Tracey Massey was named interim director of the Department of County Assets and Chief Information Officer in June 2020, after the sudden departures of the previous DCA department director and the County’s interim director of Facilities and Property Management.
Multnomah County — like the rest of the planet — was in the early months of responding to a deadly pandemic. Thousands of County employees had abruptly shifted to teleworking. Civil unrest after the murder of George Floyd led to vandalism that severely damaged multiple County buildings. For Tracey, it was a baptism by fire, as new assignments go. The department she was asked to lead is responsible for information technology, facilities, fleet/motor pool, records and distribution for Oregon’s most populous county.
So when the Board of County Commissioners affirmed Tracey’s appointment as the permanent director of the Department of County Assets and CIO on Aug. 12, 2021, it was a sign of confidence in a leader who has already risen to face historic challenges. In voting to confirm Tracey, many board members commented on her calm manner, clear decision-making, and ability to listen and lead a team during a time of significant change.
Commissioner kudos
“Tracey led the Department during a time when our workforce relied heavily on DCA services,” Chair Deborah Kafoury said at the Aug. 12 board meeting. “She’s seen through the transition to telework for nearly half of our employees. All kinds of challenges for our facilities. And she’s taken the lead on several capital projects and initiatives that have the potential to reshape our community. Tracey is unwavering in her commitment to internal customer service and one of the most organized and methodical people I know.”
“You’ve done the work while being so level headed, never freaking out,” Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson said to Tracey.
“You’re like the calm in a storm,” Commissioner Lori Stegmann said. “I really appreciate your steady leadership. Your team’s work is so important: if our internal programs are not working, we can’t accomplish our mission for our external constituents and partners.”
Commissioner Susheela Jayapal noted what Tracey’s decision to work for the County says about her values. “Your skills would be ready to use anywhere in the private sector. The fact that you chose to work here — because you recognized that those skills and the work you do are in service of our public — says everything about you.”
Jumping into the deep end
So what was it like for Tracey to become interim director at a time of massive change?
“It was just following George Floyd’s death, and our nation, as well as our own community, was wrestling with the injustices that led to the tragedy through demands for racial justice,” Tracey recalled recently. “I knew very little about Facilities, our correctional and judicial buildings, or the needs of our Facilities staff. For weeks on end, I was getting phone calls, emails and texts at all hours of the night as some of our buildings became damaged by civil unrest.
“I’d experienced long work hours before, but in the private sector while working on intense, deadline-based technology projects, where I at least understood the issues and the team.
“I remember one night when there was a fire at the Multnomah Building, and I was on the phone with Chair Kafoury some time after midnight. And I thought, ‘What have I gotten myself into?’ Fortunately, I could rely on our Facilities experts to bring the knowledge necessary, the relationships I had already cultivated to offer support, my DCA Leadership Team, and the expertise of several mentors to help me guide our department. I relied on asking questions and listening to others before making recommendations or decisions.”
What did she learn from that experience?
“As human beings, we seem to have an endless capacity to absorb information and then adapt and adjust,” Tracey said. “I have witnessed this throughout DCA. We are resilient. We often perform our best in a crisis. We step up. If you had said to me in January 2020 that I would lead DCA in six months, I would have laughed. I would have doubted my ability to lead and lacked the confidence. But with courage and encouragement, I stepped into the role, while also attempting to directly lead our IT Division.
“We have incredibly smart, dedicated, creative people within our organization who truly want to support our community. I’ve witnessed long, endless days for our staff and they keep showing up, volunteering for more. I am humbled by the support I received from other County leaders, department directors, the Chair’s Office, and our centralized service leaders.”
Early years
Tracey was born in Enterprise, a beautiful but remote town in the Wallowa Mountains of northeast Oregon. Her family has lived in the area for four generations.
“My sister and I spent our summers with my grandparents. My grandma kept us busy with odd jobs and her antique store,” she said.
She still loves to visit the area when she can. Her father’s new job led the family to move to Laramie, Wyoming, when Tracey was in high school. There she met her future husband George, who teaches today at Portland Public Schools. Their daughter Ava recently graduated from high school and will start her freshman year at Fordham University in New York City in a few weeks.
The power of communication
Tracey’s career demonstrates the value of communication skills, from her first job after college as a market research assistant to her current position. The first in her family to complete college, she earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing and management at the University of Oregon, followed by an MBA at Portland State. And despite leading the County's IT team, she never pursued a degree in computing or software development.
