Town to Hire First Chief Information Officer

This Wednesday, March 23 at 4 p.m., town officials will get a look at who might become the first Chief Information Officer for the Town of Concord. That’s the deadline for applications for this department head level position, which will report directly to the . 

This is a new position for the town, Assistant Town Manager Doug Meagher told Patch. An outside review of the Town’s information technology needs and structure resulted in the recommendation to establish it.

“The [town’s] technology grew incrementally over the last 15 years with many departments doing their otown departments, we needed to do something,” he continued noting that the , and growing Geographic Information System (GIS) function all presented different technology requirements. 

Several Massachusetts municipalities have CIOs said Meagher. “A lot of towns are going in this direction. Often, they are the same towns that have their own light plants, like Shrewsbury.”

In fact, Concord’s first IT professional, hired over 15 years ago, reported to the Director of the Concord Municipal Light Plant. The new CIO will have the closest working relationship with CMLP Director, David Wood, said Meagher, citing the synergy between an overall communication/technology strategy and the town’s new Smart Grid network.

In this context, the job description notes, “there is a very real potential that municipal services could be extended in the form of telecommunication and data services.”

Meagher expects candidates for the position to come from both the public and private sector.  He said Andover had 100 applications for a similarly advertised position recently.

“The person will be a strong leader, a strong collaborator, and to get the skills we need, we have to compensate accordingly,” said Meagher. The position will pay between $78,294 and $116,932.

 “This person will really be a leader for us in technology,” said Meagher.

 Ironically, emailed applications/resumes are not accepted.