Power, Veterans' style

"Power is defined as seeing something that needs to be done, and doing something about it.  By that definition, Sonny is one of the most powerful men I have ever met."

Yesterday, I traveled to St. Louis to honor a friend of mine for his retirement, and this was how I introduced Dr. Sonny Trimble. It is true.  The guy is larger than life, and have incredible respect for the guy and his work.  A few of the things Sonny did:

- Led the excavations of 50,000 murdered Kurdish civilians, buried in a mass grave.  The effort
resulted in the conviction of Sadaam Hussein for genocide.  He testified at the trial.
- Led the team that reburied the remains for the Kennewick Man,
- Led efforts to locate and return remains of POWs from the Vietnam War,
- Renovated and re-placed the gates at the Arlington Cemetery,

- Led the excavations and reburial of the African Cemetery in New York, and
- Curated and shipped the remains of one of the T-Rexes that belong to the Corps of Engineers, to be displayed at the Smithsonian.

Sonny at Arlington.
Image stolen shamelessly from Wake Forest U Magazine

But the thing that Sonny is probably proudest of, and justifiably so, is the work he has done with the curation of artifacts that the Corps owns.

Sounds pretty boring.

It is not.

See, when Sonny came to the Corps, the archaeology that was done focused exclusively on getting the stuff surveyed/excavated, analyzed, labeled, and then put into a collection.  We really had NO idea what we had, or where it was.  Sonny initiated the project that went around the country and identified the locations of our collections, and made sure that we had good records of them.  Where necessary, the project was responsible for stabilizing, photographing, standardizing, and compiling all of the data related to the collections.  And, eventually, the project moved into consolidating those collections into regional repositories, where everything could be together.

Sonny could have hired archaeologists for that.  We work cheap, and we are always looking for steady work.

But this is where Sonny made it special.He decided to get a different group involved.  Sonny developed the Veterans Curation Program.

The VCP hires veterans returning from tours overseas, and works with them to translate the skills they have into marketable opportunities.  Someone who has served his country as a 14G might not know how to present those skills in a way that would parlay them into a civilian job afterwards.

But the VCP does.  The whole process of artifact curation is broken down into component parts of tasks and jobs that are replicable outside of the program.  Photography, database work, organization skills, office skills, project management skills, report writing skills.... basically building a resume while doing meaningful work in the Federal government.

The stories that were told about the program were heart rending.  Sonny's program has made a difference in thousands of people's lives.

After the presentation and the reception, I took my leave, and got on my flight back home.  As we landed in Jackson, Mississippi, the captain asked us to remain seated.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.  We have had the great honor on this flight to transport the remains of an American serviceman who was killed overseas.  Please remain in your seats until the soldier accompanying the remains has disembarked."

I have never experienced anything quite like that moment. It was the end of a long day for a lot of people on a full flight.  We were all tired and anxious to get home.

But everyone stopped and fell completely silent as a soldier in dress blues came from the very back of the plane, and exited without a word. Even after he left, we were reluctant to move.

We talk about supporting the troops.  We believe in patriotism and we believe in America.  And sometimes, there are people who go out of their way to make America a better place.  Some of them, like Sonny, find ways of making the place soldiers return to a better place by providing opportunities for experience.  Others, like the soldier accompanying the remains of the fallen brother, work to honor those who have made sacrifices.

Others give everything.

They all see things that need to be done.  And they do it.

Power.

I pray for the family of the returned soldier.  I pray for the soldier with the honor of doing the terrible duty of accompanying the remains, returning a box to a grieving family.

And I thank God for the work being done to help those who return, as they do the hard work of integrating into a society that sometimes struggles to find a place for returning warriors.

Thank you, Sonny.  I salute you.

Unfinished Business

November 19, 2017, 2330 hrs: Crorey arrives in Puerto Rico. 

A couple of days before my arrival, I saw this video that inspired me:

https://twitter.com/USACEHQ/status/930799330398699520

...and that video set the tone for expectations for the two-month effort.  It is true.  I fully expected to hear those cheers regularly.  I mean, I was not going to be the field guy, but that cheer when the lights went on was both the goal and the expectation:  I envisioned videos every few days from the field, as people get charged up, leaving me charged up as well.  I was going to be building relationships, fighting to get funding to get the mission completed, working to do the job. Bringing lights to the people of Puerto Rico.

