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Stuff
Lab directors
Managers
Kids weddings
Family day
Knee replacement
Christmas parties
Houses
Lab security breach
Irof vrof
The big flood jan 1996
The big fire 2000
My publications -
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WESTINGHOUSE HANFORD
WESTINGHOUSE HANFORD -
The Internet is Born
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) – a small network for academics and researchers – transitions to the standard TCP/IP protocol of the World Wide Web. The protocol would become the internet's cornerstone and technical foundation as it allows expanded available address space and decentralizes the network, thus also expanding accessibility. -
Inquiry Into Science
Started as an Inquiry Into Science intern at Westinghouse Hanford working for James Strode and Todd Samuels in the Personal Shielding and Dosimetry group. (Yes, this the same Todd that later came to PNNL). -
Security, Security, Security
Going out to the 325 building was an interesting process. You'd drive through the Cypress Gate entrance and park. There was a double chain link fence surrounding a large portion of the 300 area. The old test reactor dome was front and center. You'd enter no-mans-land through a badged turnstile and proceeded to the 306 Guardhouse. Everything was scanned (like the airport). You'd walk through both a radiation detector and a magnetometer and then exit out the Guardhouse within the perimeter fence. -
Punch Cards
I worked in the basement of the 325 Building (Later RPL). We had an ND6600, an HP desktop system with a small little green screen. I worked with punch cards and submitted jobs to the UNIVAC at BCSR (Boeing Computer Services) at the Federal Building. -
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PNL GEOSCIENCES - THE EARLY YEARS
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Starting my PNL Journey
Came to work for PNL - Pacific Northwest Laboratory. It didn't become a National Laboratory until the '90s. Randy Kirkham hired me. Charlie Kincaid was my line manager. Glendon Gee was the senior scientist. Paula Heller worked in our hydrology lab. Shelly Fangman worked in the computer room. Chris Kemp worked in the field and Owen Abbey managed the CR7 data loggers. Later I had the opportunity to work with Mark Rockhold. -
Perspective!
My esteemed colleague and a current PNNL project manager, Ty Mulholland, is three months old. -
The Z Vax!
Here I am just an 18-year-old kid and Randy is showing me the Sigma V computer room. Dave Cowley was the system admin. You walk into this noisy room with a false floor where cooled air is pushed into the room. Along the wall is this HUGE grey box with cables and stuff running in and out of it. I turn to Randy and ask if that was the VAX? He just laughed and said, "No, that is the chiller that keeps the computers cool." He walks over to this relatively small cabinet and says this is the Z VAX. -
Field Work
At first I mostly did field work. I used a Neutron Probe as a way to measure water content in the soil. The neutron probe used an Americium 241 source that would send out "fast" neutrons into the surrounding soil. If they encountered water, they would become "slow" neutrons which the probe was able to detect and count. Based upon those counts we would convert those numbers to a water content and produce a profile for each of the sites. -
Freshman Year
Freshman year at Eastern Washington University (EWU) in Cheney. This is where my dad went to school for his bachelor degree. -
Chemicals Kill Thousands in India
The chemical disaster in Bhopal is still considered history's worst industrial disaster. About 30 tons of methyl isocyanate, an industrial gas used to make pesticide, are released at a Union Carbide Corp. plant. About 600,000 poor residents of nearby shanty towns are exposed to a highly toxic compound that kills about 15,000 people and countless farm animals, according to Indian government estimates. -
A Handshake from Dr. Wiley
Lab Director, Dr. William Wiley, visits staff in their buildings to wish them Merry Christmas. -
Soil Water Data Modeling
