County promotes assistant IT director to top position
With the retirement of Donald “Chico” Cortese as Washington County government’s chief information officer, Debra L. Rutan of Claysville will now be in charge of the 10-person department.
The commissioners bade farewell to Cortese on Thursday with Scott Fergus, director of administration, calling Cortese “the Wizard of Oz, the man behind the curtain pulling the strings. (Information technology) touches every aspect of county government and the public.”
A former coal miner at Consol’s Westland and U.S. Steel’s Cumberland portals and a former steelworker at Washington Steel, Cortese made the leap from electrician to IT and began working for the county 14 years ago. He is a Washington resident.
Rutan, a 1991 graduate of California University of Pennsylvania, has been the county’s assistant director of IT administration. As an up-and-coming leader in her field, she was a featured speaker in September at the national CIO Leadership Summit sponsored by the Public Technology Institute, which was designed to increase women’s participation in the information technology workforce.
She began working for the county as a summer employee and, as a temporary worker, covered for a worker who was on maternity leave in 1992, when she was hired full time as a technician and then became software support manager.
Washington County Salary Board, made up of the commissioners and county Controller Michael Namie, unanimously set Rutan’s salary as CIO at $77,488 at its Feb. 16 meeting. Her assistant director is Barry Clark.