Diversity in Limbo

Wednesday November 30, 2005

When I arrived at the offices of the Long Term Recovery Team on Tuesday morning, there were six people sitting in the “training room.” This area behind dividers at the far end of the floor has two rows of 3 tables with mostly empty folding chairs on either side.

Three of those here had been part of a group to arrive before Thanksgiving. By mid-afternoon all had received calls that their background checks were complete. As they exited limbo the area slowly filled with new arrivals. By this afternoon approximately 20 people sit reading the guidebook and chatting – wondering what they will be doing, where they will be assigned, and when their call will come to pick up their badge and also exit limbo.

The person heading up the LTRT operations has the daunting task of reviewing the speculated needs of each county, the resumes of the 200 people who will be part of the team and trying to match them over about a two or three day period – while doing many other things at the same time.

And the people in the room are a diverse bunch. There are people from New England (me) to southern California; from Florida to the Pacific Northwest; and everywhere in between – including New Orleans. Ages range from relatively new graduates to a retired fellow. They are local hires and contractors from or hired by many different firms. There are planners, engineers, architects, financial analysts, public affairs people, and other professionals. Caucasians, Blacks, an Egyptian and a Sri-Lankan. Catholics, Baptists, a Christian Scientist, . . . Some are idealistic, some cynical. Some look excited to be here, some are just here. All are impatient – tired of reading and wanting to get their badge, wanting to get to work, for many wanting to start making a difference.

I am hoping that being one of the first of this week’s group to have their fingerprints taken, I will be one of the first to get a call, get an assignment, get to work. Maybe tomorrow.

The Lull

Tuesday November 29, 2005

Today I read through two-thirds of a large book providing a context on FEMA and the first information I have seen on what the group I am part of will be doing. It is a good fit.

We are part of the Long Term Recovery Program (LTRP). This program was established after the first set of Hurricanes to hit Florida last year. The concept is to go further than disaster relief and help communities prepare a plan for recovery over the next five years. Implementation is not the responsibility of FEMA, although federal funds might be used – as is the case in many public projects. Unlike many disaster aid programs, the thinking is not limited to restoring what was – whether or not that is appropriate. This is about helping the community recover as envisioned by the people of the community, and about positioning the community to reduce the chances of a similar event having such catastrophic affects.

It is a multidisciplinary, bottom-up planning process. It will involve close interaction with public officials at all levels and public meetings. It is about creating a future better than what might have been if the storms had not occurred. It is a great fit for my passion and my skills.

Based on the level of damage and the local planning capacity, different teams will be established for different Parishes. Some will be large multidisciplinary teams. Others will be smaller teams of specialists. I hope that I am assigned to one of the multidisciplinary teams in more of a generalist role. I am not a specialist and that is not where I can add the greatest value. We shall see.

The Parishes needing the larger teams are mostly around New Orleans or in the Southwest part of the state. My mind says: I hope that I am assigned to the New Orleans area. We shall see.

No matter the role or location that I am assigned – I am confident that it is God’s will and that there is a reason . . . that it will be where I can make a special difference.

I spoke on the phone to both wife and daughter and the trauma of my departure seems to have subsided. Although this evening they both sounded tired. Their pictures are on the desk in my hotel room and I keep them in my thoughts and prayers.

At the end of the day, I finally had an opportunity to meet the LTRP leadership (part of todays reading was a 152 page note pad size book of FIMA acronyms and abbreviations! ;-). Tomorrow morning we will have a more formal orientation. As soon as the FBI check is complete and we receive a FEMA identification badge, we will be given a computer, cell phone and an assignment, and then head to the rented storefront that will serve as that Parish’s headquarters. Those who arrived before Thanksgiving received their badges – the rest of us are impatiently waiting to see where we are going and get to work.

Hurry Up and Wait

February 28, 2005 -- evening

It seems the same with any big contract I get. Can you be here on this date – we need to get started quickly. Then you deal with some government regulations.

In the BVI you need a work permit. This requires passport pictures, medical exam, paperwork, Department of Labor approval, payment of a bond, Department of Immigration approval, and then you have to leave the country and return so you Passport has the right kind of stamp. At every stop you take a number and wait. Sometimes the wait exceeds the workday and you have to return the next day and start over. Hours waiting. Hours paid for by the client. Work not being done.

