Strategic Program Manager & Consultant

WORK EXPERIENCE

Over 25 years of Project Management experience for large and complex community-wide, county-wide, and department-wide projects. This includes:

• Strategic Problem-Solving & Vision: Served as an internal consultant, utilizing structured methodologies to define the “what” and “why” of complex challenges, and aligning stakeholders around a unified strategic vision.
• Process Optimization & Scalable Delivery: Directed multi-agency system modernization, using data-driven insights (CRUD Analysis) to optimize product development workflows and improve the efficiency of delivery teams.
• Onboarding & Enablement Strategy: Led cross-functional teams to develop and maintain training curricula and documentation, improving user onboarding and time-to-value for new products and initiatives.
• Financial Governance & Business Impact: Managed the financial oversight of enterprise modernization, ensuring program budgets aligned with revenue goals and strategic investment priorities.
• Technical Execution & System Integration: Directed large-scale platform modernization, overseeing the systems integration and technical execution required to move from complex legacy systems to modern solutions.

• Mobile Technology Deployment: Managed a high-impact joint project to equip 168 field officers with Mobile Data Terminals (MDTs). The successful deployment significantly improved real-time data access and enhanced operational effectiveness for field teams.
• L&D Program Integration & Enablement: Developed and delivered training in project management methodologies for the Field Training Officer Program Revision effort. Managed the Train-the-Trainer model and integrated L&D workstreams into overall project governance.

• Served as an internal consultant to develop and implement a comprehensive justice and information sharing strategic plan on behalf of 12 Justice stakeholders.
• Managed various integrated justice projects that were prioritized and approved by executive management representing the stakeholder organizations.
• Organized and led efforts to apply for justice Grants and Federal Earmarks including presenting our program to local staff members of a U.S. Congress Representative and U.S. Senator.
• Developed and conducted numerous justice related executive presentations and served as a presenter at various justice related conferences throughout the United States.
• Served on a national board (JISP) sponsored by U.S. DOJ for nearly 2 years including serving 1 year as Chairman of the Board.
• Developed and conducted an extensive integrated justice benchmarking study of 19 jurisdictions across the United States that was published by the National Center for State Courts.

Over 10 years strategic planning experience:

• Served a one year on-loan assignment to CEO’s Office to serve as an internal consultant for the County-wide strategic planning effort.
• Designed, conducted and managed the training of County Strategic Task Teams.
• Facilitated various County Teams and Department Head meetings.
• Managed the development of comprehensive strategic plans for Integrated Justice Information Sharing Program and Sacramento County and Cities Board on Homelessness.
• Served as an external consultant to facilitate the development of Strategic Plans for Sacramento County Coroner’s Office.

• Nearly 7 years law enforcement experience including 6 years as a sworn Peace Officer with the Alameda Police Department and U.C. Berkeley Police Department and 1 year as a Police Assistant with the Hayward Police Department.
• Served as a Patrol Officer, Field Training Officer (FTO), and Defensive Tactics Instructor.
• Served on a highly trained Arrest Team utilized for major demonstrations.
• Worked executive protection details for visiting dignitaries such as the U.S. Secretary of State, President of the Philippines; and California Governor.

Over 28 years of training experience including designing and conducting various formal training sessions in areas such as Project Management, Strategic Planning, Team Facilitation, Process Improvement Team Training, and Cultural Change Team Training.

• Formally trained and mentored numerous Trainers and Facilitators at Sacramento County.
• Served over 3.5 years as a Field Training Officer and Defensive Tactics Instructor.      

Brian Richards Presenting on the Probation MDT Project at a Justice Technology Conference, October 2019

FEATURED PROJECTS

• In collaboration with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department, deployed 84 MDTs for over 160 Armed Field Probation Officers.
• Developed comprehensive User Guide which was accessible to users via the MDT.
• Established comprehensive end user training program (5 hours of training) & on-going users group.
• Developed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) including the scope of services and a detailed cost menu.
• October, 2019 – developed presentation slides and served as a conference speaker in sharing about this project to an audience of 400 plus justice professionals from 70 law enforcement agencies throughout North America at a justice technology conference in Arizona.

• Analyzed, revised and improved overall program including training curriculum, communication strategies and added support documentation, forms, and quizzes.
• Developed PowerPoint Executive Summary regarding recommended program revisions. Presented initial recommendations to Department Field Training Officers and Probation Supervisors for field staff for feedback. Final recommendations were then provided to Probation Executive Management. Program was implemented as proposed.

• Established a shared IJIS database that the 12 Justice Stakeholder Organizations in Sacramento County use for ad-hoc reporting and scheduled reports. Database includes Known Persons File, Warrants, Court Scheduling and Dispositions, and Jail Inmate Management.
• Managed movement of all mainframe criminal justice data to the IJIS Database running on SQL server in order to enable stakeholders to run their own reports instead of having to request this service through central County IT.
• Replicated data to select Stakeholder organization systems based on security views which they utilize to run their case management systems in conjunction with the IJIS data to meet their operational business needs.

Served as an internal consultant to develop and implement a comprehensive justice and information sharing strategic plan on behalf of 12 Justice stakeholders. 820 key processes and 109 categories of information (technically known as “data entities”) were initially identified to be within the scope of the adult and juvenile criminal justice system. 

• Each of the 247 key criminal justice processes (i.e., make arrest, perform booking, file charge, resolve charge, etc.) were analyzed to determine the frequency each process created, read, updated, or delated certain information (Data Entity).
• Documented business process flow mapping of over 820 business processes related to criminal justice administration that was performed by the various justice stakeholders.
• Performed Create, Read, Update and Delete (CRUD) analysis of the core 240 business processes performed by the collective stakeholders in relation to the 110 data entities in the current mainframe County criminal justice system to identify data sharing opportunities and data redundancy issues.

RELATED INTERESTS