Fifty eight days later, I am two days away from leaving a situation that is not yet fixed.  I am leaving behind work that still needs to be done, and it is work that needs to be done in areas I thought would be complete by now.

The work is not complete.  I am leaving without having done what I thought I would be able to do.  There should be a feeling of satisfaction that accompanies the completion of a mission, a sign that announces MISSION COMPLETE!

Or, at the least, there should be a profound sense of accomplishment associated with furthering the mission.  I am just a cog, but I am a cog in a significant effort.  And I am adding my weight to the pushing.

I am struggling to get my arms wrapped around what I am feeling right now.  It is not disappointment in my effort or in the mission.  The situation needed our attention, and it needed that attention right away.  We came in and pushed as hard as we possibly could.  It was, and is, a good mission.  It has been an incredible effort.

It also has nothing to do with the people working the mission.  Everyone I met - with one notable exception (adult beverage conversation) represented the best of what the Corps of Engineers brings to the work it does.  They are dedicated.  They work hard. 

What is Wrong?

This situation is a mess.  Despite everyone's hard work and great intentions, the situation here is just rough.

We have so many problems, that I have to number them.

1.  When the Corps of Engineers came down to Puerto Rico, we were tasked with doing one thing.  Eventually, the work we were doing was morphed into something else. And then something else.  First we were restoring the grid (ESTAMOS AQUI!).  Then we were restoring all power to everyone (YAY!).  Then we were restoring some power, and working with the local utility to bring the rest back (POWER TO THE PEOPLE!).  It is difficult, however, to capture the flag if your end zones keep changing.

We are working in partnership with FEMA, who is providing the funds, and with the local electric board.  PREPA is a public utility, they are flat broke (having declared bankruptcy in July of last year), they have a system that is hopelessly outdated, and are almost entirely made up of people who replaced their predecessors, many of whom got fired after the storm.

The media reported on something this week that demonstrates a serious issue.  There is a warehouse that was under the control of the local public utilities company.  Apparently, there was a bit of consternation about the fact that they were not coming forward with the stuff that was stockpiled there.  The lead from FEMA gave the strong impression in a stakeholders meeting that she was not above using Federal Marshals to storm the place and turn the materials over to the contractors doing the work.

The story here gets a little muddy.  But the best I can figure out, the warehouse was filled with materials from dead projects.  You know, like that 1958 Ford Fairlane that you have in your garage, but have never been able to complete?  The parts are stacked up, but you have completely given up on getting it running again.

And yet, if someone asked you for parts for fixing cars, you might not think of your Fairlane.

That is kind of what the current situation was with the power company.  They had dead project stuff.  Not well catalogued.  Not usable for regular maintenance.  Not on anybody's radar.  There is also suggestions that the information about what was there had been made available, but that the right people did not know about it.  (The communication issues following a disaster is a whole different blog entry).

So what do you do? Emergency Management Edition

If you are a traffic cop, and you can't come up with an answer when someone asks you what you do, then there are going to be some collisions until you get it figured out.

I arrived in Puerto Rico on 19 November, back-filling for a program manager who was rotating back home.  And every day, someone different asked me what it was that I did.

Response, Day 1:  I am the new Dave Jenkins.
Response, Day 2:  I am the new Dave Jenkins.
Response, Day 3: I am the new Dave Jenkins.
Response, Day 4: I am the new Dave Jenkins.
Response, Day 5: Um..... I am not so sure.

A week into my work, I stopped trying to figure out what my predecessor had done the week before, because it obviously had no bearing on what was being done today.  For that matter, whatever it was that I did yesterday had no bearing on what I was doing today.

Under normal conditions in Vicksburg job, I consider myself a firefighter.  As soon as the fires flare up, I run over and see if I can help put them out.  (I have even set a few fires intentionally, in order to get my projects the attention that they need.  Then I get to swoop in and put out the fire).

I also worked emergency operations as a local government liaisons following a number of disasters, and so I am familiar with how it works, and the importance of changing your focus on a moment's notice.  But even so,  the definition of what exactly I am doing here eluded me.  Program Manager sounds great, as a title.  But what does my day-to-day look like? I couldn't really answer.

I mean, shouldn't that be a red flag?

Then, three days ago, I got myself a better explanation of what I do.




Very busy slide.  Lots of info.

Every day, I read a series of reports and make updates to a single slide.  The slide is used by FEMA to discuss progress with the program.  It is both the worst thing ever for me - because it requires very minute attention to detail - and the best thing ever for me - because it involves me reading lots of reports for information that I need to understand. 