I worked with a program called RS/1 where I would write code to process all of that data. -
Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster
73 seconds into flight, the space shuttle Challenger exploded. The cold temperatures, along with a faulty rocket booster, was the cause. All seven crew members died. The resulting negative publicity put the whole NASA space program in jeopardy. -
Chernobyl Disaster
Reactor 4 exploded during a routine maintenance check. Two people died from the explosion, 28 within weeks from radiation, and there have been over 20,000 cases of thyroid cancer directly linked to the emitted radiation. -
Wall Street Crash
aka Black Monday, was when the stock market took its largest single-day nosedive plunging 22.6% (more than the 1929 crash, more than after 9/11, more than the 2008 recession, more than during the COVID-19 pandemic). This led to approximately $1 trillion of wealth lost over the course of just six days. -
Back at PNL
Rehired into the Hydrology group in Geosciences when funding was restored. -
World Wide Web
The Web was invented by English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee while at CERN in 1989. He proposed the information management system in March and implemented the first successful communication between a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) client and server via the Internet in mid-November. The web was originally conceived and developed to meet the demand for automated information-sharing between scientists in universities and institutes around the world. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
This ended a 28-year division of the city. At only 28 miles long it was more symbolic than an effective border across Germany, although there was a very effective border across the rest of the country and crossing it was usually fatal, in either direction. Communist regimes fell like dominoes in the weeks and months following, including the Soviet Union, which cracked and fell apart, officially dissolving the day after Christmas 1991. -
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THE HELP DESK
I enjoyed doing field work and working in the Hydrology group, but I'm young and the fields always look greener elsewhere. I applied for a Level 3 Technician position for the newly formed Help Desk. LeeAnn Daniels (Dudney) was my line manager. The original gang was Dave McGee, Denny Damschen, Susan Widner, Sharon Wilder, Robin Biagini, DeeDee Johnson, and Dawn Rader (Pierson). -
VAX and UNIX Experts
Denny, Dave McGee and I worked with the Unix and VAX support. Later Dave became one of the first Mac experts. The other folks mostly provided PC support. -
Help Desk Startup
We created all of the original material for Help Desk support including the number 375-6789. We had pagers. Not too long after being formed as a team, Judy Swank was hired to be our supervisor. -
Gulf War
After Saddam Hussein's Iraq invades and occupies Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, the United States sends forces to defend neighboring Saudi Arabia from being overrun and to protect its vital oil assets in Operation Desert Shield. With Saudi Arabia secured, U.S. implements Operation Desert Storm to push Iraqi forces back across the border with Kuwait. Once the U.S. began their ground assault as part of Operation Desert Storm, they defeated Iraq within days. -
Adding More Staff
We needed to hire more staff. In early 1991 we hired Chris Woodbury, Glenn Breid, Dave Bailey, and … -
Cold War Ends
After nearly 70 years in power and growing unrest, the Soviet Union collapses on Dec. 26, 1991. U.S. President George H.W. Bush and his Russian counterpart, Boris Yeltsin, meet at Camp David to formally declare the end of the Cold War that began shortly after the end of World War II. The meeting comes days after both countries announce they would stop aiming nuclear missiles at each other. Russia declares its 11 former communist satellite republics – from Armenia to Uzbekistan – independent. -
World Wide Web goes public
CERN made the source code of WorldWideWeb available on a royalty-free basis, making it free software. -
Love, Twue Love!
