OFFICE OF GOVERNOR MATT MEAD
State Capitol
Cheyenne, WY 82002
Ph. (307) 777-7437
June 22, 2011
******FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE******
Contact:
Renny MacKay
Communications Director
Cell: (307) 274-5870
renny.mackay@wyo.gov
Wyoming is the First State in the Country to “Go Google”
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Commemorating another Wyoming first, Governor Matt Mead, State Chief Information Officer, Flint Waters and the President of Enterprise at Google, David Girouard, announced today that all 10,000 of Wyoming’s state employees have now migrated to Google Apps for Government. This puts all of the employees on a single email platform for the first time. Previously the state used more than 13 different platforms.
“As all of you know, one of my top priorities is moving technology forward in Wyoming,” Governor Mead said this morning. He also said the agreement with Google Apps is exciting. “This is cloud based computing and has many advantages. It provides an opportunity for employees to communicate with one another better; it provides an opportunity to share documents; it is going to save the state of Wyoming over a million dollars per year; it is going to provide better security and better storage capacity and ultimately it will allow us to do our jobs better because we now have a better tool.”
The Governor and State CIO Waters thanked state employees for their work to move to a new email platform. Waters said, “Once again we are leading the world in how we innovate. We are a small state by population but we are moving forward very well.”
The President of Enterprise at Google, David Girouard, came to Cheyenne to mark this occasion. “Wyoming likes to be first and that is a great message to us,” Girouard said. “This is the first state-wide implementation of Google Apps, so it's something we're very excited to partner with Wyoming on." He also said he was heartened to hear that the Governor’s Office wanted to be on the leading edge of this implementation. Governor Mead and his staff were in the first wave of employees to move to Google Apps.
Governor Mead ended this event by saying that he will always look for ways for state government to operate more effectively and efficiently.
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(In the photo above, Governor Mead cuts a data cord as Wyoming goes to cloud computing with President of Enterprise at Google, David Girouard, is on the left and State Chief Information Officer, Flint Waters, is on the right.)