The City of Allen has named Eric Matthews to serve as the next Information Technology Director beginning Dec. 12. Matthews comes from the City of Richardson as the Deputy Chief Information Officer since 2007. He has 20 years in both the public and private sector as a consultant and leader of collaborative, innovative, and cross-functional technology solutions.
Matthews said, “I’m excited for the opportunity to bring my experience in building collaboration and cross functional teams to enhance operational efficiencies and deliver creative I.T. solutions that benefit both staff and customers.”
While in Richardson, Matthews facilitated the development of a custom 311 service request system to manage citizen requests, service routing to departments, and pushing status updates back to requestors. A mobile version of the system and citizen app was later developed in collaboration with the various departments. He also worked to integrate health inspection scores with Yelp! to provide transparency and city data where customers could best find it. Matthews experience includes developing software solutions for nearly every city department.
City Manager Peter Vargas said, “Aside from his extensive experience, we selected Eric because of his demonstrated ability in communication, collaboration, and team-building that fosters an environment to create cost-effective technology solutions that benefit both internal operations and service delivery to our residents. He understands the role we have as stewards of taxpayer dollars and how to best implement proven technologies.”
Matthews’ experience includes consulting positions with Workflow Studios, Whittman-Hart, Deloitte Consulting/DRT Systems, and Interliant. He started with the City of Richardson in 2004 as the Manager of Application Development and Systems Programmer. He has a Master of Public Affairs from The University of Texas at Dallas.
In addition, Matthews is a Regional Team Lead for the Texas Association of Government I.T. Managers and a member of the Urban Management Assistants of North Texas.