Experiences at GE Ocean Systems Division

Probably going all "Stripes" in The Big Meeting to Look At The Upcoming Integration. We showed up uninvited, marching to an Army cadence (Navy project) each carrying a full-ream box of fan-fold paper holding the printed interface analysis outputs. Dick S. played along as we barked our answers in unison just like the movie, ending with "dismissed."

Of course, we got nothing useful done that day, we were laughing so hard....

Brought in as contractor. Hired direct couple months later (during multiple rounds of layoffs.) Stepped "up" when former boss gave himself a heart attack - covered his job and my old one.

Hadn't been done before. Success was required for the program's success - we *were* the fall-back plan. Languages, platforms, components we used were all being pushed beyond prior art.

SDLC tools managing technical interface requirements & design (similar to IDL) for distributed, real-time combat system for a major weapons system platform. Think the interface specs Microsoft still can't (or won't) delivery to the EU. Now add multiple competing contractors, real-time requirements, and access management. Make that work. Oh, yeah, there's a deadline. BTW, ours spit out in under a week and was bigger than what Microsoft still can't (or won't) do....

1 - Best team I ever worked with.
2 - Our management was totally outcome-oriented. If it gets the job done, they'd back us. (That was the section manager Larry-the-Wounded-Gorilla & his boss, Dick S.)
3 - It mattered. Problem nobody had seen. Pushing the tools where they had never been. Thus a need for real vs. imagined innovation....

Personal challenge, bragging rights, the stakes of the game, just to see if it can be done. Pick any - um - all of them at once.

I wish we could do work that demanding, that personally challenging, and work that with such daring pushes the envelope of what is possible . . . in aid of some other purpose. Sadly, it seems that we only get that committed about building things like submarines.

The wall. The other wall. The other wall. The other wall. The ceiling.

I learned more about managing - people, myself, development, technology and projects - than any job before or since.

BSY-2, combat system for the SeaWolf submarine. It works as advertised.