Deputy Fire Marshall
Kate has been the Deputy Fire Marshall at Golden, Colorado for 2.5 years. She has a myriad of responsibilities including reviewing plans submitted for fire sprinkler remodels, renovation, building division referrals, building code, and fire code. Kate has worked for local government since she graduated from High School. Her first job was with the City and County of Denver. She worked there for 10.5 years, worked for State of Arizona, then the Aurora Fire Department for 9.5 years, and then Golden, CO. Her dedication and hard work are shining examples of Beautiful Government!
Seth speaks to the SeamlessDocs team in the February installment of the Seamless Speaker Series
Q&A with this municipal champion
Funny story; her Father works for the City and County of Denver and was hounding her to 'get a real job'. She started with clerical work in Denver and has since worked in several administrative and clerical roles at a DMW car pound airport, hospitals, Denver, and Aurora. She worked in the Aurora Fire Department for 12 years.
One of the main reasons Kate was hired was for her experience in Electronic Plan Review. Aurora offers all services online electronically. The amount of paper at Golden when she first started was a fire hazard. Every review process requires paper.
She wanted to offer a service that could accommodate requirements by code, allow digital signatures, and the ability to accept the review through their email with comments. She tried working through Adobe to create stamps, comments, specialized notes, symbols, and worked very hard for 6 months to develop this. She met with someone at SeamlessGov and really thought this was a great solution. There are some forms like their Ride Along Form, that now flow BEAUTIFULLY through SeamlessDocs. A citizen can fill out form and it gets routed to all of the necessary people for approval.
People would call on a regular basis to complain about having to submit paper plans in person. Many had to take off work to simply drop off a check and some people would even have to send and pay for a carrier because they had no time. Going paperless alleviates a lot of storage taken up by paper plans. This is a necessary convenience and adds efficiency for clients, contractors, and citizens.
Paul accepts his Service is Beautiful Award from CEO & Founder Jonathon Ende
Seth accepts his Service is Beautiful Award from CEO & Founder Jonathon Ende
Deputy Fire Marshall
Real results from this municipality
(Submissions * Time Saved per Form = Total Time Saved)
Real results from this municipality
(Submissions * Time Saved per Form = Total Time Saved)
Real results from this municipality
(Submissions * Time Saved per Form = Total Time Saved)
Real results from this municipality
(Submissions * Time Saved per Form = Total Time Saved)
It was a little rough for the first couple of months with how complicated our back and forth processes were. The GRM has made things so easy to continue the conversation and upload different items to the submission like cut sheets and calculations. She really tried to stay out of email because if anyone has 10 emails, it is way too hard to keep them in one place. The GRM consolidates that information so she can see all of the interactions in one place; which is a much better process.
You go to the submission, open it up, look at the conversation, and can send a reminder of things that still need to be added to the submission before a file can be placed off hold. There wasn't a GRM at first, but they are really happy with the way we have both grown together into the GRM. It makes things significantly easier. Working with SeamlessPay was a life-saver and the ability to put in formulas into auto-calculate was a significant improvement. All of these digital services can be completed from the comfort of your own office without having to run around.
Golden, CO's Ride Along Form is now a "Seamless" process. Golden only allows students in a college program to apply for ride-alongs.
Previously, the process was a paper form. This was handed out manually to all students; then, they needed to be gathered, signed, and dropped off in person. The Captain would then have to painstakingly reach out to every single student to schedule individual times.
An instructor can now simply guide their students to an online link to the form. The student fills it out, and when they are done, they need to be sponsored by their teacher. The form is automatically routed to their teacher to approve and confirm that 'Yes, they are a student and yes, they are in this course, etc". Once completed, a station caption schedules the ride along. The student has provided 3 available days on the form so the Captain is able to automatically approve of the best day and a confirmation goes to the student with the schedule. There are multiple people involved in this process and it flows very smoothly.
Conversations! The ability to have consolidated conversations in the GRM is a game-changer. You can ask for additional attachments, forms, and request clarification. The previous process of back and forth in emails was highly inefficient and easy to lose track of and, in some cases, delete the interaction. Now the back and forth conversation is in one place. It is all there and she doesn't have to go frantically searching for it. Even when a contractor walks away from a job, the new person can be tagged, and now they have access to the history of the form without having to go find all of it, all in one place.
Simplify forms as much as you can. When people and citizens are going through forms, there is so much information to get through. When Kate was new to Golden, she needed to cut a lot of extra junk out. Think and consider options to simplify the form and process. Pay attention to the language in your Cover Letter explaining how to fill out the document so you don't have a million questions coming back to you and use Cover Letters on everything.
Kate: "I think the ability to get onto someone's website or find applications online where it is not complicated is imperative. When all of your questions can be answered, things are simplified digitally, and things are simple and easy to find, you are offering the same genuine Customer Service without human interaction. Even though the citizen isn't speaking to another person, the service communicates that "we're helpful" and considerate. You should never send someone to website where it is not easy to find everything."
Success Manager
Gina is a Client Success Manager at SeamlessDocs. She has experience working in the public sector and owning client relationships at another Tech Startup, Poppin. Gina attended Rutgers University where she studied Psychology and Public Health. Born and raised in New Jersey, she likes to travel and discover new places.
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