Vermont realigns management to overhaul telecom infrastructure

Vermont’s Chief Recovery Officer will be the state’s new Chief Technology Officer, while current CIO Tom Murray moves to the state’s telecommunications authority, Governor Jim Douglas announced yesterday.

Tom Evslin, a long-time public service employee who served as Vermont Transportation Secretary under Governor Richard Snelling in 1981, will be the state’s new CTO where he’ll tackle a number of telecom initiatives and formulate policy on health IT, smart grid and e-governance. Mr. Evslin has a background in telecommunications and software, successfully starting and selling companies to Microsoft and Indian firm Tata.

“Tom Evslin’s background as both a successful high tech entrepreneur and former Vermont Transportation Secretary made it possible for him to jump into the stimulus role quickly when we asked him to,” Gov. Douglas said in a statement. “Now I’m asking Tom to pursue many of the same goals in a new role. I’m confident he’ll get the job done again.”

Gov. Douglas is looking at Evslin to spearhead an ambitious plan to overhaul the state’s telecom infrastructure by extending broadband internet to all corners of the state, and by coordinating the state’s own computing and Web services, ConnectVermont.

“I believe that Vermont’s economic and even social future depends on a world-class communication infrastructure; many of the elements to achieve that are already in place,” Mr. Evslin said. “Now our challenge is to quickly bring service to every residence, business, and road. I’m excited about this new assignment.”

Current Vermont CIO and Commissioner of the Department of Information and Innovation, Tom Murray, will move to the Vermont Telecommunications Authority (VTA) as the Executive Director where he’ll coordinate with Evslin and other Douglas administration officials to improve the state’s technology standing and formulate Vermont’s next round of stimulus requests.

“This is a time of both challenge and opportunity for our critical telecom infrastructure,” Gov. Douglas said. “[But] I believe that with the appointments of Evslin and Murray we can work to improve outcomes and progress and achieve our goal of becoming the first true e-state.”

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