PRESS RELEASE
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Mission Critical Partners (MCP) announced that Heather Pettit has joined the firm as its vice president of court technologies within the firm’s Justice Management and Technology (JMT) services practice.
Pettit brings nearly two decades of experience in advancing court technologies. She most recently served as chief information officer and director of information technology for the Judicial Council of California (JCC), the rule-making arm of the California court system, where she led the effort to modernize the technology programs, policies, and processes utilized by court systems throughout the state. She also established and directed the Judicial Branch Office of Information Security. Pettit received Government Technology magazine’s 2023 State of California Public Sector CIO of the Year Award.
In her new role, Pettit will lead the firm’s subject-matter experts concerning the assessment, acquisition, design, and implementation of a wide variety of court technology solutions. She also will provide executive-level strategic consulting to court systems, and will leverage her information-security expertise to bolster MCP’s efforts to protect court systems from cyberattacks.
Since launching the JMT services team in 2021 after acquiring MTG Management Consultants, MCP has supported high-profile projects that are transforming court system operations in the United States. These include:
- Modernizing the city of New Orleans’ decades-old computer systems with advanced, cloud-based technologies.
- Transitioning the paper-based operations of the Superior Court of California – Marin County to digital-by-default court services; the effort included automating case-processing workflows, improving data capture and management, and streamlining document production.
- Working with the Superior Court of California – Los Angeles County to ensure that the goals and processes identified for its data-governance program align with those of other justice entities in the state, especially pertaining to data integration.
“We long have believed that the ecosystem MCP serves consists of both the public safety and justice sectors,” said John Chiaramonte, president of the firm’s consulting division. “We’re confident that Heather’s influence will accelerate our efforts to improve the technologies used by court systems to enhance justice outcomes.”
Darrin Reilly, MCP’s president and chief executive officer, added that Pettit is an ideal fit culturally. “Heather embraces the firm’s core values — persistence, integrity, trust, accountability, and prudence — that guide everything we do,” Reilly said. “She’s also an industry leader, and MCP has taken great pride since it’s inception 15 years ago in being the place where industry leaders want to work — she’ll fit right in.”