Portsmouth hires Patricia Ainsworth as chief information officer
PORTSMOUTH — City Manager Karen Conard has announced she has selected Patricia Ainsworth, with more than 32 years’ experience in IT and systems technology, as the city’s first chief information officer. Ainsworth’s starting date is Oct. 11.
Ainsworth comes to the city after eight years at Salem State University, most recently as chief information officer/chief information security officer. She began her career with Verizon and spent over a decade there, including as the Alpha IV technical training program director and account executive serving educational institutions and municipal governments including the cities of Dover and Manchester. She then spent five years with the University of Vermont, first as director of network services and telecommunications and then as enterprise resource planning project director, leading a team of 30 staff and 25 consultants to implement the $32 million PeopleSoft program. In her subsequent two years as at Mount Wachusett Community College she successfully transitioned the IT department from an outsourced to an in-house model designed to utilize college resources more effectively, according to Conard's announcement.
She is a resident of Eliot, Maine.
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In making the announcement Conard said, “The mission of our city government is ‘to serve the residents, officials and departments with financial accountability, timely reporting of financial results, prudent cash management, effective public communication and information technology, by applying high standards of accountability and professionalism in all of the various department functions.’ As the city stands up our new, in-house information technology department, it is critical that we have a CIO with specific practical experience in shaping our technology infrastructure to meet the needs of citizens and the staff responsible for serving them. .. I am delighted that Patricia Ainsworth is joining the team to lead our transition to a more efficient, more transparent and more cost-effective and secure information network.”
Ainsworth provided a prepared statement: “I am excited about the opportunity to guide the city of Portsmouth as we move into a more robust information technology capability by bringing key IT functions in-house. As a strategic thinker and planner, I have developed multi-year IT strategic plans which align with and support the organization as a whole. As with my most recent assignments for institutions of higher education, the city of Portsmouth government is an environment where collaboration and consensus-building with department heads, and the ability to explain technical issues to nontechnical executives, are critical for success.”
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Portsmouth hires Patricia Ainsworth as chief information officer
