Larry Franks is the Vice-President of Information Technology Services at the Peterborough Utilities Group (PUG).

Back in 1974, the Peterborough Utilites Commission agreed to join forces with the City of Peterborough and as a bigger bang for the buck, decided to share an I.T. department. Since then, they have grown into the 26 staff they share today and span five locations such as the P.U.G., Peterborough Police Services, Social Services and the City of Peterborough.

This shared aspect has worked rather well, since most tasks are joint projects but yet have a different prerogative than most City ventures. While most are meant to drive a profit, the I.T. Department is aimed to work "at cost". This creates a unique structure that also has a lot of built-in redundancies.

Recently, Larry received an email that he was a finalist for a Computerworld Canada award in the category of "Small to Medium Enterprise" (there were six categories in total). Larry went to Toronto to attend the function recently, which had finalists from across Canada. Much to his surprise, he was announced as the winner in his category.

Larry is reluctant to take credit, as he feels it is very much the team that deserves the award. "I have a really good staff," says Larry, who made sure to congratulate the entire department when he got back. The department started 30 years ago, has had very little turnover and just last year had their first retirement.

Congrats to Larry—and his team.

[Contributed by PtboCanada's Evan Holt]

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