“Nearly all of my time is spent on communication and change management,” Tracey said. “Writing, listening, interpreting and speaking. That’s my job in a nutshell! It’s so important to understand who I’m communicating with, what information they need, how they best receive it.
“DCA’s role is to provide the services and infrastructure to the County. We have to understand what our customers need and why they want or need it,'' she said. “Then we translate that into some kind of solution — technology, facility, vehicle or service. And we often have to write about it to explain it.”
Communication skills are essential in nearly every role of the department.
“In IT this year, we provided a plain language writing workshop for all of our staff to help build our communication and writing skills,” she said.
Roots in the private sector
After college, Tracey initially worked in Portland for a private company that developed software systems in health and human services, primarily for government agencies. Over seven years there working in several positions, she became very experienced in writing proposals. “It was incredibly stressful, tiring and so exciting,” Tracey recalled.
After taking time off for the birth of her daughter, Tracey joined a second computer services company in Portland, where her clients were companies that did business with government agencies across the country. While working on major projects for a large national company was interesting, Tracey wanted a stronger connection with her own community.
“I wasn’t connected to our community in Portland. As a born and raised Oregonian, I wanted to work for an organization that was focused on my community. Multnomah County really was a great fit,” she said. “I had experience working with government agencies and I had knowledge of government programs serving the members of the community. I joined the County’s IT organization as its then-leaders were preparing for sizable change.”
Former DCA Director Sherry Swackhamer, who had met Tracey when she worked in the private sector, was leading the IT organization when Tracey joined the County. She was and remains an important mentor in Tracey’s life.
“Sherry taught me a lot about what it takes to lead a technology team,” Tracey said. “You need to understand the business needs of your customers and be able to translate that for the technology team that serves those customers.”
“Tracey is a natural leader,” Sherry said a few days before Tracey’s appointment as director. “She is a quick learner, a good listener and not afraid of a challenge. She truly cares about her employees, peers and the community.”
Starting at Multnomah County in 2007, Tracey worked a series of IT positions, from working with the Health Department on pharmacy and correctional health projects, to implementing Google and managing the IT Projects and Portfolio Management team responsible for strategic and complex projects throughout the County.
MultCo Align
Prior to being named interim director in 2020, Tracey’s biggest assignment at the County was shepherding the implementation of a new enterprise software system suite known as MultCo Align. The $32 million project replaced or upgraded elements of the County’s software systems for human resources, payroll, finance, facilities, budgeting and supply ordering.
A well-known secret in the IT world is that implementing new enterprise-wide software systems has a very high failure rate — as high as 70 percent. The reasons range from clunky software that doesn’t meet an organization’s daily needs to employee resistance to change.
“I thought it would take me a few hours a week, but it ended up consuming two full years of my life,” Tracey recalled. “The project was much more complex than we realized at the start. There were many internal groups involved — from finance, human resources, purchasing, and the other departments — in addition to our consultant. It turned out our consultant had never worked with an organization as complex as ours.
“So I had to help the project team learn how to work together. My charge was to deliver the project on budget, meet the County’s business needs and stay out of the press. It was one of the best overall projects I’ve worked on. I feel very grateful to have been a part of that team, with people like former COO Marissa Madrigal, Travis Graves and our CFO Eric Arellano, who had a different position then.”
“Tracey’s leadership led us to a successful implementation on the largest IT project I’m aware the County has ever administered,” Travis Graves, the County’s Chief Human Resources Officer and deputy director of the Department of County Management, said. “I have appreciated her thought partnership, her leadership advice and her overall commitment to the County.”
What’s next?
Tracey and DCA have big plans for the next few years. “We are developing our DCA Strategic Plan that will more effectively weave together our various divisions,” Tracey explained. “We are co-leading with the Library the huge capital program, the Library Capital Bond Program, which is a nearly $400 million program over the next five to eight years. The new Behavioral Health Resource Center building in downtown Portland is also very important.
“In IT we have new systems underway to support Preschool for All. We are moving most of our software development to the cloud, improving digital accessibility, and investing in data and business intelligence. In Fleet, we are looking to develop an electric vehicle strategy.
“This is while we are also leading efforts to evaluate the long-term impact of telework on our organization.
“Can we reduce our footprint in the future? Or reconfigure our space to better serve our employees and visitors to our spaces? What technologies do we need to support a hybrid work environment? How do we partner with Organizational Learning to help support our employees? In addition to tools, what business processes, norms and behaviors do we want to model and encourage as our organization evolves?”
With Tracey leading the DCA team, we are confident that Multnomah County will find the answers to those questions, and ones that have yet to be asked.
