KELLY BIO

1) What is the link to your Video Cover Letter video upload?

You will do this after you have uploaded your Video Cover Letter. You don't need to answer this question in your video. Please make your video public, and leave it on YouTube or another video sharing site at least until the end of your involvement with the OSE Development Team so that we may share it with other team members as needed.

2) COMMITMENT: Can you commit to 10 hours of volunteer time for 90 days?

A serious time commitment is required.

All we can do is try...and keep trying. I will try 2 hours per day during normal workdays, preferably in the mornings.

3) PURPOSE: What is the biggest value that you get out of volunteering with OSE?

The biggest value volunteering with OSE provides is a team to work on engineering projects that are inline with my abilities and ambitions.

4) OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE AND COLLABORATION Are you willing to download a Ubuntu distribution of Linux that comes preloaded with all software that OSE uses - to facilitate any software issues?

Already done. That was easy! Windows supports the software I use most and that is my primary OS.

5) We collaborate via work logs where we document our work and include links to all work product. Are you willing to do this on a continuing basis?

I like this work log concept. In the past I refused to update worklogs that were very tedious to update, did not provide good data to management, or was any help to me personally. This work log concept is efficient and useful.

6) FINANCES: Do you currently have a full time job?

I have a steady income. I am a manager for the pre-schools my partner runs, and I contract my product design services to OEMs on an occasional basis. My workload may not be consistent, so there are periods that duty calls elsewhere.

7) VIDEO INSTRUCTIONALS: A big part of our work is documentation and instructionals- Are you willing to learn Kdenlive, collaborative video editing and screencasting?

I am very willing to develop video editing services. Showing people the ropes is an asynchronous process these days.

8) EXECUTION AND INITIATIVE: What is the biggest task that you are proudest of yourself most that you accomplished? Please give an example of an audacious goal that you have set for yourself?

One of the biggest tasks that I have completed is getting a job as a machinist making production parts. Assuming this role was critical if I ever wanted to create an OEM.

An audacious goal I have set for myself is creating an OEM.

9) LEARNING: Show an example of something you learned that revolutionized your life?

As a child, I always wondered what the spinning shaft under trucks did. I have learned quite a bit about those spinning shafts; and everything connected to them, and how great they are, and ways to eliminate them, and how to improve them.

10) HARD SKILLS: What hard skills do you have such as IT, CAD, Graphics, Publishing, manufacturing, design, etc.

The skill I do not have that I want is creating design calculations in Smath, or equivalent. I was trained in Matlab, and it hasn't been helpful nor do I feel it is appropriate until at least the third major generation of design.

The skills floating around my head somewhere include:

IT: TCP/IP, CANbus, Modbus.

CAD: AutoCAD, AutoCAD Electrical, Inventor.

Graphics: Illustrator, Corel Draw

Publishing: Microsoft Word using Headings

Manufacturing: hand tools, power tools, lathe, mill, CNC, electrical assembly, mechanical assembly, mechanics, hydraulics, welding, testing.

Design: piece part drawings, weldment drawings, machining drawings, assembly drawings, wire harness drawings, installation drawings, service kit drawings, exploded parts diagrams, simple hydraulic systems, human-machine interface (discrete controls, overlays, and graphic displays), off-highway electrical & control systems, marine crane electrical & control systems, hydraulic dam sizing, wind turbine sizing, PV sizing, budgeting, instructional guides.

etc: cooking, organizing.

11) SOFT SKILLS: Do you have experience in management+ conflict resolution? Teaching? Managing/starting a community or group?

My soft skills are developing. OIT has a team communication class that was helpful for me. I like a functional leadership model, and try to fulfill the roles I think are needed. I am better situated on the "other side of the wall", and feel that the traditional management that maintains the wall should be replaced by servers, for the most part. And I would expect good managers would be Sometimes, I have been quirky or absent minded and it's worth going through a little more about my character.

For the management tasks that servers cannot replace, I have been most interested in adapting the communication paradigms that IT has created, adapting software management strategies, and using the team-based approaches that manufacturing has developed. I believe that documents ultimately rule the show, and ultimately dictate the managers tasks. I particularly like shop drawings because I find them aesthetically pleasing and a good place to make someone's life a little easier.

Idea management is a core concept to my personal approach, and I believe that data will ultimately provide me the best tools. I don't suppose to know everything, but want to make sure people who do know tell people that need to know. I adapt my language to suite each party for a better take-a-way and reception. Frequently, ego is a stumbling block for people that harbor a mono-view of the dual-nature existence, and I tend to hack away at that. I would like to also personally learn what people know, but that is secondary. In the past I have tried to know everything and spread people's ideas. I know this function is better suited for a server, and a wiki provides a good way to keep the tedium out of my head.

