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Quirks, Passions Serve School District's IT Leader Well

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By SHERRI ACKERMAN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 13, 2009

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• BIO: A Quick Look At John Steele

TAMPA - Getting up at 3:18 every morning just begins to explain how David Steele stays on top of every aspect of his life.

There is also the Excel spreadsheet on the refrigerator listing items his family buys at Publix - by aisle - so needs can be highlighted.

"He's quite strange," says his wife, Trish, who fell in love with him anyway when he was an assistant principal and she a teacher at Plant City High in 1998.

That strangeness and the skill set that go with it serve Steele well.

Steele, 53, was in charge of secondary education for Hillsborough County schools from 2006 until September, when he was promoted to chief information and technology officer. He worked both jobs until last month but now focuses only on information and technology.

The new job includes supervising the district's transportation system after the meltdown when school started this year. Parents and school staff struggled for weeks to figure out bus assignments.

Whether Steele will keep the transportation division is uncertain, but he has been involved in figuring out what went wrong and how technology can help fix it.

The biggest mistake came when communication broke down and district officials "left schools out of the loop," Steele says. He doesn't look back or assign blame. Rather, he is helping review new software that will enable parents to access bus information before schools open in August.

"Sometimes people spend more time figuring out who to blame than they spend trying to solve the problem. I try to focus on what do we do to fix it," he says.

A couple of things help.

"I never suffer from lack of planning," says the soft-spoken administrator. Also, technology is his passion.

Steele gets up well before dawn at his Plant City home to get on the Internet via computer. When his computer is off, he stays connected with his Blackberry.

"The whole computer thing – the information is just made for me," he says. "I just love information."

The family of three has five computers at home. MacKenzie, 8, has one in her room. They rarely watch television, though they do watch rented movies on a computer. E-mail is preferable to phones: "You don't have to answer right away. You do your research – (that) gets you the right answer first," he says.

Only vacations and MacKenzie's activities prompt him to turn off the Blackberry. When the family goes to the mall, Steele heads to places with wireless connections with his laptop or Blackberry to work while his wife and daughter shop.

"He works all the time – seven days a week," says Trish Steele. "He's working before we get up. I've gotten used to it."

Steele starts his day spending an hour on the Internet reading local and national newspapers. At 4:15 a.m., he is running in his neighborhood. An hour or so later, he is at his desk in downtown Tampa, 21 miles from his home in the Plant City development of Walden Lake.

The early morning ritual began long before Steele could even imagine the Internet. While a student at the University of Florida in the 1970s, "It was the time you could actually study in the dorm," he said. Soon, pre-dawn became "the best time of the day."

Steele grew up in Yonkers, N.Y., the son of an assembly line worker who spun copper for a living and a homemaker mother. He had two older sisters and remembers a simple, idyllic childhood growing up in a town along the Hudson River.

A highlight were bus trips into New York City for a Yankees or Mets game. By the time he was 11 or 12, he was taking the subway into the city with friends.

When Steele finished his sophomore year in New York, his father retired and moved the family to Plant City. It was a change for the introverted teen, but, "I adjusted to meeting all new people."

Steele fancied he would be a lawyer and majored in English when he entered UF in 1973. He switched to social studies and an education major mainly because he had always enjoyed school. That was OK with his parents.

After graduation, Steele eventually became a math teacher at Plant City High when the teacher quit a few days before school started. He was given all remedial math students, the school was on double sessions and he had to take courses at the University of South Florida to become certified to teach math.

It was August, 1978, and Steele was making $11,000 a year. By January, he was married to a co-worker at the bank, but the marriage ended in divorce six years later.

Despite the pay, teaching "was just something I took right to," he said. He spent 12 years in the classroom, except for a year he studied at Harvard earning his master's degree in administration, planning and social policy.

The best job, he says, was the one he is giving up as general director of secondary education, because it involved analyzing data on individual student achievement. Steele's skills helped high schools improve their state assigned grades by presenting student achievement data to principals in a usable format, Superintendent MaryEllen Elia said.

Steele's roles may shift with his new position, Elia said, but his skills will be used across all divisions. He also is responsible for communications, information services, assessment, accountability and staff training.

"He has an ability to see what needs to happen," said Deputy Superintendent Ken Otero. "When he brings you a problem, he brings you a solution."

Finding solutions is play to Steele. Focus is critical. The wee morning hours allow him that.

"I like to have at least an hour when it is quiet to get ready," Steele says. "If things come up during the day, I can deal with it."

And things do inevitably come up. Take the grocery list on the refrigerator. "What drives you nuts is when Publix changes their aisles and you have to change your strategy."

Or when some premium ice cream cartons changed shape from rectangular to round and Steele could no longer cut his favorite treat into four neat blocks for storage.

Steele says he is not compulsive, just "detail oriented."

What about the 3:18 a.m. thing? Why not 3:20 or 3:30?

"No particular reason. I tried 3:20. An even number bothered me.

"It's just an idiosyncrasy."

Reporter Marilyn Brown can be reached at (813) 259-8069

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