Texas CIO Purcell will retire

Carolyn Purcell, the only CIO Texas has had, announced she is retiring from state government at the end of this month.Purcell became the state’s first CIO when the Department of Information Resources board appointed her in 1994. Many in the federal IT community have speculated that Purcell might come to Washington to replace Mark Forman, the former Office of Management and Budget administrator for e-government and IT, who left his position last week. But Purcell said she has not had any conversations with the Bush administration and it is just a coincidence she is retiring at the same time Forman left.Over the last nine years, Purcell has initiated almost every major IT-related project for Texas. She implemented Web technologies to deliver information and services to citizens through in 1999. She led the effort to consolidate the state’s data center. She also managed the year 2000 remediation work as well as improvements to the statewide telecommunications operations, volume purchasing pricing for IT products, statewide network security and various efforts to improve the quality and price of IT projects.Before coming to Texas, Purcell held several CIO positions in the public and private sector. She holds a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Texas and a bachelor’s in English from the University of Houston. She also is a former president of the National Association for State CIOs.