I married the love of my life - Amy Beth -
Taking a Byte out of old software
The amount of software purchased was growing. Initially we tried destroying the software through mechanical means, but this was labor intensive. I worked with Green Disk to establish a contract where they would recycle the material in a safe way to protect the Laboratory. I was recognized in DOE magazine, Greenie, the Tri-City Herald, and interviewed on local TV stations for this innovative approach. -
Amazon.com is Born
With an initial aim of becoming an online bookstore, Jeff Bezos and a handful of angel investors launch Amazon.com, just as e-commerce is about to take off. In 2020, after expanding from books to the so-called “Everything Store” and growing a business selling cloud services to companies like Netflix and Instagram, Bezos would be the world’s richest man. -
Back to School
I embarked on a paid Educational Leave of Absence and worked hourly until I finished by degree and hired into BIS group. -
Attitude Adjustment Parties
These were regularly scheduled events at the Battelle picnic grounds over by the 6th Street Warehouse and the baseball fields. They were held throughout the year and served food, drinks, and usually had some kind of entertainment like bouncy houses for the kids. -
Attitude Adjustment Parties
These were regularly scheduled events at the Battelle picnic grounds over by the 6th Street Warehouse and the baseball fields. They were held throughout the year and served food, drinks, and usually had some kind of entertainment like bouncy houses for the kids. -
The Dawn of Cloning
Dolly the Sheep enters the annals of bioengineering when scientists at Scotland's Roslin Institute become the first to not only successfully clone a mammal, but also the first to do so using an adult cell rather than an embryonic one. After 277 so-called cell fusions that created 29 embryos, the teams managed to turn an udder cell into a nearly complete biological carbon copy of the sheep from which it came. -
Brianna
My beautiful daughter, Brianna, was born -
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THE DEVELOPER YEARS
I was hired on full time by Tom Connelly in the Business Information Systems group as an S&E I. -
Machine Tops Chess Champ
Artificial intelligence and machine learning have been serious areas of study (and hype) for over 60 years. In 1997, one of the most significant victories for silicon logic came when IBM's Deep Blue became the first machine to beat a world chess champion. The refrigerator-sized computer beat Garry Kasparov twice and tied him three times in a six-game match. -
Princess Diana killed
Escaping from paparazzi photographers, they crashed the Mercedes S-280 into a pillar in a tunnel. Diana was not wearing a seat belt and died from her injuries. -
Sybase Powerbuilder Developer
I was a developer on a major initiative to rewrite our procurement systems with the contracted company AMS. The new Procurment Desktop system was built using Sybase's Powerbuilder. -
Jaedon
My happy and strong-willed son, Jaedon, was born -
The Age of Google Begins
With seed money from Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, among others, Stanford University Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin launch the search engine Google. The digital advertising behemoth Google Inc., now Alphabet Inc., is a $1.104 trillion company with several subsidiaries, including video-sharing platform YouTube; autonomous-car development company Waymo; and X, the company’s research and development division. -
Y2K Upgrade
Key member on a multi-functional team to upgrade Integrated Procurement and Accounts Payable (IPAP) system to be Y2K compliant. The system was primarily written in COBOL. -
Promoted to S&E II
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Y2K
The biggest non-event of the last 40 years. Airplanes would drop out of the sky. Our computers were going to turn on us. All because computers didn’t know it was a new millennium. -
Dot-com bubble
The dotcom bubble is a stock market bubble that was caused by speculation in dotcom or internet-based businesses from 1995 to 2000. -
Annika
My precious daughter, Annika, was born. (also affectionately known as Supersonica.) -
International Space Station Opens
Commanders Bill Shepherd from the United States and Yuri Gidzenko of Russia, along with Russian flight engineer Sergei Krikalev become the first temporary residents of the International Space Station two years after the first component of the research center was put into low-Earth orbit about 250 miles above sea level. Since that first crew, there have been 229 other visitors to the ISS, some of them multiple times, led by 146 from the United States and 47 from Russia. -
Thyroid Cancer
Thyroid Cancer - The Hanford Environmental Health Foundation was the site OccMed provider. When I did field work I had annual checks through HEHF. I continued to go every three years thereafter. The doctor who saw me noticed a lump on my neck which turned into a year long ordeal of surgery, radiological ablation, and recovery. -
9-11 Attack on America
19 men linked to the al Qaeda terrorist group hijacked four U.S. airplanes and crashed them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. Another crashed into the Pentagon and the fourth was crashed into the ground by the passengers. -
Enterprise Architecture
Under the direction of Trav Stratton I assisted with the creation of the Business Information System Enterprise Architecture using the Zachman framework. This led to Trav assisting DOE to build a framework for all of DOE. -
What WMDs?