Can you be in Baton Rouge by 2:00 pm on Monday? I fly to Dallas Sunday night. DFW is backed up; we wait to land. Once on the ground, the shuttle bus to the hotel is backed up. I wait. It is after midnight. I loose sleep. The client pays. Work not being done.

Up to catch the 7:10 am shuttle to the airport. The plane leaves at 8:45 am and arrives a little after 10:00. The luggage arrives and mine is not on the belt. I wait in line at the luggage office. 11:00 am and I have my luggage. A problem with the rental car and time spent to get a different one. I arrive at the Disaster Field Office by noon, run through the paper work and then off to another building submit paperwork for a background check and wait to get fingerprinted. They say it could be 2 or 3 hours -- over five and a half hours pass before they call my name. It is too late to report to the field office today. The hotel is an hour away. They want me to report to the field office between 7:30 and 8:00 the next morning. Not a lot of sleep. And the client pays for me to wait.

For the next few days, I will be learning while I wait for the background check to be completed. I can’t be assigned and do the real work until that is complete. I am required to call in twice a day to see if it is complete. In the meantime we wait and the client pays.

But once it starts, here or in the BVI or wherever the work consumes the time. The days are long (I will have much less time for writing). The client pays and typically gets more than they pay for. In the long run it balances out – at least the work dimension does.

How do you know God’s will?

Novemeber 28, 2005 -- Mid-Day


Is there a message in the combined events of our lives or are they just random? And if there is meaning, how can you tell what it is when the messages seem to be opposed to each other?

Over the past three months, three different firms have been asked if I would be interested in hurricane relief work in Louisiana. The first time, it turned out the firm had enough internal candidates to meet their needs. The second time the requirements seemed unreasonable and the timing conflicted with other projects I was working on. The third time, the commitment was more reasonable; the timing was exactly between projects; and the request came from a friend. I believe that God keeps putting a choice in front of you until you make the “correct” choice. Perhaps there was a special contribution I could make or perhaps there was something that I needed to learn. I said yes.

Just before Thanksgiving I was called and asked if I could be in Baton Rouge by 2:00 pm on Monday. The only available flight the company’s travel agent and I could find that would accomplish this on the “busiest travel weekend of the year” would require an overnight in Dallas. It turned out that on one of the legs all that was left was a first class seat and that for some strange reason it was less expensive to book the entire flight first class.

I called the limo company we use and reserved transportation to and from the airport. At 4:00 pm yesterday, a stretch limousine parks in front of the house. It was all they had available – no extra charge.

When I arrived at my rental car at the Baton Rouge airport, I noticed that the “temporary plate” taped to the rear window had expired. I went back to the rental desk. “Sorry for the inconvenience, we will upgrade your car for free.” And I have this car for almost a month.

A persistent request, a contract that answered my prayers for work that would meet our financial needs, and first class treatment all the way – maybe this is God’s will.

Then there is the counter evidence. I will be missing my daughter’s play this weekend – I designed the set and we were both looking forward to working together on its construction. It is something that binds us together and something we will both miss. My wife is in a panic wondering how she will be able to do everything involved with her business and the household with me being away. This is a surprise to me since I was away for three months early in the year and I thought everything worked fine – I clearly missed something.

My daughter has been having a tough time sleeping and has been crying a good deal since the trip was scheduled. The three of us had a tearful goodbye yesterday afternoon. This morning my wife called to say that our daughter was so upset that she couldn’t go to play practice after I left and had a real tough night. She wants me to come home and my wife is very concerned. Is this like the first few days when she went to camp for a month and she wanted us to come back and get her – only to be in tears when we did come back and it was time for her to come home? Should I try and make it home to see her play Saturday night or will my leaving again on Sunday make things worse and leave her unable to perform for the final show? Maybe I am supposed to be home not here?

How do you tell?

Addendum:
After writing this I opened a book by Thomas Lynch that I have been reading. The new chapter started with the following:

"Events unfold in ways that make us think of God. They achieve, in their happening, a symmetry and order that would be frightening if assigned to Chance. Things that happen here intersect with things that happen elsewhere, as if there were a plan. Coincidence makes way for correlation which, in its turn, bespeaks the intimate consortium of cause an effect – first in whispers, then in the full blushless voice of certainty: because it says, because. Eventually everything is suspect: I wash the car, it rains; she wears that perfume, he is dizzy with desire; as long as you whistle that tune no tigers appear. Ironies? Happenstance? Or is it that tune that keeps the tigers at bay? The finger of fate or of fate’s Maker that taps, deliberately, those dominoes, the tipping of which, down the ages is history. " (1)

There are no coincidences.

