David Holcomb, Hillsdale County IT Director -  IT Professional of the Year

David is the Director of Information Technology for the County of Hillsdale, Michigan. He serves on the MiGMIS Board as its Treasurer. 

A vendor declined to support and enhance a product that many counties rely upon for Drainage District accounting. David reached out to his peers, coordinating a project to develop a product that would be beneficial for all project participants.  The cost of development being shared among the participants.

He was able to negotiate with a vendor to develop a Drain Accounting System that will be utilized by at least 9 other counties at the onset. For Genesee County, this was one of the remaining pieces to retire a costly legacy mainframe system.

State of Michigan Cyber Partners - Awarded IT Security Project of the Year

Across the country, states have struggled for workable models to better protect their larger digital environments. Cyber Partners began with the simple philosophy of providing Michigan's counties, localities, and educational institutions with the thing most readily available and easily shared information.

Cyber Partners is a program hosted by Michigan Cyber Security, a division of the Department of Technology, Management, and Budget. It is focused on improving the security of Michigan's county, local, and educational entities through the sharing of information, best practices, and experience. The program creates a community for IT and cybersecurity officials to trade ideas and inform each other of both threats and responses to those threats. As Cyber Partners has matured, it has sought to increasingly use the tools at the State's disposal to help counties, localities, and educational organizations improve their security postures. In 2020, the organization used State of Michigan procurement processes to preapprove vendors to provide security assessment and consulting services to members of Cyber Partners. Evaluating more than thirty proposals on experience, ability to utilize the desired framework, and price competitiveness, the process aimed to provide members with a short list of qualified vendors providing a largely standardized service the community knew it desperately needed.