Date: December 18, 2003

Presenter: Steve Schafer

Affiliation: State of Nebraska

The speaker for this meeting was Steve Schafer, CIO for the State of Nebraska. Mr. Schafer was appointed in April 1999 by Gov Johanns. Nebraska received national notoriety for the leadership in the state government prepardness for Y2K upgrades. In addition to the many duties of a State of Nebraska's CIO, Mr. Schafer leads the Nebraska Information Technology Commision, which sets IT guidelines for state-wide uses of technology and the impact on economic development. This is an excellent speaker to complete the year.

The following describes some of these efforts: Nebraska hitches technology to policy .

Steve Schafer has since October presided over Nebraska's centralized information technology services as acting chief information officer. A Nebraska native, Schafer graduated from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln in 1973 with a bachelor's degree in political science. In 1977, he earned a master's degree in public affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. For 15 years, he worked in the governor's budget office. Since 1993, Schafer has been the administrator of the Intergovernmental Data Services Division, a statewide computer network that links state and county governments.

Synopsis of the Presentation: The Nebraska Legislature created the Nebraska Information Technology Commission and the position of CIO in 1998. This reflected both a concern about spending and management of information technology and a desire to position the state for the future. What progress is being made? What are some of the important technology issues that the NITC is addressing in all sectors of the state?

With permission of the the presenter, the Statewide Network and Other Technology Initiatives presentation has been provided for the ITC as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. To read this file, you will need to download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.