SPD’s new tech chief is familiar face around City Hall

A familiar face around City Hall will be returning to the municipal payroll, this time as the Seattle Police Department’s new chief information officer.

Bill Schrier, who resigned in 2012 after more than 30 years with the city, will replace Greg Russell, who left Sept. 4 to take what department officials said was a better-paying job with a private company.

“Seattle has a great Police Department with skilled, dedicated officers and bold leadership,” Schrier wrote in a statement. “Like all law-enforcement agencies, it also has its challenges. Some of those challenges can be met through wise application of information technology.”

Schrier, who will earn about $180,000 a year, will start work next Wednesday.

Though he had retired from the city after working in various capacities, including connecting Seattle neighborhoods by high-speed-fiber broadband networks, Schrier was still a presence at city-sponsored technology events.

He attended the Police Department’s “hackathon,” which brought together local technology experts to give input on issues surrounding the editing of video evidence collected by body cameras and patrol-car recording systems.

Schrier, 66, was also at a technology summit that police hosted in June for law-enforcement leaders across the country who are also struggling with how to redact and release video evidence collected by police-camera systems.

“Bill’s vast experience and leadership will be vital as we become more data driven, implement our new Data Analytics Platform, continue refining our body-camera and video-redaction program, and develop our mobile policing strategy,” police Chief Operating Officer Mike Wagers, who will be Schrier’s boss, said in a statement:

According to Seattle police, Schrier has been serving as a senior policy adviser at the Washington State Office of the Chief Information Officer.

“I believe there is a good plan in place to upgrade and improve SPD’s technology,” Schrier wrote in his statement. “I’m excited to work with the Seattle Police Department to bring that plan to fruition.”

During his years as the city’s chief technology officer, Schrier managed more than 200 employees and contract staff for the Department of Information Technology.

He said he set technology standards for all of city government and chaired a committee that oversaw the $19 million implementation of the computer-aided dispatch system used by Seattle police and fire departments.

Schrier has a blog called the Chief Seattle Geek blogthat focuses on “the intersection of technology and government, and specifically how technology influences Seattle’s government, but also how governments use technology on behalf of their residents, citizens, and visitors.”

Russell has declined to comment on his sudden departure from the department.

He left his job as an executive at Amazon, and took a hefty pay cut, to work as the department’s first chief information officer.

In announcing his hiring in March, Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole said Russell’s duties would range from data analysis to policies governing the use of body cameras.