March 1986 to January 1990
The Oregon Consortium, Albany, Oregon, USA
Data Systems Analyst
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Key Accomplishments
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- Migrated staff from CP/M-based computing to PC-DOS. Improved overall capabilities of the entire organization.
- Designed, developed, and deployed Inventory Tracking System. Tracked company owned assets all over the State.
- Designed, developed, and deployed a Resource Library System. Made resource knowledge available to contractors State-wide.
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Summary of Skills Used
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PROJECT EXPERIENCE
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TECH EXPERIENCE
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Internal Staff Training
External Staff Training
Level 1 Support Line
Managed Maintenance Vendors
Managed Contract Programmers
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O'Hanlon Database Solution
Backup Operator of MIS Systems
Ashton-Tate DBase IV
CP/M Operating System
DOS PC
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HIGHLIGHTS
About The Oregon Consortium
The Oregon Consortium was an administrative company contracted by the Oregon State Job Training Partnership organization to administer Federal funds for job training to the rural counties of Oregon. The Federal program for funding was known as the Job Training Partnership Act and had replaced something called CETA (Career Employment and Training Act). Essentially, The Oregon Consortium had divided the state into nine districts and sub-contracted the moneys out to nine service delivery agencies. The service delivery agencies would then take in unemployed people who fit need categories (such as displaced workers or at-risk youth) and teach them how to become valuable contributors to the workforce.
The Oregon Consortium did a lot of paperwork handling, but we had a very active, energetic, and creative staff who wanted to do MORE than a typical "get the money spend the money" style of government program.
Our company invented ways to closely monitor the performance of the service delivery agencies and even award them for performance above and beyond performance requirements. What made the JTPA unique over the older CETA days was that the operation of the JTPA was governed by Private Industry Councils. PICs were governing boards made up of local contributing business leaders in each of the job training service delivery areas. They put a more savvy business management style to an otherwise sloppy overspend government program.
This new performance based sub-contractor payout system made it possible for a well-run and highly productive job training agency to actually make profit.
Even though The Oregon Consortium was a non-profit agency, the US Government took exception to the idea that federal funds were being used to make a profit by subcontractors of subcontractors and descended upon us with Office of Inspector General audits and months of interviews.
In the end, a good idea was killed and things are now back to normal irresponsible spending of tax money. The audit was still going on after several months by the time I left this position.
Career Connexions Project
 I was a member of the company R&D team in development of software package for sale to national associations.
I served in many different roles from computer technical support and programmer contact to marketing and graphic design.
The project was challenged by the national level job training partnership association and was abandoned "officially" by our staff.
Other Projects
I designed and programmed an information bank management system "The Resource Library". I created and maintained the "Inventory Tracking System" for Administrative Office and its nine district offices.
I represented The Oregon Consortium to the local literacy movement attached to Project Literacy US (PLUS) and served as Vice-Chairman of the Linn-Benton Literacy Coalition in 1987.
I was a member of the employee board of trustees to administer a secondary retirement plan for staff.
Moving Forward
The Oregon Consortium is where I learned about the advantages and the disadvantages of bureaucracy. I also learned much of project planning. No matter how skilled and intelligent your group is there's always something outside your control waiting to destroy all your good work -- so I've learned to plan for that too.
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