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Celebrating 25 Years

GCN Home > 05/01/06 issue

A well-mixed message

A former intern, now the CIO, blends work with a positive atmosphere

By Trudy Walsh, GCN Staff

The sound of Dean Martin crooning “That’s amore!” fills the air. Over drippy wax candles, red-and-white checkered tablecloths and pasta, people chat amiably in small groups.

A night in Little Italy? A vacation in Sicily?

Nope. It’s a staff meeting in Pitt County, N.C. And it’s one of the ways the county’s CIO, Michael Clayton Taylor, has created a more productive, collaborative atmosphere for county employees.

Taylor started as a part-time intern for the county when he was in high school. As the youngest member of the computer staff, he was the target of abundant teasing and practical jokes. Legend has it that one of his managers once stuffed him in a trash can.

“They say you really only tease those you love,” he said.

Taylor, it seems, was much loved.

Fifteen years later, he became CIO. A lesson for the pranksters out there: Many of the senior staff who critiqued Taylor’s computer code and played practical jokes on him ended up reporting to him, said Donna L. Davis, technical services director for Pitt County.

Going home again

In the intervening years, Taylor received a bachelor’s in computer science and a master’s of business administration from East Carolina University, and had a full-time career in IT at pharmaceutical research company Burroughs Wellcome, now GlaxoSmithKline of Philadelphia, all the while working part-time for the county.

“I don’t believe it was a great shock to the staff when Mike came back as CIO, because they had witnessed his growth through the years and saw that he was ‘CIO material,’ ” Davis said.

Davis doesn’t know how Taylor did it. His job as a developer at Burroughs was “intense and demanding, tied to the production line,” she said.

Then he would go to the county’s data processing department and work into the night.

The list of Taylor’s ideal dinner party guests offers a clue to his ideas about leadership (see gatefold). Thomas Jefferson would be a great conversationalist, plus he could whip out his fiddle and play some tunes. Fellow native North Carolinian Billy Graham could share what he learned in a lifetime of preaching in every corner of the globe.

And Walt Disney. Walt Disney?

“I’ve always been fascinated with his creative vision and drive and story,” Taylor said. “It’s not only for entertainment. He had a vision of tomorrow and how people would live and play and interact.”

Clearly, Taylor admires visionaries who have the courage of their convictions, whether about democracy, religion or Steamboat Willie—a trait he shares with his dinner guests.

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