My Life, My City: Raimundo Rodulfo, Coral Gables

As part of the My Life, My City series, Cities Today talks to Raimundo Rodulfo, Director of Information Technology and Chief Innovation Officer for the City of Coral Gables in Florida.

What was your first job?

When I was in high school in the mid-1980s, I worked part-time at a building office during summers, helping with supplies, logistics, and manual work. When I was in college, I worked part-time at a professional academy teaching calculus, electronic design, and other prep courses. My first career job was in the last year of university, working full-time as an engineer intern at NCR, designing hardware diagnostic equipment for ATM and POS electronics. My first job the year I graduated from university in 1994 was with Siemens, developing hardware and expert systems for PBX telephone switches.

What attracted you to your current role?

The opportunity to work on exciting projects and make a difference for our community. Before joining the City of Coral Gables in 2004, I worked in the private sector for more than 10 years as an electrical engineer in the telecom industry. When I joined the city as an analyst in the IT department, I had the opportunity to learn a lot from many other fields and functions that were different to what I did before, and I had the opportunity to help our team develop infrastructure, talent, skillsets, and new services, applying what I learned in the industry and what I was learning in my new role.

When I became Assistant CIO in 2013, and later CIO in 2016, I had a greater opportunity to help our city bring innovation, digital transformation, and infrastructure engineering strategies across the board to make a bigger and faster impact on citizen services and quality of life for our constituents.

What is your favourite part of the job?

Working together with my team and all city departments Improving processes, implementing new services, and new infrastructure that improve KPIs for our community. I enjoy completing projects successfully and seeing the results in practice – getting things done. Constant progress and innovation, and conducting research and development with STEM partners is all very rewarding for me, as well as seeing members of my team succeeding and learning new skills in their careers, and seeing happy customers using our services.

What has been your biggest success in this role? 

Building a highly productive, innovative, motivated, and accomplished award-winning team that deeply cares about our customers, our organisation, and our mission. Leading my team in the process of implementing digital efficiencies citywide and smart and connected infrastructure that enhances services, public safety, resilience, transportation and mobility.

What has been your biggest setback?

Over the years in different phases of my career both in government and in industry, I have faced many challenges with my teams, such as natural disasters, health crises, economic downturns, organisation and market changes, industry and supply chain disruptions, and other unforeseeable roadblocks.  It’s part of the job but we always overcome and keep moving.

What are you working on right now that you’re excited about?

Completing the implementation this year of the last piece of our cloud suite ERP enterprise systems and our new Police/Fire/911 CAD and RMS cloud native platform to fulfil the main goals of our digital transformation and paperless journey and eliminate our technical debt. Also, expanding our smart districts with 25 new fibre corridor segments, multiple additional smart city poles with Internet of Things sensors and public Wi-Fi, various smart building tech provisioning and construction, and other infrastructure projects.

I am also working with my team and STEM partners on several research and development projects. One of them is a very exciting project called AutonomIA (Autonomous Intelligent Assistant) with the U.S. DOE Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, UC Berkeley, and industry partners, to leverage AI, digital twins, intelligent/connected traffic signals and controllers, IoT and instrumented corridors, differential predictive control platforms, and connected automated vehicles (CAVs) to optimise traffic, safety and energy use at Coral Gables traffic intersections and arteries.

If you could wave a magic wand, what one thing would you fix in your city?

I would start with traffic congestion and emissions, but I would also wave it to improve coastal and urban resilience, underground utilities, improve digital literacy of the workforce of small businesses, and provide more affordable housing for young families and professionals. Our city is working diligently with our community on all those issues.

What are you reading right now?

Exponential Organizations 2.0 by Salim Ismail, Peter Diamandis and Michael Malone. I read the first ExO book back in 2018 and purchased copies for my team and city leaders, and I did the same with this second edition.

Who has most inspired you in the work that you do?

My parents are my biggest career inspiration. They have been hardworking engineers and accomplished leaders all their lives until they retired and embraced other careers and professional interests, always undertaking new challenges and projects with humility, work ethics, strong values, and dedication to their crafts and to their teams. I also get inspiration from pioneers, innovators, and value creators in general, as well as everyday workers who keep our communities safe and productive.

If you weren’t doing this job, what do you think you might be doing? 

I’ve done so many different things in my career over 30 years across different sectors and industries – every job has been new and challenging. If I wasn’t doing any of those past and current STEM jobs, maybe I would be in the music and entertainment industry, or opening my own businesses.

What’s your favourite place in Coral Gables and why?

I love the intersection of Ponce de Leon Boulevard and Alhambra Circle in the business district, because from that point you can appreciate both the historic and modern architectural elements and streetscape of the city. I love Venetian Pool and Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens for their unique blend of nature and community. I love the Biltmore Hotel and the City Hall for their Mediterranean revival architecture that makes our city so special.  I also love the residential neighbourhoods with a dense tree canopy and gorgeous houses, especially the streets with those big, beautiful banyan trees. On a normal day, you can find me in Giralda Plaza and Miracle Mile, which are my favourite places for dining (great restaurants!).

What’s one thing people might not ordinarily know about you?

Other things I have done in the past outside of my career, like my music albums, a sci-fi book I wrote, and teaching jobs.

• Time in role:  10 years in CIO role (2013-2016 as Assistant CIO, 2016-present as CIO).
• Brief career history:  I started my career 30 years ago in the early 1990s as an electrical engineer in the telecommunications industry. Prior to joining the city in 2004, I spent ten years in the private sector working for various Fortune 500 companies such as Bellsouth, Siemens, and NCR. During this time, I also assisted on technology projects for Motorola and Lucent Technologies in Chicago, and Agilent Technologies in Silicon Valley.
• Career tip:  A five-sentence mantra I always repeat to my team is: “Keep the lights on. Keep the customers happy. Keep the wheels moving. Keep the team sharp. Get things done.” I think that would be my career advice too, and stay humble, positive, and curious.