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Since stepping into the role just over a year ago, Tampa CIO and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Eric Hayden, has steered the city’s technology strategy toward modernization, focusing on efficiency and transparency through customer service, business applications, infrastructure, services and information assurance. And Hayden isn’t just overseeing these five key business pillars. At any one time, the CIO told , his office is running 50 to 55 tech projects, with one of the most significant ongoing efforts being an overhaul of one of the city’s key safety departments.
“Over the next 18 months, we’re replacing our entire fire response infrastructure,” he said. The Department of Technology and Innovation will modernize fire station operations by incorporating artificial intelligence (AI)-driven remote notification systems in each firehouse; the CIO likened the upgrade to giving each station its own version of Alexa. “These notifications will help make sure that our firefighters are safe — sensors for fuel and gas spills, ensuring bay doors are closed at night, and automating tasks, notifying only the necessary personnel,” Hayden said.
The system will also simplify fire response by guiding stations on when and how to act while integrating with security measures, Hayden said. The city’s expansion of AI doesn’t stop there — it’s also being utilized to enhance Tampa’s emergency dispatch system, its public safety dashboards and situational awareness portals. “The AI, for us, is things that help do the things that the dispatchers want, like sending out reports or talking to people or telling, calling people on the radio,” Hayden explained.
“In the old days, one person may have done all of that, but with our tools, we can actually have dispatchers taking calls from citizens, whether it be chat, whether it be telephone, whether it be any sort of way of text messaging, contacting them directly.” Beyond simplifying workflows, AI also introduces important fail-safes and safeguards, Hayden said. These systems include follow-up measures, and checks and balances to make sure that if someone misses a message, they will still receive it.
Since stepping into the dual role of permanent CIO and CTO after six months as interim, Hayden has also focused on breaking down silos in IT operations. The department previously had 19 separate lines of business, but Hayden restructured it into those five core business pillars. “Instead of being siloed or individualist, I wanted to put us into what I call a value-as-our-core culture,” he said.
“What that does is raise everybody’s awareness of themselves, their contributions. It also creates an environment in which our employees feel valued and desirable.” To further reinforce interagency collaboration, the city implemented a mentorship program where senior managers guide employees across different teams, helping them expand their skills and career opportunities.
At the center of any successful tech system’s core is quality data, according to Hayden. Under his leadership, the city joined , a global program that helps municipalities develop a data-driven culture. It teaches a culture of data awareness across the entire city, Hayden said, and will help their IT department make data-informed, long-range decisions.
Ensuring the resilience of Tampa’s IT infrastructure is another top priority, particularly given Florida’s frequent hurricanes and emergencies. Hayden has focused on building systems that can recover and adapt automatically. “We have multiple data centers, telephone systems, communication systems and data systems both in the cloud and on-premises,” the CIO said.
“We have such a hybrid environment that we’re essentially self-healing.” Instead of reacting to failures, he said his team prefers a proactive approach: “What we know is — it’s going to break. So when it breaks, what’s it going to do? How’s it going to self-heal? How are we going to restore service?” But beyond just maintaining systems, Hayden sees IT as a strategic partner in citywide innovation.
His team actively works with other departments to identify ways technology can advance service delivery. And Hayden attends department meetings, he said, to help with their business. This hands-on approach ensures that technology is solving real problems, he said, rather than being implemented just for its own sake.
As he continues to refine Tampa’s IT strategy, Hayden remains focused on long-term sustainability to make sure the city's tech investments are adaptable and truly aligned with community needs. “The citizens want to trust us,” Hayden said. “They want sharable, truthful information.
My vision is becoming more data-conscious across the entire organization — not reinventing or creating new technologies, not adding cost, but reimagining how we do things.”.
