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The self-titled 'Gateway to the West,' the St Louis metropolitan area is home to slightly more than a million people. It is also home to nationally recognized St Louis University and Washington University. Barnes-Jewish Hospital is a large academic medical center with a worldwide reputation.
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The city has a predominantly German heritage with thirty-percent of its population tracing its heritage back to Deutschland, although today more than 90% of its population is predominantly english speaking. St Louis is also home to America's largest brewer, the Anheiser-Busch corporation, known locally as simply AB. Its Budweiser product is a very popular American product, but in taste bears little resemblance to the more flavorful and potent Budvar brewed in Ceske Budejovice and formerly known as Budweis.
St Louis was formerly headquarters to Lockheed-Martin and Trans World Airlines (TWA). Those two companies have since been purchased by Boeing and American Airlines. The city still serves as a manufacturing center and hub airport for those companies.
The State of Missouri holds the dubious distinction of being the only state to elect a dead man to the US Senate. On November 8th, 2000, the late Mel Carnahan beat out incumbant senator and current U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. It was too late to remove his name from the ballot, when the late Carnahan's plane crashed two weeks before the election. His widow Jean Carnahan took his place in the Senate before losing in a special election two years later.
It should be noted that three dead men have been elected to the House of Representatives. The question is 'did anyone notice?' Weekend at Bernie's fans take note.
Two large health systems merged to form the nation's largest non-profit hospital organization. As part of a reduction in supply chain spend, the technology team was asked to provide a solution.
To collect system wide-data, we deployed an eCommerce front end across >70 hospitals, >20 environments, >10 Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) packages, across > 30 states. A common database of information was created and shared with the systems and hospitals. This created a new platform to identify and enforce commonalities and Standard Operating Practices (SOP's)
The multi-disciplinary team consisted of nurses, product specialists, programmers, and supply chain experts. After working on the overall business and technology solution, my role changed to lead the creation of a sustainable data cleansing and content management product. The software was later to enter GA release. After that effort, I led contracting/sourcing and data warehouse selection teams.
We contracted a large number of application and from our side, we brought database developers on staff. We also brought in Business Intelligence (data warehousing), Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), Oracle and SAP analysts from the auto, banking, energy, and manufacturing industries. Their specialized knowledge merged with our clinical and health specific talents.
Today, the team has scattered to the winds. However, years later, we still maintain contact with each other. I have spoken with many, and it was the highpoint of our time with the firm. For me as well, this was a personal career highlight. I remain in awe of the accomplishment, and am still honored by the effort of everyone with whom I had the absolute pleasure of association.