Carlos Rivero was named chief data officer for Virginia in 2018. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Carlos Rivero’s office is in the historic Patrick Henry Building at Capitol Square, but as Virginia’s first chief data officer, he works all over the commonwealth, building partnerships to transform the way the state handles its vast amounts of information.
“My role is to maximize the value of the data that we collect,” Rivero says, emphasizing the need for operational efficiency and enhanced services for Virginians.
Rivero’s effort to bring about more effective government through data management could even save lives. What happened in Winchester, about 135 miles northwest of Richmond, is one example. Known for its idyllic Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival, the community has been hit hard in recent years by opioid overdoses.
“Data tells the story,” says Lauren Cummings, executive director of the Northern Shenandoah Valley Substance Abuse Coalition, of the effort to combat the crisis. In a pilot program launched last year — the Framework for Addiction Analysis and Community Transformation or FAACT initiative — numerous agencies from law enforcement to social services participated in a secure data-sharing platform. The information revealed opioid-use trends and helped to identify where people were most at risk, so that resources could be directed to them.
“One of the things I was mandated in the legislation that created my position was to work on an opioid-related project to show how sharing data and the data analytics that result could have a positive impact on a complex issue that we’re dealing with,” Rivero says. The FAACT program has since been expanded to the Roanoke Valley, and he says the model has potential for use across the state.
“We looked at how can we build this to benefit other communities in the commonwealth,” Rivero says. “We came up with a model that is community-driven, that allows us to engage with a community and say what are the issues that you’re dealing with right now, and then be able to provide them the tools and expertise to be able to derive intelligence from the data they’re collecting.”
Gov. Ralph Northam appointed Rivero to his position in July 2018, after signing the Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act. Virginia Sen. Emmett Hanger, R-Augusta, who introduced the legislation, says, “It should help with the commonly cited problem of government agencies operating in ‘silos.’ ”
Rivero is tasked with coordinating data sharing in state government and establishing guidelines for data use and privacy, among other responsibilities.
State Sen. George Barker, D-Fairfax, who is on the legislative Data Sharing and Analytics Advisory Committee, applauds Rivero’s success in getting agencies to share information while protecting confidentiality. “His leadership has been critical to the improvements we have seen,” Barker says. “Virginia has a large amount of data and information, but the data systems are not integrated.”
Rivero points out that the state has 1,400 operational data systems.
“The individual agencies know what data they have, but we don’t have a holistic system that keeps track of all the data assets across the commonwealth,” he says. “If the data that we’re collecting is managed in an efficient way and leveraged to maximize its potential, then you as a citizen don’t have to enter your data, the same data, multiple times for different government services. That impacts you directly.”
One example of a more streamlined service already in place is that people can apply for voter registration during transactions with the Department of Motor Vehicles. Its system is linked to the state voter registration database.
On Rivero’s to-do list are projects to document all of the state’s data assets and develop ways to analyze them. A one-man team in his department, he has enlisted help for these daunting tasks from undergraduate and graduate data science students throughout Virginia.
“I’m like a matchmaking service for data sharing and analytics — bridging the gap between organizations with data and analytics needs — and students with the skills and talent to address those needs,” he says.
Rivero is also reaching out to underserved communities through an information technology rural apprenticeship program for students created by the General Assembly this year.
“If I can make sure our rural communities have not just access to broadband infrastructure, but also access to the education and employment opportunities that will allow them to stay in their rural communities and engage in the digital economy,” Rivero says, “that is success.”
Asked about privacy concerns related to increased data sharing, he emphasizes that there are safeguards in place through the Virginia Information Technologies Agency (VITA), which manages the state’s IT infrastructure. “They issue policies and procedures that we must follow to ensure that our data remains safe at all times,” he says.
The chief data officer role is one that’s only recently emerged in state government. Citing information from the State Chief Data Officers Network, Rivero says just over half the states, along with the District of Columbia, have such positions.
Preceding his move to Virginia, Rivero served more than two decades in academic and federal government leadership roles. Among those, he was a physical scientist with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center in Miami and was the chief data officer for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration in Washington, D.C.
Even as a boy, he was fascinated by data and science. “I have always been logical and analytical,” Rivero says. He followed that path with a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies and a master’s degree in business intelligence with an emphasis on data-driven decision-making.
“I understand from a scientist’s perspective that you cannot conduct good science with bad data,” he says, “nor can you execute good policy with bad data.”