The coolest part of it is that I am seeing changes over time.  The slide shows areas that are powered.  It shows the workforce in the area dedicated to the work.  It shows the status of the material and when we can expect it (a plane full of transformers arrived yesterday).

Flying is faster but  more expensive way of getting stuff to the island.

And over the course of two months, I have gotten a sense of what changes are occurring, and I track the changes.

The slide I build gets shared around quite a bit, and is used to oversee progress on the program at a very high level. And as of three days ago, at a much lower level, too.  I received an email.

>Sir,
I am the local government liaison mission manager.  Our liaisons in the field are constantly getting asked about the power restoration mission.  At this time I do not get any talking point or briefing slides from this mission.  Can I please be included in any distribution of these documents so that our liaisons in the field will be knowledgeable and aware of what we are doing.  Currently they are reading things in the paper that they are not aware of and probably should be.
I appreciate your help.<

Immediately, I moved into action.  I started sharing information.  I know what it is like to be in the field, getting no information, and being asked for insight, all the while hearing from others what your agency is doing.

I shared the slide.  I shared the critical reports I had pulled the information from.  (And then asked for permission).

That same day, I received two panicky requests from the field.  Both were getting demands from officials for specific information, and were reaching for a lifeline.

I immediately reached out to a contact I had, and told them about the need.  Contact was made, information shared.  Fifteen minutes later, I get the following e-mail:

All, a direct quote from the FEMA Division Supervisor "This is perfect! Exactly what I needed!"

Guys, feedback between firefighters is rare, especially in the middle of the battle.  So for him to pass back the message meant that he had been especially desperate for the information. (Or, perhaps, he was just exceedingly polite.  A trait that burns out pretty quickly in the heat of battle).

Suddenly, I see my own position in a new light.  I am not a vaguely defined 'Program Manager'.  Or, at least, I am not only defined by that title.

I am the connector.  I am the purveyor of information.  I take packages of information,  I repackage that information, and I get it into the hands of the ones who need it.  I have elves who give me the work of their hands, and trust me to get it delivered to the right house. For all the good girls and boys.

I am freakin' Santa Claus!

A friend of mine, Danielle Tommaso, is the best I have ever seen at playing Santa Claus.  She collects information, completely repackages it in easily digestible bites, and feeds it to people who need those bites.  But even if I am less talented than she is, I do wear my own red hat, and drive my own reindeer.

And when I get to share the knowledge I develop with people who are in need...

...it is like Christmas morning. 

Estamos aqui.

Shipping the Goods

Gratuitous pic of a truck replacing
a line on a narrow street.  Photo by Kathe.

"We have scavenged all the materials we can from damaged poles and lines.  As of Tuesday, we will be out of materials to continue work on the electrical lines in the city."

The Mayor of Villalba, Puerto Rico, was talking to a group of officials from Puerto Rico Power, FEMA and the Corps.  He shared the extent of the damage done, and what remains to be done.  Today marks the 100th day since the storm hit.

Villalba, for those of you not familiar with the geography of the island, is not the most remote town in Puerto Rico.

The utilities official agreed with the mayor.  If materials were on hand, 60% of the lights in the village would already be energized.  And then everyone turned and looked at the representative from the Corps.

Arms folded.  Well?

This scene has played itself out in similar scenes all across the island.  Because of a host of logistical problems with getting stuff shipped to the island, teams from every contractor and subcontractor have taken valuable (read:expensive) time to recycle for reuse any available scrap from the lines that were destroyed.  Wire coiled and set aside.  Boxes filled with scavenged connectors and insulators and bolts.  Stacks of crossarms.

We have been struggling since right after the storm to get material where it needs to go.

We have a group of guys who we refer to as the BOM Squad.  BOM - Bill of Materials - is the physical stuff we need to do the work.  From day one, the BOM Squad has had the hardest job on the island. They are responsible for moving tens of thousands of power poles, hundreds of transmission towers, thousands of insulators, hundreds of transformers, wire, (LOTS of wire), and tons of nuts, bolts, crimps, and other stuff with exciting names like "Fuse Link 140A dsv Universal Fast" or "Cutout KVMAS 200A" - and getting it all where it needs to go.  (Fun fact: there are chainsaws in the mix, too.)

Here's the thing: If you don't have all of the pieces, then you don't connect the electricity, and you don't turn on the refrigerator.  And people fold their arms at you and stare.  Well?

