Nick Lucius has spent his complete profession in authorities service. He has put his expertise as an legal professional and information scientist to work in a number of roles with the Metropolis of Chicago. Final yr, he was confirmed as the city’s CIO, heading up the newly fashioned Division of Expertise and Innovation.
“I’m happy 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 providers to people.”
He talks about how he constructed his profession and the way he’s aiming to extend each effectivity and entry to providers for Chicagoans.
Legislation and Laptop 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 the town. I completely love the town,” he remembers.
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 expertise 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 flexibility 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 corporations 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 thing 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 circumstances I needed to do loads of digging into metropolis information programs and metropolis expertise programs to be able to get my proof,” he remembers.
He noticed how modernizing metropolis programs and connecting these programs throughout departments might make an enormous distinction within the lives of residents. That spark received him again to his expertise roots. He began taking up group initiatives and volunteer coding lessons to hone his expertise.
That reinvigorated curiosity in expertise result in roles as a knowledge scientist with the town after which chief information 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 duties.
“I’m a builder by nature. And so I at all times like to roll up my sleeves and get into an issue,” says Lucius. “I discover myself within the position now extra typically of … individuals [looking] to me for inspiration … management and imaginative and prescient.”
As the top of the division of expertise and innovation, Lucius and his workforce have duties for an enormous array of programs that assist the third-most populous metropolis within the nation.
“We accomplish that a lot: every 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 huge, and one of many first orders of enterprise once we received began was, we now have loads to simply preserve and assist.”
Lucius leads a workforce of 75 individuals, which is slated to develop to 150 by the tip of the yr. As well as, he works with a big community of distributors and consultants that assist the town’s IT programs.
The workforce is organized into totally different teams: planning, supply, assist, 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 assist it, and we’ll make it’s secure 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 excited about the long run.
“What’s occurring 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 daily is a typical one. Programs go down. Fires should be put out. Lucius was just some months into the CIO position when the CrowdStrike global IT outage hit final yr, impacting Home windows machines throughout the town.
“These sorts of days, after they come … it may very well 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 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 providers.
“I wish to see a lower within the issue that it takes an individual with a incapacity to use for every 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 essential for his or her life,” he provides for example.
Challenges in Authorities
CIOs throughout industries share lots of the identical 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 spotlight that {that a} main authorities establishment will get,” he contends.
And there’s a purpose for that strain. Transparency is necessary. Delivering authorities providers to residents is crucial. That duty is likely one of the greatest worries on Lucius’s thoughts.
Main authorities expertise initiatives typically get loads of money and time, and but they may fail. “You don’t should 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 important concept, get it funded, and get it launched. He sees the necessity to consistently consider initiatives 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, and so they get that profit,” he emphasizes.
How ought to younger individuals with ambitions in expertise and authorities be excited about these challenges, significantly throughout such a turbulent time? Lucius nonetheless needs to see individuals chase their desires, however he cautions that they want one thing to latch onto in such a high-pressure discipline.
“Possibly [you] have household or [you] have private expertise the place what we do right here helped or possibly … you’ve simply seen the profit play out for human beings on the market on the earth,” says Lucius. “In the event you can latch on to that, that’s one thing you want to be able to get by means of a few of these experiences.”
A Reimagined Future
Lucius sees individuals within the authorities expertise house at a crossroads. They’re confronted with the main pressures of at this time’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 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 needs to carry providers and advantages to the individuals of Chicago extra effectively with out decreasing these providers. “We speak loads about authorities effectivity lately,” he says. “I believe Chicago is a good instance.”