AMS lures Washington's Kolodney

Washington state's chief information officer, Steve Kolodney, is joining American Management Systems Inc. to lead the information technology consulting firm's public-sector e-government initiatives.

Kolodney has been CIO for Washington since 1995, with a brief excursion into the private sector in 1999.

Under his leadership, the Washington Department of Information Services (www.wa.gov/dis) received much acclaim, including the National Association of State Information Resource Executives' Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Information Technology award and the Progress and Freedom Foundation's Digital State award for 2000.

Kolodney's department also received civic.com's State and Local 50 award in 2000 for developing Access Washington (access.wa.gov), the state's portal.

Craig Lewis, vice president of marketing and market solutions for AMS' State and Local Solutions Group, on Tuesday praised the addition of Kolodney.

"If you're familiar with what we do, with our history, then you'll see this addition is about what we do, which is ultimately [bringing] the legitimate delivery of IT systems to citizens," Lewis said. "It makes great sense for Steve to complement us with his practical experience in the public IT sector."

Last summer, Washington became the first state to join AMS' buysense, an online marketplace that enables employees to search electronic catalogs and place orders for goods and services.

Kolodney briefly left his state post in 1999 to pursue a private-sector career in Sacramento, Calif., and to be with family. But he was back at the state in a matter of months, saying he missed working in state government.

Kolodney, who could not be reached for this report, is the second prominent figure in e-government to join AMS in about a week. John LaFaver, the former director of the Treasury Department's International Tax Advisory System and the former head of the Kansas Department of Revenue, is becoming vice president of AMS' State and Local Solutions Group.

Virginia-based AMS is a $1.28 billion firm that works with 43 state governments and most federal agencies. Its 2000 public-sector revenues were quoted as $680.8 million.