Nick Lucius has spent his total profession in authorities service. He has put his abilities as an lawyer and knowledge 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 shaped Division of Expertise and Innovation.
“I’m pleased with what we’re doing in Chicago … saving vital 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.
Legislation 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 selection 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 special path, his abilities in pc science and regulation have served him properly. “If I discovered something within the regulation, it was that having somebody articulating as an advocate on behalf of a trigger can accomplish that 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. Legislation companies weren’t hiring. However, because it seems, the Metropolis of Chicago was. He received his begin as assistant company counsel within the metropolis’s Division of Legislation, specializing in foreclosures and deserted buildings.
“As quickly as I began doing that, I forgot about every little thing I went to high school for, and I spent about 10 years in litigation making an attempt to assist out the individuals of Chicago,” he says.
In any case these years of litigation, Lucius’s curiosity in expertise started to resurface. “I additionally observed that in my authorized circumstances I needed to do numerous digging into metropolis knowledge techniques and metropolis expertise techniques as a way 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 received him again to his expertise roots. He began taking up group tasks and volunteer coding lessons to hone his abilities.
That reinvigorated curiosity in expertise result in roles as a knowledge scientist with town after which chief knowledge officer and CTO with the workplace of the mayor.
Spearheading a New Division
As Lucius moved by means of every of those roles and now in his place as CIO, he more and more took on management obligations.
“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 function 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 workforce have obligations for an enormous array of techniques that help the third-most populous metropolis within the nation.
“We accomplish that a lot: every little thing from provide the consuming 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 once we received began was, we have now rather a lot to only preserve and help.”
Lucius leads a workforce of 75 individuals, which is slated to develop to 150 by the tip of the 12 months. As well as, he works with a big community of distributors and consultants that help town’s IT techniques.
The workforce is organized into totally different teams: planning, supply, help, and cybersecurity. “When somebody comes and says, ‘Hey, Nick, I would like some assist. I would like a brand new web site. I would like a brand new app. I would like you to resolve 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 workforce members, attending occasions, working to ideate. The rest of his day is spent serious about 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 on daily basis is a typical one. Techniques go down. Fires must be put out. Lucius was only a few months into the CIO function when the CrowdStrike international 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 workforce nonetheless have a much bigger image and objectives in sight. The extra time it takes to entry a profit, the more durable it’s for the individuals who want that profit essentially the most to get it. He’s hoping to make use of expertise to extend fairness and accessibility to authorities companies.
“I need to see a lower within the issue that it takes an individual with a incapacity to use for every little thing from a incapacity sticker for the automotive 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 provides for instance.
Challenges in Authorities
CIOs throughout industries share lots of the similar obligations and challenges, however there are sector-specific nuances, too. Lucius notes how a lot scrutiny public sector CIOs face in comparison with their non-public 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 purpose for that strain. Transparency is necessary. Delivering authorities companies to residents is important. That accountability is without doubt one of the largest worries on Lucius’s thoughts.
Main authorities expertise tasks usually get numerous 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 incredible thought, get it funded, and get it launched. He sees the necessity to always consider tasks to make sure they’re really 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 serious about 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 subject.
“Possibly [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. “In case you can latch on to that, that’s one thing you want as a way to get by means of a few of these experiences.”
A Reimagined Future
Lucius sees individuals within the authorities expertise area at a crossroads. They’re confronted with the foremost pressures of in the present day’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 carry the hazards of widening inequities and creating divides in society,” says Lucius. “We sit on the cusp of the reimagination of what it’s to manipulate and what it’s to supervise the supply of advantages on this society. And I need authorities technologists to acknowledge that … we will personal that.”
Lucius desires to carry companies and advantages to the individuals of Chicago extra effectively with out decreasing these companies. “We speak rather a lot about authorities effectivity nowadays,” he says. “I believe Chicago is a superb instance.”
