Park Chair and City of Westland IT Director, Craig Brown, it was decided that monitors for streaming video in one of the buildings was a great idea, however, the Historical Park Commission had a limited budget. The city IT Department had a couple of networkable monitors available, as spares in storage, and donated them to the Commission. The City of Westland IT was able to set up a couple of 60” monitors in multiple buildings that have the ability to be networked, with a signage player that the city made available, or have video running from a presentation device or USB stick. This donation allowed the City of Westland to provide the Historical Park Commission a number of new and interesting ways to provide educational and entertaining information for residents that visit the Historical Park. It also provided them additional opportunity to bring in outside speakers who can utilize these monitors for presentations in the various buildings when previously they would have to use a projector and folding screen. The collaboration between the City of Westland IT and Historic Park Commission, to utilize repurposed monitors for their needs, to improve their facilities and the experiences of their visitors was a win-win for everyone.
Level 4 Project - Michigan Clean Slate - Awarded to: State of Michigan
Level 4 Organizations have an IT budget greater than $3M
Success and Measures Automatic Set Asides in support of the Michigan Clean Slate legislation went live, on-schedule on April 11th 2023. On day one: • 1,077,788 Misdemeanor convictions were Set Aside • 105,078 Felony convictions were Set Aside The resulted in the following impacts for Michigan citizens: • 842,593 distinct citizens benefited with at least one conviction Set Aside • 252,417 citizens were conviction-free on their Criminal History Record While these numbers are impressive, the ongoing impact adds even more value to the hard work and dedication of the project teams and their respective State of Michigan departments. The following results are the daily averages: • 2,504 Misdemeanor convictions Set Aside • 102 Felony convictions were Set Aside • 314 distinct citizens benefit with at least one conviction Set Aside • 177 citizens become conviction-free on their Criminal History Record These benefits to Michigan citizens occur largely without any effort by MSP staff members. This use of technology to perform the heavy lift, allows MSP staff members to focus their efforts on other tasks enabling them to further focus on the Mission of the MSP, “Provide the highest quality law enforcement and public safety services throughout Michigan.” (Mission Statement (michigan.gov)). Driving for Success The technical teams along with Subject Matter Experts for MSP Criminal History identified and performed extensive situational testing of the appropriate logic for the rules engine. With each additional round of testing, the project team was able to ensure the system would operate as intended. However, one challenge arose upon the extended project teams. To perform the automated Set Asides under the Clean Slate legislation, data from MDOC’s offender management systems is required. When intending to perform testing within the non-production environments for both MSP systems and MDOC systems, it became clear quickly that the data would not match for testing as each department had very different methods and schedules for the grooming and use of testing data in the non-production environments. This precluded full testing in these non-production environments. Another challenge identified highlighted that the legacy MDOC systems did not restrict manual data entry to match the expected format. While identified in the final months of testing prior to April 2023, MDOC business team members were able to work through their existing process and execute the necessary data fixes across thousands of records over the entire history of their information system datasets with long-lasting retention schedules. The technical teams came together to collaboratively identify a technical architecture and integrations across systems and IT divisions. Their partnership built web services which can be called upon as needed to exchange data. In the recent past, these integrations leveraged legacy integration methods operating in batch jobs.
IT Project of the Year - Organizational Impact
Level 2 Project - Passwordless Authentication - Awarded to: City of Southgate
Level 2 organizations have IT budgets ranging between $250,000 - $999,999.
This year’s winner is the City of Southgate for their Cyber Security Posture Enhancement. IT Director, Jason Rucker, undertook a comprehensive initiative to migrate the city’s computer systems and email infrastructure to a passwordless authentication model using Yubico's YubiKey (FIPS series with NFC) for Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) with Certificate-Based Authentication (CBA). The primary purpose of this project is to significantly enhance the cybersecurity posture and ensure robust protection of sensitive city data. The shift to passwordless authentication mitigates the risks associated with password breaches, phishing attacks, and other forms of cyber threats. By leveraging YubiKey's hardware security keys, we have implemented a highly secure and user-friendly authentication method that offers superior protection compared to traditional password-based systems. Our adoption of Certificate-Based Authentication (CBA) further strengthens our security framework. CBA ensures that only authorized personnel can access our systems and sensitive information, thereby significantly reducing the risk of unauthorized access. This method aligns with and exceeds the compliance requirements set forth by the FBI Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), ensuring that the City of Southgate remains at the forefront of cybersecurity best practices. Yubico believes that this cyber project falls in the top 1% of the entire nation's public sector using this method of MFA combined with CBA. This recognition underscores the exceptional nature of the project and its effectiveness in safeguarding digital assets. This project not only safeguards the City of Southgate’s digital assets but also sets a precedent for other municipalities looking to enhance their cybersecurity measures. It exemplifies innovation, foresight, and a commitment to excellence in protecting public sector information.
