About Us
The Information Processing Management Association (IPMA) is a not-for-profit, tax exempt Washington state corporation whose members are either current or retired Washington State IT government employees. For more information, please visit the IPMA's By-Laws, Annual Reports, and Board of Directors.
The Mission of the IPMA is to help maintain Washington State’s position as the nation’s premier IT state by continuing to advance the quality and professionalism of the Washington State Government IT community. The IPMA is dedicated to:
- Promoting professional networking among state government IT managers, business leaders and IT industry leaders
- Enhancing the IT community’s teamwork, collaboration and communications across Washington State agencies
- Providing professional development opportunities for the state’s IT leaders, managers and technical staff that focus on:
- Developing and enhancing key IT skills
- Expanding leadership and managerial competency
- Providing visibility to important IT technologies and their successful application
- Sponsoring events that support the state’s emerging business issues.
The IPMA provides several events throughout the year. The events are:
Professional Development Events - Throughout Year
The purpose of the Professional Development Committee is to provide educational and networking programs and seminars for the IT community. The Committee works with corporate sponsors and state agencies to provide these programs at zero to minimal cost to attendees. The Committee also provides selected formal training events to be provided on a fee basis.
Executive Seminar - Annually in the fall
The Executive Seminar's goal is to facilitate communications, networking and the exchange of information technology ideas among senior state government information systems managers and corporate sponsors. Approximately 70 IT managers will attend.
Forum - Annually in May
Forum is an annual information technology seminar and trade show. For more than thirty years, Forum has proven to be an effective opportunity for vendors to demonstrate their products, for speakers to share their expertise and knowledge, and for state employees and others to attend free seminars and product demonstrations. It is important to note that Forum is one of the premier technology shows in the Pacific Northwest and the largest to focus solely on the public sector. Approximately 1,000 state, county, city and private sector employees will attend. Forum corporate sponsors have the option of being allocated high visibility display booths.
LeaderPath Program - Annually
Under the co-sponsorship of IPMA, the State Department of Personnel has partnered with the University of Washington's Cascade Center, the first leadership development program exclusively for IT managers in WA state government. Its focus is on the day-to-day and long-term strategic challenges of creating, collaborating with, and often times, leading agency and interagency IT initiatives. Through LeaderPath for IT Managers, participants will understand how to "sit at the table" with other agency executives and influence the decisions that are made.
CIO Program - Throughout Year
Several times throughout the year, the IPMA facilitates meetings of the state's CIOs. The purpose of the meetings is to facilitate networking and information sharing for the state's CIOs.