Biography: Russell Castagnaro

Russell has been championing Java since 1996 when he quickly realized the C and Perl applications were not enough and deploying Visual Basic and Powerbuilder applications were simply a nightmare. He implemented some of the first eCommerce applications leveraging Java technologies and led teams implementing eCommerce and ePhilanthropy solutions through 2003. At that point he realized more good for more people could come from sane eGovernment applications. In most cases these applications included eCommerce, Internet publishing, leveraging and all sorts of other Internet technologies. Since 2003 Russell led a team at Hawaii Information Consortium/ eHawaii.gov. He provides technical assistance to any government agency working in Hawaii (Federal, State or Local).

HIC has implemented over 100 services for Hawaii State and County government that process over $1 billion per year and launched hundreds of government websites too. He likes to navigate the thin line between public service and private industry, embracing the dialectic between self-funded government and open source technology. That is basically how he came to champion the stynamic (statically dynamic) noCMS (Jekyl) website while also embracing Wordpress Multisite in the newest implementation of Hawaii government department sites.