Role: Leads managing the innovation process inside the organization that identifies strategies, business opportunities and new technologies and then develops new capabilities and architectures with partners, new business models and new industry structures to serve those opportunities.
About: Nole supports the work City’s Innovation Team, Enterprise Project Managers and Media Services. Nole started with the City in 1998, he has held multiple positions prior to moving to IMS ranging from Housing, Planning, Building Services, Community Engagement, and Public Services Administration. Fun Work Fact: Nole is in his happy place when he gets to utilize a white board, Post-it notes and markers.
Elizabeth (Liz) Reining Buehler, AICP, Director of Innovation and Project Management
Role: Manages the Senior Innovation Consultants and Project Managers by providing them guidance, advice, and feedback through their projects. Liz assists in identifying new projects for the team to tackle and works with the Chief Innovation Officer, Chief Information Office, and Mayor’s Office to ensure the projects have upper level support.
About: Elizabeth has 20 years of local government experience, including serving as Salt Lake City’s Homeless Services Coordinator and Civic Engagement Manager prior to coming to the Department of Information Services. She received her Master’s in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Austin.
Hailey Leek, MPA, Senior Innovation Consultant
Role: Manages OCM and provides communication support for the City wide Workday training initiative She also specializes in external City outreach with the Digital Donation project and the Citywide Survey. Hailey handles policy writing and assists with group facilitation work. Hailey is looking towards more formal project management for external City projects.
About: Hailey managed Salt Lake City’s 2020 Census campaign which increased census participation in hard-to-count communities. Currently her projects focus on modernizing SLC’s internal and public-facing processes and promoting the use of data to drive decisions. Hailey has a master’s in Public Administration, and bachelor’s degrees in English and Gender Studies all from the University of Utah. She also serves on the Utah Poison Control Center Advisory Board and the University of Utah’s Pi Alpha Alpha Chapter Board. She enjoys reading, cooking and being in the mountains.
Leah Smith, MPA, Senior Innovation Consultant
Role: Handles organizational change management (OCM) for the Workday project and also assists in internal communications, on the ground support for departments, and is looking towards more formal project management for future projects focusing on internal City processes. Outside of the ERP project, Leah does policy work, project focused group facilitation, and assists in outreach.
About: Leah has experience working across Salt Lake City Corporation starting as a Special Event Permitting Coordinator and, later, a Civic Engagement Coordinator for Engineering. Leah has vast knowledge of working through complicated systems and translating bureaucratic speak for the normal person. Leah received her Masters in Public Administration and is certified in ACMP and IAP2 Techniques and Foundations. Outside of work, Leah serves on multiple non-profit boards, plays ultimate frisbee, and spends time with her cat Luna.
Brandi Thompson, Enterprise IT Project Manager
Role: Manages Smartsheets governance, strategy, training, and roadmap. System administrator responsible for managing licenses, design and development, support, and user accounts. Leads all aspects of enterprise-wide project ideation, planning, and stakeholder communication. Ensuring projects are delivered on time, within scope and within budget. Prioritize change request and assess impact to maximize user adoption.
About: Brandi Thompson (she/her) currently works for Salt Lake City as an Enterprise IT Project Manager. In this role, she has been instrumental in the growth and development of a project and work management software throughout the City, called Smartsheet. As a System Administrator for Smartsheet, Brandi has developed project management tools and templates to streamline processes, conducted multiple trainings with users, designed custom workflows and automations, and provided support to system-wide users. Recently, Brandi was invited by Smartsheet to host a local User Group presentation. Going forward, Brandi will continue to cultivate Smartsheet as a City-wide software tool and assist the City in developing a centralized process for project management to improve productivity and efficiency. In her role as a Project Manager, she spends her time herding cats — good thing she is an animal lover! Brandi believes transparency, organization, collaboration, adaptability, communication, teamwork, and problem solving are critical elements to being a successful project manager. Project management is a true passion of hers and she is so pleased she found a pathway that suits her personality, skills, and strengths.
Brandi began her professional career working for University of Utah Health Cardiovascular Center as an Emergency Medical Technician, where she began applying her keen eye for quality improvement, implementing necessary improvements in the clinical practice and increasing department organization during her time in the clinic. Eventually, she made the move to an official quality improvement role when she became a Transplant Quality Improvement Coordinator for the University of Utah Health Solid Organ Transplant Center. In this position, Brandi worked closely with the Heart & Lung organ programs to restructure their processes and approach patient care from a new perspective. Of her vast body of work in this department, Brandi considers her complete overhaul of the Lung Program’s metrics and data reporting to be her greatest achievement. The program was under strict review from a critical regulating body, and Brandi led the change for measuring new metrics, implementing new improvement methods, and improved compliance tracking. Thanks to these shifts, the program was released from strict review and maintained its active status while improving patient outcomes overall. Brandi then transitioned to Hospital Accreditation where she was able to participate in and lead large scale regulatory surveys for University of Utah Health, Huntsman Cancer Hospital, Craig H. Neilsen Rehabilitation Hospital, and Huntsman Mental Health Institution. During this time, Brandi was able to cultivate her skills in improvement and expand upon her success by learning about value management and Lean Six Sigma in a business setting. Ultimately, Brandi moved on from this position to take up her current role with Salt Lake City. Outside of work, Brandi loves spending time spoiling her rescue dog, Raiden and reading a good book.
Cat Cosby, Enterprise IT Project Manager
Role: Manages Smartsheets governance, strategy, training, and roadmap. System administrator responsible for managing licenses, design and development, support, and user accounts. Leads all aspects of enterprise-wide project ideation, planning, and stakeholder communication. Ensuring projects are delivered on time, within scope and within budget. Prioritize change request and assess impact to maximize user adoption.
About: Cat Cosby joined Salt Lake City Corporation as an Enterprise IT Project Manager in 2021. She also serves as a key organizational expert for Smartsheet. The co-development of product management strategies has led to an invitation to be a guest speaker to share her expertise and strategies (Smartsheet User Group, Salt Lake City). Cat has designed custom workflows and automations to streamline management and oversight of these complex systems initiatives. Cat considers her development of the improvement to the Change Advisory Board (CAB) her most impactful work for the organization so far. This vibrant project management software grew from four to 556 users and more than 70 licensed users in its first nine months. Going forward, she hopes to expand process improvements as one of the Product Managers for this software.
Cat Cosby began her career at the University of Utah in 2013 as a medical assistant in internal medicine. A year later, Cat transitioned to ITS Training Specialist, where she was instrumental in the 2014 wave of systems development and training in preparation for the Epic upgrade to widescreen and managing the 2-factor dual-authentication project. Cat joined Strategic Initiatives in 2016 to support and coordinate value education, which includes Value Improvement Leaders and Lean Six Sigma Green Belt training. She assisted the management of the Maintenance of Certification (MOC), the Project Improvement Plan program (PIP), and co-managed the Value Summary Improvement Portal. In 2018 Cat transitioned to Quality Improvement Coordinator for Solid Organ Transplant. With her Smartsheet Product Certification, Cat led the development of the Smartsheet Quality Portal for the department. Chief among these efforts has been her work to provide expert-level strategies and tactics to improve organizational goal performance (Quality Portal). The Quality Portal served as an organizational strategy for surgeons, physicians, nurses, and pharmacists.
As an Enneagram #2, Cat is the quintessential “helper” to put her professional skills for problem solving, thus ensuring the smooth flow of work. Enneagram #2s are hardworking and self-motivated individuals.
