Professional of the Year - Government/Agriculture

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Debra J.D. Martinez

Title: IT Manager and Division Information Officer
Industry: Government/Agriculture
Type of Organization: Government Agency
Major Product/Service: Agency responsible for supporting and promoting Florida agriculture, protecting the environment, safeguarding consumers and ensuring the safety and wholesomeness of food
Expertise: Ms. Martinez has over 30 years experience and has been with the current agency for 17 years. She implements information and technology for computer and data to improve operations. Ms. Martinez coordinates information for servicing all aspects of the plant industry including out-of-state needs. She is responsible for protecting Florida's native and commercially grown plants and the state's apiary industry from harmful pests and diseases.
Geographic Area of Distribution: Florida
University/Degree: B.A., Management Information Systems, Florida International University, 1980
Hobbies/Sports: Family activities, boating, fishing, camping, hiking, spending time with friends
Spouse: Roy Martinez
Married: January 19, 1980
Children: Roy William Martinez, Kelly Martinez, Chris Martinez, Nicole Martinez
Work History: Ms. Martinez implemented mobile tablet technology for field activities in 2012, which had mapping and GPS tracking functions to aid management and field staff personnel with ‘real time’ information. She guided the GIS staff to create an Interactive Mapping service for Emergency Program support and created the IT section within the Division of Plant Industry with desktop, programmers and GIS personnel. Ms. Martinez implemented Intranet web technologies for communicating with field staff. In 2003, she implemented PDA’s for field inspection work, managed all the data systems used for the plant and apiary industry to protect Florida agriculture and managed a pest incident control system database to support the citrus industry activities and support 620+ multi-agency and USDA users, with a staff of 9 members.
Career Accomplishments: With over 26 years at Florida Power & Light (FPL), Ms. Martinez worked as a Project Manager in Integrated Document Management (IDM) in the Information Management section. She acquired, implemented and expanded an enterprise-wide imaging solution that manages over 2.3 million documents. Initially, this was implemented in Human Resources statewide. Ms. Martinez then replicated this technology company-wide in many other departments. She is responsible for all networked COM, bit map images, ASCII and window based applications. She has managed networked CD-ROM authoring and distributed scanning services for FPL, including budgeting, business planning and is responsible for supervising 24 professional clerical/technical and temporary staff. Ms. Martinez has worked in various Records Management, Micrographics, Document Management and Purchasing departments at FPL, from the clerical area up through supervision and management.