Tonya Digiorno is a graduate of Sacramento State University and has been a public servant of the state of California since 1994, and Director of IT for El Dorado County since 2019.  Being a minority woman in Information Technology, she has developed a gift of perceiving challenges as her next opportunity for growth. 
 
Before Tonya took over as IT Director, the county Grand Jury issued a scathing report on the state of IT in the County government.  Tonya has made many improvements.  She moved from a free-for-all choice of IT and personal computing equipment to a more limited set of standard choices so that staff could provide better support to more employees.  Project management has become a priority indicated by moving fron 0 to 7 full-time employees (FTEs).

Security has become more of a priority too. On a scale of 0-5, the county has moved from a 1.3 to a 3.7 cyber-security score. Because of safeguards built into and installed on county laptops, the recent theft of 6 laptops was not a disaster.  IT was able to lock up their data and essentially turn them into a brick.  Also tracking software enabled law enforcement to find the perpetrator.  But the more prosaic, day-to-day phishing attacks through email continue to be an issue.  Tonya told us several tips to be able to fend off those attacks ourselves.  Using multi-factor authentication to our accounts -- either requiring a code to be sent to us via text, or facial recognition to the usual password is one good defense.  The club members really appreciated what Tonya is doing to improve the county's efficiency through strong IT and for the advice she gave us.