On Feb. 1, 2021, the Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) announced that Chandra Brady was beginning her tenure as the new Director of Enforcement and Education. Her first day on the job was that day.
Ms. Brady was chosen following a nationwide search. She most recently served as the Administrator for the Olympia Police Department (OPD). In that capacity, she provided strategic leadership for OPD, oversaw 30+ employees, and the department’s $21 million budget. Her leadership role spanned across divisions with commissioned and non-commissioned staff including: corrections, warrants, records, policy development, contracts, technology, legal, finance, public records and community-based crisis response and outreach. She is a partially-commissioned law enforcement officer and has formerly served as the OPD Jail Manager and as Deputy Chief of the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office.
The Enforcement and Education Director leads approximately 180 officers and staff. In addition, the Enforcement and Education Director plays a key role in agency decision making and often represents the LCB with the Governor’s Office, state Legislature and stakeholders.
“LCB officers are the ones who interact the most in-person with over 25,000 businesses statewide,” said LCB Director Rick Garza. “Chandra brings provide proven leadership that will guide her team in the dynamic marketplaces the LCB regulates.”
“I am very excited about inheriting a division that is at the right time for positive change,” said Brady. “I am inheriting an experienced team that I intend to take to the next level by adding value through leadership, consistency, and integrity and steadily improving relationships with the businesses we regulate. Balancing public safety, education, and building trust are the ingredients licensees and the public need to work together in a fair, quality regulatory system which supports revenue generating activity and adds to the economy of Washington State.”
Brady has a history of broad leadership within each organization of which she has been part. She is currently seeking a Ph.D. in Organizational Leadership.
In other WSCLB news
Chief Nordhorn to Transition to Director of Policy and External Affairs
Former Chief Justin Nordhorn will transition to a new role as Director of Policy and External Affairs. In that capacity, Nordhorn will be overseeing a newly formed outreach team consisting of existing LCB staff. That team is developing an outreach strategy to directly engage stakeholders and licensees to further education, understanding of and compliance with LCB rules and policies.
Systems Modernization Project (SMP) Update
In June 2020, the agency launched SMP as a project to modernize and replace the outdated platforms used extensively by LCB’s Licensing and Enforcement and Education divisions. The project will also transform LCB business operations by optimizing the benefits of a new and modern platform – SalesForce.
Our current systems are decades old which makes them ancient by modern technology standards. They are also difficult and expensive to maintain and carry significant risk they could fail. The project, once completed, will have a significant and positive impact on the agency’s operations and licensees – applicants and existing licensees.
SalesForce and Slalom Inc.
Last year LCB sent you information about the decision to use SalesForce as the technology platform for SMP and that we’d chosen Slalom Inc. as the vendor to provide the systems integration service for SalesForce.
Since the project kicked off, the SMP team has completed the Discovery Phase of the project. During this phase, the SMP Project team members led working sessions with Licensing and Enforcement and Education subject matter experts (SMEs) to further identify, review and refine the requirements for integrating these systems. They also worked with licensees of all types to identify the challenges within the agency’s current systems and how a new system could improve licensee experience with LCB’s systems and processes.
Recent Action
During the Discovery Phase of the project, Slalom recognized that the effort to meet all of the agency’s “must-have” requirements was much more complex than originally anticipated.
Because of this, the LCB Project Team members led working sessions with Licensing and Education and Enforcement SMEs to identify and further review and define the must-have requirements. Based on this information, Slalom recently revised their proposal with an updated one adding the revised requirements.
Given Washington’s state’s procurement rules, any material changes to a contract’s scope and/or price need to be managed via a new procurement cycle. In other words, the revised work needs to be put out for competitive bid.
Request For Proposals (RFP)
As a result, LCB will be preparing an RFP for the revised scope of work following procurement rules.
While this sets back the project’s timeline, what’s most important is that the foundational work completed on SMP has positioned the agency well moving forward. We have taken the right steps to refine the SMP scope, which supports our long-term success.
While SMP is undertaking the RFP process, the Project Team members will continue their work on data conversion and migration of images from Oracle to LaserFiche and on the Organizational Change Management work that will help us assess and prepare for the new system
The LCB remains committed to a system that will better meet your needs and those of the agency, stakeholders and the public.
