CIO Values: Douglas Caddell, CIO, Foley & Lardner LLP

Career Track

How long at current company: Just short of nine years.

Career accomplishment you're most proud of: In the early '90s, I was hired to turn around project management systems at the Arizona Department of Transportation. My team of programmers and analysts and the system users didn't speak to each other, and there were at least two abends [crashes] each night. We put in IT project management and basic development standards, and, within six months, the users and my team were working together and abends only occurred about once per month.

Most important career influencer: My current boss, Darrell Ohlhauser, our COO. He made the mistake of offering me a job twice, at two places. He lets me "run with the ball."

Decision I wish I could do over: I was a letter carrier for the post office after I got out of the Navy. Being a substitute carrier working other people's routes during their days off, as the "new guy," was the most stressful job I ever had.

On The Job

Size of IT team: 145

Three top initiatives for current year:

Key tech partners: AT&T, Cisco, Interwoven (document management)

Vision

The next big thing for my business will be ... law firm consolidation. In IT, system centralization, as the industry moves from a distributed client-server architecture to a centralized data center approach.

Best piece of advice for future CIOs: Have vision, based on company strategy. Then go for it.

How I measure IT effectiveness: As I'm a former CPA, you would think that I was metric driven. Honestly, I measure our results by client service and satisfaction, of both internal clients and clients of the firm.

Personal

College/degree: University of Arizona, BS/BA, double major in accounting and MIS

Leisure activity: Scuba diving

Best book read recently: The Voyage Of The Beagle, by Charles Darwin

If I weren't a CIO I would be ... a singer. But I can't sing, so I better be a CIO.