I can come up with half-brained ideas quite readily that seem to discredit me. If I am ever mistaken, then I greatly want to learn the truth. I followup statements I make to check their accuracy and will state my corrected view if I find disconnect. I will also trust but verify, to remedy my short-sightedness. I'm always hoping someone out there will have a matching half-brained idea. I hope to not do this too much to create better trust among the team; that if they come to me they will get a full brained response.

Everything is a game; a very serious game. I play the game by asking good questions, finding out the answers for myself if they are not readily available, and creating reference material to direct people to if they ask me the same question. And, I tell people to relax because it's just a game.

I have spent a good amount of time trying to understand humans. I think people can agree to about anything, and conflicts frequently result from a communication breakdown that can be easily corrected. If emotions become involved in a conflict, then dealing with issues discretely is the first line of defense. I constantly observe the minutiae of people's body language, vocal tones, word choices, and triggers to identify strong and weak traits. I may shake things up to see how a group reacts to an impulse response, step response, or rate change, and then attempt corrective actions to validate my observations. I am looking for healthy responses, such as those outlined below.

Guidelines for Healthy Culture

• Be helpful to your listener.
  • Always explain the Why, How, When, Where, Who as best as possible when telling people to do something, or don't do something, or what's right, or what's wrong.
  • Explaining the conditions and assumptions allows the listener to adapt the concept to their frame of reference. Also, if there is some short-sightedness then it can become apparent before developing a concept more.
  • Don't be difficult by making people tease the answers out.

• Be a good listener.
  • Try to understand people and the essence of there comments and questions.
  • People like being understood and frequently don't give enough information to do so.
  • Read between the lines.

• Develop a technical and prose understanding of concepts.
  • Short familiar phrases are easier to understand and transmit.
  • Long winded technical explanations are required to fully understand.

• Don't throw people under the bus.
  • This is the golden rule with a colloquial twist.
  • You are probably wrong and the problem is much closer to home.
  • People make mistakes, and that is okay.
  • Bring people up instead of putting them down.

• Tame that superiority complex and don't get stuck in a rut; stay even keeled and peachy keen.
  • Accomplishing a goal is great, but you're stuff will likely break or it contains a logical flaw that existed from conception. Keep your head in the game. Your actions speak more than your words.
  • Nothing is really that bad or buggered up. Solutions are typically very simple and elegant, and it is important to seek the answers with a positive attitude.

• Be Lucky (below statements developed from linked article.)
  • See serendipity everywhere. Every moment is rich with lessons. Everything you learn is useful somehow.
  • Prime yourself for chance. Look to your network and keep expanding it. Keep an open mind. Don't judge too soon or too concretely. Avoid neuroticism; the tendency to experience negative emotional states like anxiety, anger, guilt, and depression.
  • Relax a bit. Provide a comfortable environment to share ideas. There are hidden opportunities everywhere.
  • Say yes. Try new things. Supporting another person creates a team, which is more valuable than creating a negative persona.
  • Embrace failure. The greatest learning opportunities are born from failure.

• Propose a solution if you bring up a problem.
  • There are far too many problems and what we really need are solutions.

• Don't hypothesize too much or create what-if scenarios.
  • Get actual feedback.
  • Stay to the tasks that matter.

• Plan for failure and forgetting everything.
  • Get your ducks in a row so when failure happens you have resources to remedy the problem and remember why things were done a certain way in the past to correct them in the future.

• Ask good questions.
  • There are such things as bad questions; and it's better to find the good questions than seeking an answer to an ill-formed question.
  • Answers to good questions are usually much simpler and comprehensive than answers to bad questions.

• Try to answer your own questions.
  • There should be resources to answer questions. Ask how to find an answer.

• Stay the course even if better solutions arise.
  • This one is tricky because sometimes it is better to re-design, but it's important to let things to go and implement improvements incrementally.
  • Document all possible improvements.
  • Think of it this way:
    • 1st design is proof of concept, and to determine improvements.
    • 2nd design is testing repeatability of the 1st design and adding some incremental improvement. Only seek improvements that are highly desired and can fit in the timeline.
    • 3rd design can introduce more improvements and optimization can really begin.

• Don't worry too much about the deadline.
  • People can only work so much.
  • The road is much longer than the deadline implies.
  • Hail Mary!; a football pass that requires all players to try to catch the ball and score a touchdown to win.
  • Balls to the wall!; refers to the two airplane joysticks positioned forward during a nose dive.