Title: View from the Chair

Author: Bob Schmidt

Date: 01 September 2017 16:06:14 +01:00 or Fri, 01 September 2017 16:06:14 +01:00

Summary: Bob Schmidt, chair@accu.org

Body: 

When I started as Chair last year, I took some time to go back and reread the ‘Views’ of some of my predecessors. One of the things I noticed is that occasionally a Chair would take the time to wax philosophical about a subject. So far, I have taken a different approach. I have tried to make my Views a chatty update on what’s going on in the organization; to take the opportunity to thank people for jobs well done; and to ask for volunteers for one thing or another.

This month I’m going to deviate from my well-trod path, and attempt to emulate my predecessors and talk about something about which I have strong feelings.

On the value of mentoring

I recently hit another annual milestone in my career, passing my 36th year as a professional. As I am wont to do sometimes, I spent the anniversary of the start of my first real job thinking about the people with whom I worked all those years ago, and invariably I take some time to remember my mentor, Don Perkins.

Don was the lead software analyst on my first projects. Among many other things, Don guided me through my first really large scale, reusable software project; gave me my first opportunity to work with software that interfaces with custom data-acquisition hardware (which to this day remains my favorite type of work); sent me out on my first foray into solo field work; and gave my first opportunity to schedule and run a project [1].

One of my more vivid memories of our time working together occurred late in the afternoon one day. We were working on a system that used a different operating system than the one to which I was accustomed, and I was having trouble linking my program. I asked Don for help. He gave me a quick answer, and when I asked for details, he said to “just trust” him. I said that I did trust him, but I didn’t completely understand the answer and if I just trusted him I’d never learn. Don took a deep breath, nodded his head, and proceeded to fully explain the answer he had given. We were both late leaving the office that night.

I can’t recall Don ever hoarding information or knowledge, unlike some of the people with whom I’ve worked over the years. (There are few things I hate more than being told I don’t need to know the answer to a question I have asked.) I’ve tried to emulate his example by freely, and sometimes expansively, providing help and transferring knowledge when asked.

Don also provided me with career advice from time to time. I was young and not finished with college when I started working for him; his perspectives on work and professionalism were invaluable.

I worked for Don for more than five years before moving on to a different position with the company. We continued to work together intermittently until I left the company to move to New Mexico, and he moved to California to support the large project on which he was working. I haven’t seen him for more than 20 years, although we have exchanged emails from time to time.

Thanks, Don. If you didn’t already, I hope you now realize how much of an impact your mentoring and friendship had on me in my early years.

One reason I’ve been thinking about mentoring is ACCU’s emphasis on supporting organizations like Code Club [2] and Hour of Code [3]. Mentoring can take many forms; it is not limited to the type of mentoring I received. I encourage our membership to be a good mentor: to a child, a teen, a college student, a co-worker. The rewards are worth the effort.

History of ACCU

Matt Jones has been spearheading an effort to reconstruct the history of ACCU, concentrating on past committee members and honorary members. If you have been a committee member, or are an honorary member, please contact Matt with details of your service to ACCU (accumembership@accu.org). Dates of service are particularly helpful.

Call for volunteers

As this is being written, the web editor position has been vacant for more than a month. We are actively seeking one or more people to take on the responsibilities of the position. Until someone steps into the role, web site updates will be slower and less robust than they were while Martin Moene was web editor. Martin has indicated that the job takes about six hours a month, concentrated after the magazine is released. Please contact me if you are interested (chair@accu.org).

Notes and references

[1] A Scheduling Technique for Small Software Projects and Teams, Overload 123, October 2014, Page 123. Don was the lead analyst on both of the projects mentioned in this article, and is listed in the acknowledgements.

[2] Code Club: www.codeclub.org.uk

[3] Hour of Code: https://hourofcode.com

Notes: 

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