In addition, Jason Rucker received the State of Michigan Good Government Award (Symbol) of Excellence for his work on this cyber security project and spearheading the industry towards zero trust methodology.
Level 3 Project - Network Refresh - Awarded to: City of Battle Creek
Level 3 organizations have an IT budget ranging between $1M and $2.99M.
Annually the City of Battle Creek’s IT Department goal is to refresh network equipment older than 10 years, from manufacture date, in order to maintain a product lifecycle that doesn’t result in unexpected outages or technical debt, according to Mike Nofs, Network Operations Manager. This also increases their security posture by insuring equipment is actively supported with updates. During the 2024 Fiscal Year (July 2023-June 2024) three firewalls, thirteen switches, and nine wireless access points were replaced. During this refresh cycle, the city also consolidated their Cisco IOS versions down from twelve disparate versions to five versions across the entire organization. This keeps known vulnerabilities from being exploited while also keeping administration simpler for the network technicians. Near the end of this project, there was a known vulnerability published for the Cisco IOS XE framework. Using the documentation created, City of Battle Creek IT was able to pinpoint the affected networking hardware and apply a patch to each of them in under 4 weeks. Addressing this situation so quickly showed that keeping documentation up to date was a huge benefit and will provide a more efficient process in the future. With the three firewall upgrades, city IT is now able to securely connect to remote locations from already established private networks and centrally route and administrate traffic. Remote locations include previously inaccessible traffic intersections, a golf course, and other planned City of Battle Creek resources. Future expansion will include additional traffic intersections and SCADA elements such as well heads, lift stations, water towers, and the like.
Level 4 Project - Workday ERP Implementation - Awarded to: Great Lakes Water Authority
Level 4 Organizations have an IT budget greater than $3M
In FY 2020 GLWA embarked on a transformative journey to modernize its Finance and HR systems, replacing 5 legacy systems with an ERP. After careful evaluation, GLWA chose Workday, which has revolutionized our financial, HR, performance, time keeping and training capabilities. The completion of the implementation this year (April 2022 through July 2024) enabled the automation of tasks and workflows through the adoption of industry best practices, standardizing the way we do business. Cloud enabled information is now available on mobile devices, facilitating prompt action, improved communication, and compliance to corporate policies. This effort was nearly two years in the planning, with the actual implementation taking two plus years. More than 100 people contributed to the project’s success, working under the guidance of team leaders within each impacted Area, Group and Team to not only implement the new solution but also streamline the way we work today. Improved workflow transparency makes previously cumbersome tasks easy for managers. Examples include finding the status of a new hire, understanding what team members have completed mandatory training, and approving requisitions or invoices. Teams worked collaboratively to test their processes in Workday, creating and executing test cases that supported downstream teams to complete tasks and create sufficient data to thoroughly test business rules. The teams were exposed to test case creation through the use of a new tool, Jira, to store, update and track test case progress. While testing was relatively easy for the HR modules, the financial module testing needs proved unexpectedly complex, causing a concern that the project might be delayed. To keep the project on track, strong executive sponsorship was exercised to bring teams together for in-person testing twice a week, which proved effective and brought the project back on schedule. The teams identified potential challenges and developed innovative solutions, performing rigorous system and user acceptance testing to ensure the highest data integrity and system performance. The project manager expertly kept everyone aware of test needs, reported progress to GLWA leadership, and planned for upcoming tasks in an ever-changing schedule, which he optimized daily. The organizational response to the new ERP system has been and continues to be overwhelmingly positive.