Located just to the east of San Francisco bay, Contra Costa County is both a bedroom community of 900,000 people and the site of several oil refinery operations. Not the largest California's county or home to a major metropolitan area, Contra Costa has s till managed to assign high priority to its Year 2000 program. Chief Information Officer Steve Steinbrecher heads up the county wide effort, spanning 35 agencies and the County data center. He also says that the agencies themselves are over 85 percent through the remediation phase. The large agencies, he estimates, will spend twice as much money making their repairs.
External interfaces enjoy the County's special attention.
Steinbrecher says he has built an electronic fence around the jurisdiction to intercept all incoming digital traffic. He says physical contact has also been made with all interface partners to un derstand every transaction and understand date formats. Embedded systems issues, he indicates, are on-going challenge and will be worked up to day 365. The County's General Services Department has the lead on the issue, with vendor compliance verificati on support provided by both state and federal web-based databases. Like many Y2K program managers, Steinbrecher credits his team's success to the support received from County executives.