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I worked at ISA for nearly nine years, from July 2015 through January 2024. There are few titles at ISA, and the organization is very flat; i.e. few managers. ISA tends to hire senior people, each of whom has an extensive background. This yields a workforce that has the maturity to get things done. There is a reporting structure, but for the most part, communication occurs for essential things; i.e. no TPS reports like in Office Space. ISA is one of the leanest organizations I’ve worked for, and their business is highly classified. My role there was similar to that of many engineers in engineering companies. I worked on proposals, requirements, design, development, integration, test, and support. During my time at ISA, I wrote probably a dozen technical manuals. I also wrote a number of security-related documents including a Continuous Monitoring Plan, IV&V plan, Test Plans, and countless test procedures. While there I participated in an agile environment with daily scrums. I am a certified scrum master. In generic terms, I was in charge of testing and monitoring several systems. On a twice daily basis I would check several dozen user interfaces (including Kubernetes, Elastic Search, Grafana, custom GUIs written in Qt) to determine whether the systems were working. When something wasn’t working I had to either fix it or get help from someone who could help diagnose and fix it. Continuous improvement was not just a catch phrase – it was a way of life. Also, before systems were fielded, I was in charge of testing to make sure the systems worked as designed, per the requirements. Then I would go to the field, in this case Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora Colorado, for installation and Site Acceptance Test.
I was hired at L-3 based on my experience with DCGS at Raytheon to work on a different segment of DCGS; namely the SIGINT (or Signals Intelligence) segment. Shortly before I was hired, L-3 had won a contract to replace that segment, which had previously been created and supported by Raytheon. My role at L-3 was originally as a Test Integration Engineer. What that translates to is taking a set of high level requirements (in DOORS), filling in the holes, working with the software team to make sure requirements were understood and being met, participating in software peer reviews, and writing test plans and procedures to thoroughly vet and test the system during integration and while the system is being introduced into the field. Fast forward a year to the time when the replacement system was nearing completion. I was selected to lead the team to perform the installation at National Security Agency. This implied arriving on day 1, then working with various team members as they arrived on site to do their parts of the install – around a dozen people spread over the course of three months. At the three month mark, I oversaw Factory Acceptance Testing, then returned home. I received a couple of awards for these efforts, including a division Top Star award. During another deployment period, this time at Langley Air Force Base in southern Virginia, I got really bored, so I took it upon myself to write a manual for future field support representatives to give them a huge head start on maintaining the systems once fielded at each of the dozen or so sites around the world. This manual is still in use 10 years later. L-3 offered me first choice of assignments at any of the DCGS sites around the world. I seriously considered Germany, Hawaii, and the Far East, but L-3 had bid these support contracts so tight, I would have lost money in each case, so I ultimately opted to leave L-3 to work for a company named ISA.
From 1999 through 2007, then again from 2010 to 2011, I worked with my best friend for two companies. One company was his, named Compendium Technologies, which focused on Navy-related work. The other company was mine, named Melrose Data. Melrose focused primarily on work related to Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID for short). At Compendium I was a jack of many trades, as Compendium is a small company. My roles included proposal writing, requirements analysis, design, development, test, delivery, and support of software products. The software was written in C, C++, or Java. Also at Compendium, I wrote test plans, performed configuration management, served as a quality manager, conducted system level and integration testing, and provided support to the fleet on board the USS Ronald Reagan. President Reagan would have been so proud of this ship being named after him.
At Melrose, my RFID work was mostly as a contractor to Intermec Technologies Intermec, where I took on a number of roles including course development, technical writing of user manuals, maintenance manuals, programmers manuals, application programming interface manuals, and a few others documents. During this time, I occupied a position of significant trust in that I was connected with Intermec’s operations division, IR&D division, training division, and support division to help all sides communicate with each other in maintaining existing systems that had been fielded, as well as helping them wisely define next generation products in a competitive marketplace.
Also during this timeframe I took on a contract with Longwave Incorporated to help them upgrade a US navy system named Clarinet Merlin. The system was created in the 70s and consists of one buoy that was attached to each US submarine, six unmanned listening sites spread around the world, and two manned action sites. If the submarine hits crush depth, the buoy is released, floats to the surface, and begins transmitting a message in morse code. The listening sites receive the message and forward to the manned sites, where appropriate action is taken. In 2003 a contract was let to Longwave to redo all of the hardware and software at each unmanned listening site and each manned site. I was awarded the subcontract to design, develop, field, and support all of the software at those sites. I wrote nearly all of the software myself, comprising around 60,000 lines of embedded C code written in C++. This was accomplished in under a year. I was very busy. Of significance, the system was guaranteed to run for 20 years, implying no logic errors and no memory leaks.
