[PLUG-TALK] First Tech Credit Union - followup

[Keith Lofstrom]

I did not follow up on getting to the First Tech Credit Union board
meeting to complain about the new interface (which is still rocky).
I'm glad I did not.

We were doing most of the kvetching around the beginning of May,
after the transition to the new web interface.  I just learned that
on May 13, Mike Osborne, the 49yo CFO of First Tech, died of strep
pneumonia at St. Vincent Hospital.  

I've had strep pneumonia, in only one of six lobes in my lungs, and
that was enough to put me in bed for a week and slow me down for 
months - and you never recover 100%.  Multiple lobes would probably
have put me on a ventilator in the CCU.  My pneumonia was caused by
major stress before a business trip  (long hours, little sleep) and
I imagine Mr. Osborne's pneumonia was too.  He was also Beaverton
school board president (they met on May 9, and a budget election was
coming up) and on the board of the March of Dimes.  Waaay overcommitted.

Mr. Osborne was probably the person in charge of the First Tech software
redesign (we was a CPA, but the software folks worked for him) and
so he probably was dealing with the crappy software 24 hours a day -
until the stress killed him.  The re-design was poorly conceived and
executed, and I wonder if that was due to bad advice or just the lack
of it.  Accountants are rarely good software system architects, and
he deserved to have trustworthy advice and review.  He probably did
not get good advice (or he ignored it).

First Tech still needs guidance through the process of repairing 
their somewhat broken interface (the account history is mostly
missing, for example).  I wonder what is the best way to help
them tap into the technical abilities of their members?

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs