Nick Lucius has spent his total profession in authorities service. He has put his abilities as an legal professional and information scientist to work in a number of roles with the Metropolis of Chicago. Final 12 months, he was confirmed as town’s CIO, heading up the newly fashioned Division of Expertise and Innovation.
“I’m pleased with what we’re doing in Chicago … saving important quantities of cash by being extra environment friendly,” Lucius tells InformationWeek. “We’ve saved $6 million already in 2025, which is a big a part of our price range. However [we did] so with no discount within the supply of companies to people.”
He talks about how he constructed his profession and the way he’s aiming to extend each effectivity and entry to companies for Chicagoans.
Regulation and Pc Science
Lucius performs guitar and piano. His early profession ambitions centered on music however shifted to politics and authorities. Throughout his undergraduate years at Ohio State College, he labored for the Ohio Statehouse.
“I used to be simply actually within the energy of the justice system and the way simply how a lot having an advocate can actually make a distinction in that,” Lucius shares.
That curiosity led him to regulation college. He attended DePaul College, a alternative that was pushed by its location. “Chicago, I selected for town. I completely love town,” he recollects.
Lucius earned joint levels in regulation and pc science. His authentic intention was to pursue patent regulation with an curiosity in expertise points.
Nick Lucius
Whereas his profession took a distinct path, his abilities in pc science and regulation have served him properly. “If I realized something within the regulation, it was that having somebody articulating as an advocate on behalf of a trigger can achieve this a lot to maneuver us towards progress,” he says.
Armed with the power to form a story and champion a trigger, Lucius has seen how expertise can breathe life into these visions.
“On the expertise aspect, I can then construct and say, ‘OK, now we’re going to implement a system … We’re going to create one thing. We’re going to place one thing on the market that wasn’t on the market earlier than to maneuver this trigger ahead,’” he says.
A Profession in Authorities
Lucius had these plans for patent regulation, however he graduated across the time of the Nice Recession that started in 2007. Regulation companies weren’t hiring. However, because it seems, the Metropolis of Chicago was. He obtained his begin as assistant company counsel within the metropolis’s Division of Regulation, specializing in foreclosures and deserted buildings.
“As quickly as I began doing that, I forgot about all the things I went to highschool for, and I spent about 10 years in litigation making an attempt to assist out the individuals of Chicago,” he says.
In spite of everything these years of litigation, Lucius’s curiosity in expertise started to resurface. “I additionally observed that in my authorized instances I needed to do plenty of digging into metropolis information techniques and metropolis expertise techniques with a view to get my proof,” he recollects.
He noticed how modernizing metropolis techniques and connecting these techniques throughout departments may make a giant distinction within the lives of residents. That spark obtained him again to his expertise roots. He began taking over group tasks and volunteer coding lessons to hone his abilities.
That reinvigorated curiosity in expertise result in roles as an information scientist with town after which chief information officer and CTO with the workplace of the mayor.
Spearheading a New Division
As Lucius moved via every of those roles and now in his place as CIO, he more and more took on management duties.
“I’m a builder by nature. And so I all the time like to roll up my sleeves and get into an issue,” says Lucius. “I discover myself within the position now extra usually of … individuals [looking] to me for inspiration … management and imaginative and prescient.”
As the pinnacle of the division of expertise and innovation, Lucius and his crew have duties for an enormous array of techniques that help the third-most populous metropolis within the nation.
“We achieve this a lot: all the things from provide the ingesting water, pumping billions of gallons to not simply Chicago however 125 cities within the space coming from Lake Michigan. Two main airports, worldwide airports, 250 sq. miles of roads and sewers,” Lucius notes. “What we do is so large, and one of many first orders of enterprise after we obtained began was, now we have rather a lot to simply keep and help.”
Lucius leads a crew of 75 individuals, which is slated to develop to 150 by the top of the 12 months. As well as, he works with a big community of distributors and consultants that help town’s IT techniques.
The crew is organized into completely different teams: planning, supply, help, and cybersecurity. “When somebody comes and says, ‘Hey, Nick, I want some assist. I want a brand new web site. I want a brand new app. I want you to unravel this downside for me.’ We’re going to plan it. We’re going to construct it. We’re going to ship it. After that, we’ll help it, and we’ll make it’s protected and safe.”
Lucius spends the vast majority of a typical day, as much as 75% of it, in collaboration areas. He’s speaking to crew members, attending occasions, working to ideate. The rest of his day is spent fascinated with the long run.
“What’s taking place with AI? The place are we going with quantum computing right here in Chicago? What’s our innovation play proper now?” he asks.
As any CIO is aware of, not day-after-day is a typical one. Methods go down. Fires must be put out. Lucius was only a few months into the CIO position when the CrowdStrike world IT outage hit final 12 months, impacting Home windows machines throughout town.
“These sorts of days, after they come … it could possibly be the one factor I do from the second I get up till the second I fall asleep,” says Lucius.
Whereas days like this are inevitable, Lucius and his crew nonetheless have an even bigger image and objectives in sight. The extra time it takes to entry a profit, the tougher it’s for the individuals who want that profit probably the most to get it. He’s hoping to make use of expertise to extend fairness and accessibility to authorities companies.
“I wish to see a lower within the problem that it takes an individual with a incapacity to use for all the things from a incapacity sticker for the automobile in order that they will park near their residence, to use for social advantages applications, whether or not that’s monetary help or help with one thing of their residence or one thing vital for his or her life,” he gives for example.
Challenges in Authorities
CIOs throughout industries share most of the similar duties and challenges, however there are sector-specific nuances, too. Lucius notes how a lot scrutiny public sector CIOs face in comparison with their personal sector friends.
“Even publicly traded organizations don’t fairly have the quantity of scrutiny and a focus that {that a} main authorities establishment will get,” he contends.
And there’s a motive for that strain. Transparency is necessary. Delivering authorities companies to residents is important. That accountability is without doubt one of the greatest worries on Lucius’s thoughts.
Main authorities expertise tasks usually get plenty of money and time, and but they could fail. “You don’t must look too far to see examples,” says Lucius. “When Healthcare.gov launched, it didn’t work.”
He believes that it isn’t sufficient to have an excellent thought, get it funded, and get it launched. He sees the necessity to continuously consider tasks to make sure they’re truly profitable.
“Success is when one thing works higher for Chicagoans and one thing works higher for a human being on the opposite finish, they usually get that profit,” he emphasizes.
How ought to younger individuals with ambitions in expertise and authorities be fascinated with these challenges, notably throughout such a turbulent time? Lucius nonetheless desires to see individuals chase their desires, however he cautions that they want one thing to latch onto in such a high-pressure discipline.
“Perhaps [you] have household or [you] have private expertise the place what we do right here helped or perhaps … you’ve simply seen the profit play out for human beings on the market on the planet,” says Lucius. “If you happen to can latch on to that, that’s one thing you want with a view to get via a few of these experiences.”
A Reimagined Future
Lucius sees individuals within the authorities expertise area at a crossroads. They’re confronted with the most important pressures of at present’s societal and monetary upheaval and the guarantees of delivering on new expertise, like AI.
“All these items … have the potential to make issues sooner and extra environment friendly, however then additionally deliver the risks of widening inequities and creating divides in society,” says Lucius. “We sit on the cusp of the reimagination of what it’s to control and what it’s to supervise the supply of advantages on this society. And I would like authorities technologists to acknowledge that … we are able to personal that.”
Lucius desires to deliver companies and advantages to the individuals of Chicago extra effectively with out lowering these companies. “We discuss rather a lot about authorities effectivity as of late,” he says. “I believe Chicago is a good instance.”
