Growing Cloud Computing in State and Local Government at AWS
When I joined the State and Local Government team at Amazon Web Services (AWS), we were a nascent group of eight, tasked with introducing cloud computing to a cautious market. Local government agencies were wary of transitioning to the cloud, and Microsoft was a fierce competitor leveraging existing relationships to try and box AWS out.
Our primary objective was to understand the unique challenges faced by these agencies and provide swift, effective solutions. Building trust and establishing long-term relationships were paramount, with a focus on strategic issues such as Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) compliance from the outset.
To gain deeper insights into customer needs, we actively participated in various conferences, including the Local State Government Information Systems Association (GISA) conferences and the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) conferences. We conducted discovery meetings, followed by in-depth discussions involving AWS solution architects and leadership, and offered computing credits for proof-of-concept projects. Recognizing immediate needs in areas like backups, archiving, and disaster recovery, we tailored our solutions accordingly. 
I also led initiatives to develop Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and geospatial solutions, addressing widespread needs in natural resource departments. A notable project involved supporting Geographic Information System (GIS) teams by establishing collaborative storage buckets in Amazon S3. This provided a secure, cost-effective, and collaborative method for different teams and organizations to share GIS files.
The results were transformative. Over my three-year tenure, our small team doubled in revenue and headcount annually. We established CJIS agreements in over a dozen states and became integral to systems like Bay Area 311 and multiple Metropolitan Transportation Authorities (MTAs). Personally, I advanced from a mid-market account manager to managing enterprise accounts, consistently exceeding my quota by an average of 116% each year.