(1) Thomas Lynch, The Undertaking – Life studies from the dismal trade, Penguin Books, NY 1998.

Father, Husband, Consultant

Novemeber 27 and early November 28

I am coming to believe that life is a trial and error process. A revelation for a person who is a planner, trained in Industrial Engineering – a person who tries to anticipate the unintended consequences and optimize results. Although I have always been a person of faith, I have come to realize that, especially when it comes to family, personal relationships and even career choices , my efforts to optimize – to direct outcomes – does not leave much room for God. And I am not as experienced or good at creating glorious outcomes as She is.

Twenty years into a career – most of which was spent working for Federal or State government – my job was going to change and I felt that I had reached a sufficiently senior level that career opportunities and my ability to eventually provide for my family in the way I would like were limited. If I was going to be taking on new responsibilities, why not do so in the private sector where financial prospects looked more promising?

I accepted a position as VP of Operations with a small high tech firm. The negotiations with the President / Owner were difficult. I was new to this game and missed the signs at my own peril. After four months we parted ways. Seeking career growth and financial security, in five short months I had gone from a secure government job to unemployment. Not the result I had predicted.

In retrospect, this was not a good time for someone with an engineering or public sector background to enter the Massachusetts job market. The economy was slowing and two of the largest public works projects in the country – the Big Dig and the Boston Harbor Cleanup – were winding down. There was a glut of professionals looking for work. The new boom areas were the southwest and southeast.

Several months later I saw a posting on the internet for a senior project management position to lead the preparation of a Wastewater Master Plan for the British Virgin Islands and then return to Massachusetts for additional assignments. I got the job and negotiated an arrangement where my wife and daughter could join me for the nine months I would be in the BVI. A wonderful opportunity for us all – not at all what I would have predicted when I became unemployed.

I completed the project to great accolades just before Christmas. On my return to the office just after New Years, I was informed that the group I had been hired to help start had been done away with due to poor division-wide earnings the previous year. Not what I had predicted.

Over the last three years I have been creating a career as a contract consultant. I have become an expert in what it takes to create such a business and have successfully coached others. At the same time, while I could clearly see their niche I have had a hard time identifying my own. After two years of work, during the last year things have picked up and a niche may have found me. I am a strategic planner, process improvement and project management person with superior skills working with non-profits, government staff and elected officials. I have recently been doing consulting with an international partnership providing water and sanitation to three of the poorest countries in West Africa. Like the work in the BVI this has been very rewarding. They are happy with my work and it has put me in a good network of people and organizations. While seeking my niche, I looked small thinking that despite the kind words of others and my own aspirations to have a bigger influence such opportunities were not to be. So the niche I dreamed of but did not really pursue found me and I am good at it, enjoy it and it is promising. Not what I had predicted.

A week and a half ago I received a phone call from a colleague who works with a company that provides companies with engineering and technical staff. “Would I be interested in a 90 day commitment to work on the FEMA Hurricane Recovery Efforts in Louisiana and could I do so quickly if need be?” Our bank account said yes and the timing was good in the sense that I was finishing up a few projects and the next one in discussion was about 3 months away. They said it would likely be mid-December which would mean I could see my daughter’s school play and be part of Christmas preparations then be gone for a couple of weeks and home fro Christmas.

Then the phone rang, can you be in Baton Rouge in less than a week – on Monday the 28th. We said yes. So here I am on a plane heading into Baton Rouge. Other traveling professionals around me are tapping away on their laptops. The next twelve months look promising although it will likely require a good deal of travel. Things would seem to be looking up.

But as the title says, I am a father, husband and consultant. I might have found a niche that I enjoy is fulfilling and might provide the financial security and standard of living I would like to provide my family. What I have discovered over the past week, however, is that my past, extended, travels have been more difficult on my wife and especially my daughter than I had previously known. That given a choice between no income and having me home or me traveling the preference might be the former. While on a personal level it is wonderful to be so loved, it raises all sorts of questions. How do I balance father, husband and consultant? Father and husband are the priority. Is there a way to continue to build on past efforts and reduce the amount of travel to an acceptable level for at least another 5 years until my daughter is in college?

I don’t know the answers. I am finally realizing that it is perhaps best to not make a prediction and instead turn it over to God.