Father's Day 2019

For our kids who didn't have the benefit of ever knowing their grandfather... #fathersday

Dad taught me things in life that profoundly impacted my career...how to swing from dead serious to a prankster joke in the same conversation; the fun thrill of adventure and exploring; paying early attention to emerging details that otherwise tend to be dismissed; how to solve a serious problem when you're on the backside of a thousand acres with no tools or help... and that common sense really is common sense and don't let anyone talk you out of it.

This is Chief, The Wonder Horse. Strong, fast, and smart. He was not quite 2 yrs old in this picture, taken at the Durango Fairgrounds around 1971. Dad LOVED this horse. They were inseparable... until a British fellow, who was new to horsemanship, offered Dad $1,000 for him, which was a bunch of money in those days. Dad sold Chief and, I think, always regretted it.

Musings About Life's Purpose from Yellowstone

"Spiritual (or immaterial) inequity is now as great a problem as material inequity, perhaps even greater. People have enough to live, but nothing to live for. They have the means, but no meaning." --Robert Fogel, Nobel laureate

How many times a day are you genuinely fascinated?

What empathetic causes, greater than yourself, do you passionately live for?

For many years, my causes were the mission of national defense and security; better and more affordable healthcare; and Mom...to do my best to give her a sweeter life that would somehow make up for the many tragedies and hardships that she endured.

When Mom passed away it left a big gap in my sense of purpose... And then we were blessed with Anna and Luke and my sense of deep purpose returned. But I want to raise them in the context of purpose and cause that is larger than our family. It can't be religion and the promised Glory of Trumpets in a Gold Plated Afterlife. Ultimately, that's a selfish motive anyway.

It has to be in the here and now of this life.

Sunday morning musings in Yellowstone. 🤟😊

Nuclear and Healthcare Decision Making

Nuclear warfare operations was my data-driven decision making environment before the healthcare phase of my career. It was all about recognizing false positives, false negatives, real time surveillance, predictive analytics, risk assessment, pre-planned protocols to follow in various situations, and determining which of those protocols was best to mitigate the risk without making the situation worse, avoiding adverse events where the consequences were immeasurable... all of that conceptual framework overlaps precisely with healthcare decision making.

Below is a link to a news article and video about my past life in nuclear operations. I was the airborne command, control, communications, and intelligence (C3I) officer, as well as one of two members of the battle staff who were responsible for "turning keys" and launching all 1,000 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) if the ground command and control systems and crews were destroyed and unable to fulfill this responsibility.

On Board the "Doomsday Plane" That Can Wage Nuclear War

Anna's Interesting Choice of Books

These are the five books that our 4-year old daughter, Anna regularly pulls from our bookshelves to "read." Why she chooses them, I don't know, but there's probably something significantly symbolic about it. Mom gave me The Bible. The Quran, Book of Mormon, and Daily Thoughts and Prayers (Vendanta Hindu), were given to me by dear friends whose different religious beliefs influence and make me a better person by their role model. The Statistics text is from Laure's masters degree. To me, it symbolizes the uncertainty in all religions in their attempts to explain humankind's existence in the Universe. We can only approximate our understanding.

Why does Anna choose these books? Is it just random?  It will be interesting to see her life unfold.

Working on START

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) was a bilateral treaty between the US and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on the reduction and limitation of strategic nuclear weapons. The treaty was signed on 31 July 1991 and entered into force on 5 December 1994. While working for TRW, I was on contract with the National Security Agency to conduct a threat analysis on the US nuclear command and control system, as a consequence of START.

Below is a thank you letter from NSA for our team's contributions to START. Ron Gault, my dearest friend and companion, who was my boss at the time, was the reason we landed the assignment. It was one of the most fun, interesting, challenging, and meaningful periods of my life, and I got to do it with my best friend. It doesn't get any better than that.

Our Violent Society

On Feb 14, Valentine's Day, a 19-year old man entered a Florida high school and randomly murdered 17 students and teachers.

Every opinion needs to come towards the middle for the sake of our children and country. Tighter gun control alone won’t solve the problem, but it will help. Gun buyback programs alone won’t solve the problem, but they will help. Stopping the production of and patronizing violent movies, video games, and TV shows won’t solve the problem alone, but it will help. Putting more counselors and social workers in classrooms to identify and mitigate high risk students won’t solve the problem alone, but it will help. Increasing the physical security and presence of armed security in our schools, churches, and other public gatherings won’t solve the problem alone, but it will help. Publicly emphasizing the importance of Golden Rule civility and better parenting won’t solve the problem alone, but it will help. We need a national campaign comprised of political, corporate, and religious leadership. It needs to be organized now. It needs to stay active and work on this problem for the next 10 years. We need a leader.

#saveourchildren

Thanks to Ron Gault and Bob Bloss

Endless thanks for these two men in my life. Bob Bloss, on the left, was Ron Gault's and my boss at TRW during the hay-day of the company. And during its hay-day, TRW was pretty amazing. I was exposed to and learned more in those 7 years of working with Ron and Bob than most people would see in three lifetimes. I was lucky to work with them at TRW, surrounded by engineers and scientists that made my Fort Lewis College academic pedigree look like... well... Fort Lewis College.  Bob let us do just about anything, as long as it brought in new business and revenue and we didn't create an international incident. And so we did do just about anything.

A partial list of projects: White hat (good guy) attacks and threats against the US nuclear command and control system, from the President to the warhead. Risk assessment of the Hanford Nuclear Waste Site. Software testing and validation for the Peacekeeper and Minuteman ICBM launch control and targeting programs; and the Predator drone. Forensic analysis of the accidental detonation of a Peacekeeper rocket motor during maintenance. Supported the START Treaty. Supported the Project Sapphire to safely secure former Soviet nuclear weapons. Designed and developed the worlds largest data warehouse at the time, used for management and maintenance of nuclear ICBMs. Designed the Strategic Execution Decision Aid for the President and other National Command Authorities. White hack attacks and threat assessment of computerized US voting systems. We built a team around artificial intelligence technology when it was barely emerging, and applied it to all sorts of problems, including healthcare imagery such as x-rays and ultrasounds. Bob let me start a healthcare line of business, which included a research grant for the application of cognitive technology (AI) to healthcare. That grant funding went to Jerome Soller when Jerome was still a PhD student.

So, I owe Ron and Bob my healthcare career... should I thank them or blame them? :-) In any case, I love them. Profoundly wonderful influence on me and more than best friends to this day.