With the help of British and other allied forces, the United States begins its invasion of Iraq with a rapid bombing "Shock and Awe" campaign with the intention of destroying Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction; the weapons are never found. Coalition forces manage to quickly topple the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, but have to fight insurgent forces for years afterward. -
First dotNet application at PNNL
The AirPermit application has the distinction of being one of the first dotNet application created at PNNL. I led a team of 3 developers - Darren Curtis, Stacy Schulze, and Linda Angel - to create a dotNET application to manage air permit requests to improve tracking and regulatory compliance to state and federal agencies. This was an opportunity to help blaze the trail for dotNet development. -
Ethan
My bright and precocious son, Ethan, was born. -
Promoted to S&E III
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Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg, a 23-year-old Harvard University student, creates “The facebook,” a local social networking site named after the orientation materials that profiles students and faculty and given to incoming college freshmen. Sixteen years later, Facebook has become an $843.6 billion digital advertising behemoth so integral to many people’s lives that it has been criticized for helping foreign powers and propagandists influence the U.S. political system. -
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ESH&Q PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT
When my mentor, John Sawyer, retired I was asked to manage the ES&Q portfolio manager by Trav Stratton. -
Certified Scrum Master
I was an early adopter of Agile Methodologies and obtained my certification through IQ Solutions. -
Hurricane Katrina
When tropical storm Katrina morphed into a Category 5 hurricane that made landfall and took over 1,800 lives. It created approximately $125 billion dollars in damage. -
Certified Project Management Professional
Certified Project Manager through the Project Management Institute - all portfolio managers in IT participated in the Cheetah learning course to gain the PMP certification. -
The iPhone
Apple CEO Steve Jobs shows the world one of the most popular branded consumer electronic devices in history, the iPhone. There have been 18 versions of the mobile device, and more than 1.2 billion units have been sold globally through 2017. -
RFID Demonstration Lab
I worked with Chris Armstrong in Property Management to establish an RFID instrument lab to verify the viability of wireless tracking of assets -- equipment, chemicals, biological, and radioactive materials -- using RFID technology. An RFID pilot was conducted in the 325 building. -
A Job Well Done!
I managed a team of 13 people and grew the budget from a few hundred thousand to a $1.4M IT portfolio which supported multiple business areas (Environmental, Facility Safety, Radiological Control, Worker Safety & Health, Training, Quality, Property, and Safeguards & Security). The CIO, Jerry Johnson, told me how impressed he was with my job as the portfolio manager. -
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SERVICE MANAGEMENT
The CIO consolidated the portfolios down to three. I retained my service management duties under the Operations Portfolio managed by Max White. -
Reclassified as an IT Analyst 3
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Integrated Asset Management
As part of the Capability Replacement Laboratory (CRL) project to move out of old 300 Area facilities, I led a five member team to develop the Asset Screeing Information and Stewardship Tracking software (ASIST). Thousands of pieces of equipment, chemicals, biological, and radioactive materials needed to be screened for whether they move to the newly constructed Physical Sciences Facilities or are disposed of in a one-time exemption by DOE which saved a total $11 million over 5 years. -
Best in Class Certificate of Appreciation
In 2007 I led a cross-functional team to reduce chemical waste through identification of unused materials. Our team was recognized with this Office of Science Best in Class Certificate for our contributions in reducing chemical waste at the Laboratory. I was the project manager which led the team to build the necessary IT tools to support the overall effort. -
Great Recession
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 777.68 points in intraday trading. Until the stock market crash of March 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was the largest point drop in history. -
First Use of Agile Methodologies
Led a multi-tiered technical team to rapidly deliver functionality for a lab-level initiative by utilizing Agile's Scrum methodology. Traditional waterfall methods were utilized for most projects, but due to the urgent nature of this effort senior management agreed to utilize this different approach. -
Active RFID Tracking
Partnered with R&D to prototype RFID technology to track assets via Cisco's Mobility Services Engine. -
Key Contributor on Lab-Level Initiative
My successful management of the lab-level initiative to build the ASIST application helped contribute to PNNL's highest ranking of 43rd on Information Week's list of the top 500 most innovative users of business information technology. The Asset Screening Information and Stewardship Tracking tool is slated to save the Lab more than $11 million over five years. -
