PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Richard Culatta, soon to become Rhode Island's first chief innovation officer, was working at a mobile app startup in 2007 when the CIA called.

The spy agency was looking for someone to help improve its antiquated internal communications systems and the South Kingstown native liked the idea of an employer with a public mission, and of taking on a challenge.

Four years later, the innovation office Culatta led within the CIA had helped modernize how the agency functioned, and Culatta was on his way to similar jobs with the U.S. Senate and the Department of Education, he said Monday in an interview at the State House.

Now that she's lured Culatta back to his home state, Governor Raimondo said Monday she hopes he'll do for the Ocean State government what he did for the federal agencies and help it attract more tech-sector talent.

"A top priority of mine is to make the government work better, faster, cheaper," Raimondo said in a State House interview introducing Culatta. "Our resources are incredibly constrained, and yet we have to do a better job of meeting the needs of the people. The only way we can do that is to be innovative and to use technology where possible, take steps out of the process and really rethink the way we deliver services."

In edition to promoting innovation, Culatta's hire is in itself innovative.

Although Raimondo said Culatta will be a member of her cabinet, he will not be employed by a state agency, but instead by the Rhode Island College Foundation, the school's nonprofit fundraising arm, which will pay his $210,000 annual salary and benefits. (His contract also includes a $550 monthly car allowance and a supplemental retirement benefit worth 10 percent of base salary, or $21,000.)

Culatta will be the lone employee of a new Innovation Office on the Rhode Island College campus, which school officials said they hope will help turn the school into a hub for innovation. A father of four, he'll also spend part of his time back in Washington D.C., helping promote Rhode Island innovation, he said.

"It's a benefit for us to have the chief innovation officer for state government at the college," said Ron Pitts, RIC's vice president of academic affairs. "We can support him with faculty and students who are interested in doing new things in different ways."

Pitts and Raimondo both said making the Innovation Office part of a nonprofit instead of a state agency would open opportunities for academic and philanthropic grants.

An idea born in the private sector and adopted in cities like Boston and New York, chief innovation officers have been spreading to state governments since Maryland hired on in 2011.

Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza hired Nicole Pollack as the city's first chief innovation officer a year ago.

On Monday, Raimondo said she has not given any specific problem areas for Culatta to tackle and he will work across state government, starting with a listening tour to identify opportunities for change.

The state already has an Office of Digital Excellence tasked by statute to "move [Rhode Island] state government into the 21st century through the incorporation of innovation and modern digital capabilities," and Joy Fox, spokeswoman for Raimondo, said Culatta would work closely with that office. She described the Innovation Office as more of a big-picture "ideas" hub with Digital Excellence being more technically focused.

panderson@providencejournal.com

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