Grandpa Ham – Grandpa Can do IT!

I am using the following text in my e-amil to friends and constacts letting them know of my change in situation:I have been a Battelle employee for 12 out of the last 13 years, but I am moving on. Battelle is a good organization to work for. I have enjoyed it, and will always value the experience that I gained.

For now, I am acting as an individual IT consultant. I am working full time on a contract with the Virginia DMV as an IT process consultant to a major cross-agency BPR effort. My primary function is helping the various BPR teams put together coherent scenario driven requirements within a model that will drive a future-state SOA and will provide full life cycle traceability from initial requirements through code and test. The process works. I get to see the evidence every day.

My part in this activity is as a mentor, trainer, and general enabler to the teams doing the actual BPR activity. I love the work, but it is not secure. It may last three months, or it may last three years. A lot depends on the vagaries of state budgets. My best guess is that I will be almost full time for a while, and gradually move toward occasional training and “reinforcement” visits.

You may ask what “almost” full time means. It means that I am separately maintaining my membership on the OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee. It also means that I can take a week or so per month for other activities. For example, assuming that DM-OPEN survives as promised in the transition from Battelle to the DHS CIO (or some other provider), I can still help with connectivity. Similarly, if a company or government agency wants to put any of the experience I have gained over the years to work for them, I may be able to help. It would have to be limited hours initially, but could grow bigger over time, depending on the situation.

At any rate, you can find me, my resume, what I can do, and what I am currently doing at http://grandpaham.com

I just returned to work after a week in San Diego working with fellow members of the OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee. Lots to do to catch up. Proposals to write. Presentations to make. Very busy, yet planning for change.

The new OASIS Emergency Data Exchange Language Resource Messaging (EDXL-RM) Specification is being released for public comment this week. Since I am part of the development team for the specification, I can obviously be of assistance to those who wish to implement. I also have a complete understanding of the EDXL Distribution Element Specification and how it is used as a transport wrapper for EDXL-RM. The final kicker is FEMA’a new Integrated Pubic Alert and Warning System (IPAWS). It will use the EDXL-DE as its mechanism for message transport. I will be among the first to prototype its operational capability. The obvious project I would like to put first in my queue is to help a government agency at any level or a private company in the emergency management software space be IPAWS ready with both alerting and resource messaging capabilities.