I’ve worked for Raytheon on two occasions. The first was from 1997 to 1999 at what used to be Texas Instruments’ Defense Segment (DSEG), becoming Raytheon TI Systems in the mid-90s. The second was from 2007 to 2010. During my time at Raytheon TI Systems, I worked on two projects. The first was a DARPA program meant to render logistical support via AI. The program was disappointing to work: the prime contractor made life difficult for us and not much good was accomplished. The second program was far better. It involved integrating a microcomputer, flash RAM, a GPS card, and a cellular card into one box that was 4×6 inches and an inch thick. My role was to write C language software to integrate all the pieces. I actually won a special award for identifying a software collision that would semi-randomly occur between the stack and the heap, both of which are logical memory management constructs of any C program. The award came with a nice stock option. The second time I worked for Raytheon was from 2007 to 2010. I was hired to work for Her Majesty’s government in the United Kingdom. We lived in London for 1 full year while on this project. My role was to define and write the interface control documents that system users (mainly airline carriers) would use to (pre-)submit passenger manifest data to the British Immigration and Customs agencies. These documents were a critical part of the project; I managed a small team and won several awards for these efforts. Upon finishing my work on that project, I was assigned to a project named Distributed Common Ground System (aka DCGS) in Garland Texas. The segment of DCGS on which I worked at Raytheon was the imagery segment. The imagery (IMINT) segment would collect imagery from national resources, then compile, process, disseminate, and store this imagery across a distributed environment for safe-keeping and future analysis. My role on DCGS was what is informally called a DR monkey. More specifically, on a daily basis I looked at all Discrepancy Reports (DRs) that had been written against the system, and made sure they were all assigned and being worked. In this role, I sat on 4 Configuration Control Boards (CCBs for short) each week, where I had to give an accounting of each DR’s progress. Although I did not really enjoy this work, I did learn an awful lot about continuous improvement and how Raytheon processes work (and don’t work).
In Richardson Texas, I worked for Rockwell for 8 years. During this time, I served on a number of projects. All of them involved writing C language software on Unix-based computers. Most of the customers were either from the US military or from (D)ARPA. I also worked on projects for several foreign governments, including France, Sweden, Germany, Kuwait, and Greece.
While at Rockwell I engaged in a number of academic pursuits that included earning a masters degree in Computer Science at Southern Methodist University (emphasis in Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence), publishing and presenting technical papers at a number of international conferences, teaching computer science courses at Collin County Community College, and being granted a US Patent on database fusion.
For the Swedish Foreign Ministry, I wrote a number of modules in C, including an encryption/decryption package, compression/decompression software, and code to digitally sign messages. I also wrote two other applications: one an email client/server package, the other was a test suite that processed messages for each external interface of the system. The email package simulated the end user email package meant to be used at each site. My package ended up being used at many sites (rather than the real thing) because it was faster and more reliable. The test suite could inject and trace messages throughout the system. This test suite proved invaluable in the weeks and months leading up to integration, testing, and fielding of the real system.
My artificial intelligence work at Rockwell was limited. While there in the early 90’s, I proposed an IR&D system that would combine high resolution graphics, robotic hands and sensors, digital imagery, spatial databases, a neural network, and machine learning; the system would capture patient data in a spatial database, and allow a surgeon, using robotic fingers/sensors, to operate on a virtual patient – very useful as a teaching/learning tool in medical schools. The neural network would provide a grade on how well the surgeon did. This system had a second targeted application – training and grading someone learning sign language. Rockwell did not accept either application for IR&D. Both of these applications have since been realized by other companies.
Other Employers
Working at a site near Baltimore, I had the privilege to continue working in artificial intelligence. The project I was assigned to involved a prototype for an autonomous underwater vehicle (aka unmanned submarine). There were several expert systems used to control various aspects of the AUV. This was exciting work. Our customer was DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency). One of the highlights of this work occurred on the day the head of DARPA showed up to get a personal briefing on our work. My role involved working in the LISP language on a Unix computer to write part of the expert system I also briefly worked on an Autonomous Air Vehicle (AAV) project, which was long before the GlobalHawk or Reaper drones came into existence.
In 1985, what is now called SPAWAR was called Naval Ocean Systems Center, having an acronym of NOSC. I was extremely fortunate to leverage some of my college coursework involving artificial intelligence on several projects at NOSC. At the time AI was just beginning. At NOSC I worked on a couple of expert systems that were used in the US Navy Fleet to protect ships from various threats, mainly related to electronic warfare. My role there was to design and write user interface software for these expert systems, that would alert the user when there was a potential threat on the horizon. The user interface was written in the C language on a networked set of Sun workstations running Unix, using what became X-Windows for computer graphics. One of the things the system did was keep track of soviet satellite locations and warn the fleet to shut down equipment that would be detectable during upcoming satellite passes. While working at NOSC I spent around 4 months at sea on board the USS Carl Vinson, which is a Nimitz class aircraft carrier. My longest trip was a three-week transit from Alameda California to Pusan in the Republic of South Korea. I really enjoyed those days.
Mortgage Plan B Experience
Mortgage Plan B is a company I formed a few years ago to hold my retirement investments. I am founder and general manager. What that means is I monitor my accounts on a monthly basis to ensure checks are coming in. When they do not come in, I intervene appropriately.