The BOM Squad made their order based on very early information about what the needs were, with a lot of uncertainty in what the actual needs were.  And there have been countless bottlenecks:

Bottleneck at the manufacturing facility.  Much of the stuff we are getting in every day is stamped with a production date from last month.  That is unheard of.  We have been literally having stuff manufactured, rolled off the assembly line/out of the kiln, stamped, and immediately put on a truck.

Bottleneck at the port, where the stuff was supposed to be loaded on barges.  Eventually, we moved all of the stuff to a different port. And shipped it out from there.

Bottleneck at the port on the island.  Taking the items off the barge, putting them down in the yard, opening the containers, cataloging, counting, repacking, setting them on trucks, distributing them to the laydown yards.

Bottleneck at the warehouse.

They have been streamlining, and the process is better.  But there was no material on hand.  EVERYTHING had to be shipped.  What is worse, original estimates have changed, and items have been added.  With no change in the timeline.



And then how do you determine who gets priority for receiving the stuff?  No matter what you decide (First come/first served?  Big city first?  Industry first?), you will be charged with favoring one group over another.

'The Corps favors the contractors they hired, and are not giving material to the locals who need it.'
'The Corps is favoring one contractor over another.'
'The Corps is favoring the locals over the contractors, who cannot perform according to the contract if they don't get the stuff.'
'The Corps is favoring one region/one village/one town over another.'

Now, two months after the order was made, we are starting to see an increase in the stream of goods that are coming to the island.  Every day, we are counting containers of material, hundreds of poles, and getting more stuff into the hands of the contractors and workers who can majically turn bits of metal into electricity in the homes of those who need it. And they won't have to rely exclusively on cannibalized material to do it.

We are answering the question from the Mayor of Villalba.  We are ordering material and providing it as quickly, distributing it as widely, and helping as many people as we can.  As soon as we are told of the need for specific elements, we order them and get them in.  As they are received, we turn them over to the team needing the material.  To get them back to work.

The trickle of BOM is turning into a stream.  And soon, God willing, the stream will turn into a river.  As that happens, we can get it all into the hands of those who can bring power to the people.

Estamos aqui.

Even in Villalba.

Change the world

"No, no, no, no, nooooOOOO!"

"Did Thib come out this way?"

It is a repeated conversation in my household.  I leave doors open where the dogs can get out and join me on the porch, in the yard, wherever.  They like to hang out with me, and love the freedom that being outside with me gives them.  I usually watch them pretty closely, so that they aren't eating stuff they aren't supposed to.  And they occasionally give chase to a squirrel or a chipmunk and stop listening for my commands.

Kathe is more of a preventive maintenance kind of gal.  She makes sure the gas level doesn't get dangerously low.  She gets her 50k mile car maintenance done at 45,000 miles.  Thanks to her, we have tp in every bathroom, clothes are clean and dry and in the closet, and there is always food in the pantry.

And the dogs do not spend any time running free in the yard.

They are two approaches, plain and simple. Neither one is better than the other.  My way leads to unnecessary excitement from time to time, when that 25-gallon truck tank gets down to 0.056 gallons left.

Seriously.

The dogs are not as well protected from harm under my care.  They might find something to munch on that would give them a bellyache or worse.  And Thib is notorious for eating stuff he isn't supposed to.... and has the enterotomy scars to show for it. (Not my fault, for what it's worth)

But without letting them run 'free', I have no chance to teach them what is allowed and what is not.  Which means if they do get out, I have no control.

The occasional loss of control allows me to teach, correct, and get them to accept the commands I give.  We can practice what we expect.

Trade off.

I work at an agency that works on the assumption that if you follow the process. the same way, every time, you end up with a consistent product.  We are engineers, and we are military, and we follow orders and we follow procedure, and we love templates and predictability.

There is truth to the old joke - you ask an engineer what the volume of the blue rubber ball is, he looks it up in his blue rubber ball table.  Same result, every time.

I was recently in a class.  It was a really good class on the procedure that our agency uses, with the compelling and immediately understandable acronym PMBP.  The class was good.  The speaker was engaging, and kept my attention for the full 8 hours of the class: no easy feat.  For some reason, however, my ears perked up at one of his assertions.  I had heard variations on this theme over and over through the years:

"Faster, Better, Cheaper.  Pick two.  You cannot do all three."   It is one of the basic tenets of project management.  If you require something fast, you have to cede efficiency on one level or another.

