Professional Ponderings

Almost all of my daily work intersects with my course of study...intentionally.  For instances where a particularly poignant intersection occurs , a running diary of the bi-directional influence of one upon the other will be journaled about here.

To maintain the focus for this section, only eminent work experiences which directly relate to this intersection will be presented.  A more holistic address of tying my work, my research interests, and life in general will be the subject of my Analytical Thinking page.

My present professional passion was birthed in early 2005 when I was faced with (voluntarily) making a massive career switch between what I had known and performed for over 16 years and a new direction in my vocation.  Having successfully navigated to the ranks of mid-senior management in the Active Duty 

military in 2004 (earning the rank of Coast Guard Commander – O5) and having completed my latest “standard” 4-year tour of duty (i.e., time to move again!), I was faced with stepping out in a new direction which would combine the managerial and leadership skills developed over 4000 hours of flying helicopters and leading various divisions of men and women in service to our country with the newest wealth of knowledge I had gained from completing a graduate degree in Adult Education.  Combined with a desire to return to the location of my youth, the Metropolitan Washington D.C. area, I found myself blessed to find an open position as the E-Learning Program Manager (PM) for the Coast Guard at Coast Guard Headquarters.  A relatively new position designed to further instantiate the foundation and expanded use of technology in support of Coast Guard learning and development initiatives, the position afforded me the opportunity to “cut my teeth” (or get my teeth cut!) in this industry.  I eagerly jumped in with both feet (i.e., deployed myself like an eager Rescue Swimmer) and tested my "quick-study" skills.  In just under four months, I was already giving my first "State of the Coast Guard E-Learning Program" presentation to a collected audience of Department of Defense (DoD) professionals at an annual conference.

In just over one year of "herding cats," bringing the multiple, highly-operational elements at work within the Coast Guard enterprise under a strategic umbrella, my “uplink” to the Department of Homeland Security(DHS) (the Coast Guard being one of the Components of DHS), the E-Learning PM for DHS, took new employment with the Department of Justice and afford me the opportunity to serve in an even greater capacity.  Approaching my Coast Guard supervisor, I explained that this now-gapped position was too critical to DHS and the Coast Guard to leave empty any length of time and inquired as to whether he would support a “detail” to DHS HQ to keep the balls rolling.  His response…”Fine,…as long as you do BOTH jobs equally well!”

And so it was, that I came to be most fortunate to work four blocks from the White House helping to facilitate the establishment of a foundation and the use of technology to support learning and development activity across the entire Department as the Senior Policy Advisor to the DHS Chief Learning Officer for learning technology and systems.  It was during this tenure of performing two jobs for one paycheck that I, miraculously, surpassed 20 years of honorable service and became eligible (can you believe it) for retirement!  Successfully competing for the Federal General Schedule (GS) position I had held as a volunteer, I entered full-time public service on April 2, 2007 as the Enterprise Learning Solutions (ELS) Program Manager for DHS.

The exposure the Coast Guard had afforded was immeasurable in terms of establishing a vital connection with the DoD.  With the amount (likely $billions) that is spent on preparing soldiers, airmen, and sailors for conflict in support of defending freedom, Executive Order 13111 set the stage for formalizing “Using Technology to Improve Training Opportunities for Federal Government Employees.”  It was through this exposure that I came to know and love the Advanced Distributed Learning Collaboration Laboratory Initiative (ADL Co-Lab) regarding its role to aid the Federal government’s efforts in this area.  This leadership has led to such advances as the development of the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) and its adoption and application.  It has afforded opportunity to integrate my former life and the present.

What do I mean by that?  Well, I could not have been nearly as proficient in what I used to do (and what countless aircrews do today) without the use of technology-enabled learning experiences.  Whether basic Computer-Based Training (CBT) or experiencing the robustness of full-motion flight simulation, the use of digitally-based learning experiences have been at the absolute center of learning in my adult life.  So how happy was I when an opportunity to also coordinate DHS' Modeling and Simulation (M&S) efforts came knocking at my door!  I had initiated similar collaboration in the Coast Guard using the annual Interservice/Industry Training, Education and Simulation Conference as the venue to bring like-minded individuals and divisions together to brainstorm organizational vision.  This "herding of lions" (at the Department level, the cats have a bite) across the nine Components of DHS was a fantastic, worthwhile endeavor and one which spoke to my patriotic heart.  However, like many good things, there is often a shelf-life.

Fast-forward three years to 2010 and strategies set in motion in 2007 had gathered little momentum, largely 

(IMHO) due to a relatively continuous revolving door in DHS leadership up and through the 2008 elections.  As such, in early 2010, another opportunity presented itself which appeared too good to be true...to actually work for the ADL Initiative itself.  So, leaving Federal service (even during a rough economic slump) after just over three years, I found myself directly supporting the entity where much of this hoopla all began - working for the Office of the Under Secretary for Defense (Personnel and Readiness), under which ADL finds its home.

With SCORM 2004 4th Edition stable, the ADL Initiative is embarking on an exciting endeavor to define the "future-learning experience" as it is now being carried out.  The realization that not all learning takes place in either a classroom, or even a classroom put online, has surfaced aggressively and a new paradigm of collaborative technologies, virtual worlds, Googling (as a verb), and other modalities of attaining improved human performance in the battlefield and in the workplace is our present paradigm.  How all these experiences will be tied together in a manner which advances the workplace mission is the challenge before us and the challenge which the ADL Initiative has seen fit to address.  That is today's era (December 2010).  And the ADL Initiative stands ready to collaborate with all who are solutions-minded via the ADL Future Learning Experience Project.

From a professional perspective in regards to supporting my direction for dissertation research, I can only hope for a continued growth in responsibility and increased access to Public Sector learning leaders, my intended dissertation population.  In learning leaders, I include the gamut from instructional designers who are daily creating robust experiences for their varied audiences to Chief Learning Officers who are responsible for setting the vision and ensuring the highest quality in training our civilian servant.