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IT ANALYST & PROJECT MANAGEMENT
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Integrated Capability Management
I was the technical lead working with Craig MacDonald and other leaders to deploy phase 1 of Integrated Capability Management system which would allow senior management a consolidated view across the Laboratory of staff, facilities, equipment, and materials as they related to the 10 core capabilities assigned to PNNL by DOE. -
BP Oil Spill
Eleven workers die and 17 are injured after an explosion and fire erupts on the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig 40 miles from the Louisiana coast. The explosion causes the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history, spewing 3 million barrels of crude over the three months it takes to stop the leak. -
Fukushima Disaster
A 9.1 magnitude earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, Japan, triggered a massive tsunami with waves of up to 128 feet high and moving as fast as 400 mph and reaching six miles into Japan’s mainland. More than 20,000 people were killed by the devastation. The next day Japan felt a 6.2 magnitude aftershock causing a cooling system failure at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, leading to a nuclear meltdown. -
Move Facility Information System (FIS) Locations to Maximo
Technical lead for the development and deployment of the IBM Maximo as part of the 5 year, multi-million dollar Enterprise Roadmap initiative to streamline business operations:
* Developed large portions of a cross-functional Maximo statement of work
* Captured business requirements across 18 business functions
* Architect for single source location hierarchy in order to meet a key challenge of eliminating multiple location data sources
* Assisted the customer during the critical Go-Live phase -
Eliminate Paper Checks
Technical lead of a 5-member project team across three business units to implement direct deposit and eliminate paper checks utilizing state-of-the-art Oracle Fusion Service Oriented Architecture -
RFID Chemical Tagging and Redistribution
I led the team that partnered with OpenWave Technologies to convert our Chemical Managment System (CMS) from an antiquated barcode system to a more modern and reliable RFID tracking system for 77,000 chemicals at the laboratory. -
Snowden Reveals Secrets
After surreptitiously leaving his job, computer security consultant Edward Snowden reveals the first of a series of secrets about numerous U.S. and European government surveillance operations. Hailed as a courageous whistleblower and privacy champion by some, and a traitor that compromised counterterrorism efforts by others, the American now resides in exile in Moscow. -
Brexit Referendum
It received a 52% favorable vote and following the referendum Brexit officially took place on 31 January 2020 . The UK is the only sovereign country to have left the EU. The UK had been a member state of the EU or its predecessor, the European Communities (EC), since 1 January 1973. -
Reclassified as an IT Engineer 3
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Royal Wedding
Prince Harry, the second child of the late Princess Diana, married Meghan Markle, a divorced American actress, as more than 29 million people tuned in to watch the royal wedding. A year later, their son Prince Archie was born. -
California Wildfires
The deadliest in that state’s history. The catastrophe cost the lives of 88 people and fire consumed 18,500 homes and businesses. -
Integrated Capability Management dashboards
In working with Wayne Johnson and Linda Wierenga we continued to develop the concept of ICM. Star schemas were developed to present the data using Microsoft's Power BI. -
COVID-19 Pandemic
We saw it coming but just didn’t believe its ferocity. On Dec. 31, 2019, the outbreak of the novel coronavirus was reported in Wuhan, China. Many in the United States thought it would never make it overseas. It did (on Jan 20), spreading across America like a steamroller and was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11. Worldwide, there have been over 54 million cases reported and over 1.3 million deaths. -
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DIGITAL ANALYTICS MANAGER
Leading a senior team of six IT Engineers who support our $1.8M data and analytics capabilities that underpin 5 Digital Platforms who serve business partners for the operational functions of the Laboratory. -
Queen Elizabeth II
She died at the age of 96, and was the longest-serving monarch in British history. -
Promoted to IT Engineer 4
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Zambia: Lifesong for Orphans
At the close of Ethan's schooling at Legacy Bible in Wooster, Ohio, I was able to accompany his class to help out at two schools run by Lifesong for Orphans. We were able to minister to 1400 kids during our time out there. This was my first time traveling internationally. -
Ethan and Lizzie get married
We all head out to Ohio in mid-May to celebrate the wedding of Ethan and Lizzie. Amy and I aren't sure we like being "empty nesters", but we are very excited for them! -
A Fond Farewell: Retirement
I am looking forward to many new adventures.