Administration and Finance Secretary Thomas Trimarco today named Louis Gutierrez as chief information officer of the Information Technology Division (ITD), the department that oversees information technology operations and planning for executive branch agencies. The appointment is effective on February 6, 2006.
Gutierrez will be responsible for overseeing the final stages of implementation of the state’s new Open Document format proposal, to go into effect in January 2007.
“Information technology is an important tool that helps to deliver a wide range of government services both quickly and cost effectively,” said Trimarco. “Louis Gutierrez has a distinguished record in both the private and public sectors and brings a keen understanding of information technology’s mission and its potential.”
Bethann Pepoli, who has served as the department’s acting chief information officer, will become deputy chief information officer. Gutierrez will leave his current position as chief technology strategist at the Commonwealth Medicine Division of UMass Medical School in order to accept the appointment. While at UMass Medical, Gutierrez directed a team that provided technology support during Operation Helping Hand, the state assistance effort for Hurricane Katrina evacuees who came to Massachusetts.
Prior to working at UMass Medical Gutierrez was chief information officer for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services (HHS), the largest state secretariat with 23,000 staff and more than $12 billion in annual spending. While at HHS Gutierrez led the development and implementation of the state’s Virtual Gateway, an online portal that integrated the web presence of 16 agencies into a user-friendly format that improved service delivery and reduced costs.
“The Virtual Gateway is an example of how state government computing can be transformed through the application of open standards that interoperate with many kinds of technology and vendors,” said Gutierrez. “As technology continues to evolve there remain substantial opportunities to transform services and a need to plan for the long-term future of technology-infused operations.”
A former principal at the Exeter Group, an IT strategy and integration services firm, Gutierrez has held a number of top IT positions, including chief information officer at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and deputy director for technology planning and standards for the Federal Reserve system. He is a former Commonwealth of Massachusetts chief information officer.
A graduate of Harvard College and MIT’s Sloan School of Management, Gutierrez lives in Arlington with his wife and their two daughters.
Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey today unveiled a completely re-worked guidebook for highway design, putting in place new standards that better incorporate the perspectives of cities and towns in road and bridge construction.
“We have to give cities and towns the tools that they need to become the kind of places they want to be,” said Healey. “Design direction for these critical road and bridge projects should not come from the top down. It should come from the community and the people who live there.”
The new Project Development and Design Guidebook replaces MassHighway’s Highway Design Manual and implements a host of changes that give communities more discretion over projects from conception to construction.
“Although simple in concept, this new manual will change the state’s landscape as it empowers communities all across the Commonwealth and enables smart growth for decades to come,” said Office for Commonwealth Development Secretary Douglas I. Foy.
In the past, MassHighway projects faced numerous delays resulting from disagreements with communities over the width and scope of road projects, particularly in areas with historic districts, residential settings, or environmentally sensitive areas. The new Guidebook gives cities and towns much more latitude over elements such as roadway width, design speeds, pavement types, historical context and aesthetic considerations, community input, and traffic calming.
“If we can offer a reasonable design accommodation to a community, we should do so,” said Transportation Secretary John Cogliano. “The new Guidebook standardizes a policy that has long been voiced by the Romney-Healey Administration – cities and towns should be in the driver’s seat when it comes to the projects that define their sense of community.”
The Guidebook also places strong consideration on multimodal options, emphasizing accommodations for bicyclists and pedestrians. It establishes a clear and transparent project development process that brings together a host of constituencies as the design unfolds.
“We are proud of both the process and the results of our collaboration with the Design Manual Task Force,” said MassHighway Commissioner Luisa Paiewonsky. “By listening to the opinions of many different groups and organizations, we now have a greatly improved design guidebook that we hope will become a national model.”
The impetus for the new Guidebook came from the Romney-Healey Administration’s Communities First initiative, which called for more local involvement in road and bridge design. To write the manual, a 28-member committee was established, representing a diverse array of engineering, environmental, municipal, and planning officials. The new manual took over two years to write.
A copy of the Project Development and Design Guidebook is available at www.mass.gov/mhd.
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