But there was something in that simple statement that bothered me, and it related to my aforementioned loss of control with the dogs.  After the class was over, I stopped him and challenged him on the statement.

"Sir, Eli Whitney, with his cotton gin.  Henry Ford with the assembly line. Edison with the light bulb.  Al Gore and his internet."

"OK," he said, "I'll grant you that. But those were not ordinary efforts.  What you are talking about are all things that changed the world - they are actions that changed the course of history."

"I understand," I told him.  "And during a lecture of process is not the right time to discuss it.  But what you describe here is the rule of efficiency, using the way that we are currently doing business.  If we look at things differently, there is a possibility of making changes that can do all three.

"If we are not allowing ourselves the possibility of thinking differently, we have no chance to change the world."

I know that the inside of a large Federal burrocrazy is not the likeliest place to look to make that kind of change.  But the principle is more pervasive than that.  Instead of working to train people in good planning, we are creating templates that even an idiot cannot screw up, with checklists to make sure that we did everything in the template.  We work at preventative maintenance, rather than at creative problem solving.  We look for our answers in look-up tables, and we make sure that the details are right. We use the everlasting go-by because it was approved before, rather than re-framing our documents to fit the organization of the problem and solution.

And sometimes, in our attempt to avoid loss of control, we miss the fact that our question is wrong, because we have never left our dogs running free in the yard.  There is no chance for learning, because we have prescribed the process so completely that there is no room for error.

Innovation should not be exclusively in the domain of the private sector.  It needs to be part of our Federal process as well.  We need to take a chance that something small will go wrong, so that we have the possibility of learning, growing, and creating for ourselves, making it so we can come up with the better solution when the big questions arise.  Without an investment in innovation, and without that commitment, we will have empty process, and no inculcated ability to think beyond the template, the checklist, the go-by.  In the process, we are safe.

In the process, we lose the chance to change the world.

PSP - Problem Solving Priest

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a silly piece about wizardry and priests.  In it, I confessed that my understanding of electricity is very limited. If I am honest with myself, my comprehension basically ends with the statement, "there is majick going on here". The end result of that majick, I explained, is that when the majick fails, I have to call in a 'priest' (AKA a car mechanic, electrician, plumber) and make an 'offering' to the 'priest', so that he will 'bless' (repair) whatever it is that is broken.

I live in a land filled with well-paid priests.

This past week, I rode along with my brother Parker on a series of deliveries.  He works at an employee-owned lumber yard, and we were delivering sliding (yes, I know what the real spelling of that word is, but it is INTENTIONALLY misspelled.) And lumber.  And decking.

While we were driving around, I explained my priest-and-majick theory of the universe to him....  not realizing that my driver was a general priest himself.

 Problem Solving Part 1.

We got to the first site, and the forklift on the back of the truck was broken.  Turn the key, it grinds, but does not fire. I shrugged my shoulders

The Wizard and the Priest

I do not understand electricity.

I mean, I have gathered some facts.  There is something in there about water; water and electricity don't mix.  I also learned from painful experience that just because a table knife and an electrical outlet look like they would fit together, that they are not supposed to meet (I was four, and at my grandmother's house, but it made QUITE the impression).  I know that there is something about wearing rubber-soled shoes.  I also learned the left-hand and right-hand rule in Mama Chang's high school physics class, but I am not sure exactly what it governs.

Diagnosing electrical problems, therefore, is a fascinating process for me.  Mostly, it follows the following rubric:

*flips switch*
*nothing happens*
*flips switch*
*flips switch*
*flips switch*
Me: "It must be broken."

My wife, who grew up with a dad who had electrical engineering training,

OC-Don't

I am the antithesis of OCD. Those lovely tasks that require the attention to specific details done over and over again?

Those jobs make me reach for the bourbon earlier and earlier in the day.

This past week, I got asked to do some problem solving. My church has an emailed daily devotional; the associate pastor had taken it on as part of her responsibilities. She is now gone, and we are working to get the replacement text up. I agreed to be on the committee because I like looking for good material.

We found the good material, got permission to use it (temporarily), and one of the committee members started to transcribe it - pulling it from Kindle format into Word.

The church's web person set up a template, and then she went home for the holidays, with the deadline fast approaching. Nobody else knew how to do it, and the staff member in charge of the committee threw up his hands.

Crorey, can you figure it out?