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Harry Turnbull, executive director of information technology for the City of Windsor, has received Canada’s highest municipal IT award from MISA/ASIM Canada as well as a major award from MISA Ontario.
Turnbull, who is credited as the driving force in raising MISA/ASIM Canada’s international visibility among municipal IT organizations, was presented with the 2010 Peter Bennett Award on June 14.
One day later he was presented with the Regena Lerke Award from MISA Ontario, joining several other individuals and companies who were recognized for leadership during the 2010 MISA Ontario Annual Conference and Trade Show.
Making the Peter Bennett Award presentation at Niagara-on-the-Lake, to an audience of senior government officials attending the 2010 Lac Carling Congress, Maurice Gallant, president of MISA/ASIM Canada, said Turnbull exemplifies leadership in municipal information technology and inter-municipal collaboration.
He has represented MISA/ASIM Canada at several international meetings and was instrumental in arranging for an international delegation from municipal IT organizations to attend the MISA Ontario conference at Niagara Falls.
This was the first time that the Linked Organisations of Local Authority ICT Societies (LOLA), the only international association promoting collaboration among municipal IT directors, has met in conjunction with an annual conference in North America.
Gallant noted that Turnbull is also a representative of MISA/ASIM Canada on the Public Sector CIO Council and “has reinforced the important role that municipal CIOs can play on the PSCIOC and, more broadly, in the work of the Joint Councils.” Turnbull was host for a meeting of the Joint Councils in Windsor in February 2010.
The Peter Bennett Award is presented to an individual making an outstanding contribution to the Canadian municipal IT community and to the MISA/ASIM Canada mission and objectives, while exemplifying Peter Bennett’s spirit of demonstrated leadership combined with humour and humanity. Bennett, a municipal IT pioneer from Winnipeg, died in 2005.
“Harry represents a new breed of municipal CIO, who has become a part of the senior management of the organization, rather than just a technologist,” Gallant told the Lac Carling audience.
A few kilometres away on June 15, Turnbull received the Regena Lerke Distinguished Service Award at MISA Ontario’s annual banquet during its conference in the City of Niagara Falls.
The award is named for past MISA Ontario president Regena Lerke of the City of Peterborough, who died in 2001. It is presented for individual service to MISA that exemplifies Lerke’s spirit of working “beyond the call” and making a difference to the organization and its members.
Turnbull served as president of MISA Ontario in 2005- 2006 and as chair of the Ontario annual conference in 2005.
MISA Ontario also presented two Special Recognition Awards to Stephen Wong of the City of Toronto and Ralph Blauel of the Region of Halton for specific and outstanding contributions to the municipal systems community. Wong was cited for his contributions to the Lac Carling Congress Steering Committee and MISA projects; Blauel was honoured as MISA Ontario’s past president and the leader of its 2010 strategic-plan project.
Karl Drysdale, recently retired as the City of London’s IT leader and as MISA Ontario’s long-time secretary, was presented with a life membership.
Among awards given to organizations, the winner of MISA Ontario’s first-ever International Excellence in Municipal Systems Award was the national municipal IT organization of New Zealand, one of six countries represented in the LOLA delegation at the Ontario conference.
The Association of Local Government Information Management Inc. (ALGIM) won the trophy for its ALGIM Information Management Toolkit, a guide for technology implementation and reviews that has been adopted by 85 per cent of New Zealand’s local authorities.
Three Ontario municipalities were selected to receive Excellence in Municipal Systems awards, from among 17 provincial submissions. The winners were:
• Halton Region, for its SAP TCA Reporting Software Incubation;
• Niagara Region, for its Protocol for Electronic Clinic Systems;
• The City of Toronto, for its Children’s Services Information System.
Two awards went to the private sector. Rob Corazzola of SAP Canada, a champion of municipal solutions development and past board member of MISA Ontario, received the Associate Member of the Year Award. Microsoft Canada Co. was named Exhibitor of the Year at the Ontario conference’s trade show.
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