Trivia Question: What is the original name of what is now known as the Frisbee?
Bonus Question: Marine Corps Air Station Helicopter-Tustin (MCAS (H) was more commonly referred to as ‘LTA’. What does LTA mean?
Merriam-Webster: The faculty of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for.
Serendipity is a term with which I am very familiar. After high school and before I joined the U.S. Marine Corps I worked as a technical writer for a company called Serendipity Associates in Chatsworth, California.
Our main focus was to convert the U.S. Air Force’s printed maintenance instructions into bite-sized chunks to be programmed into a system whereby an Air Force maintenance technician could go to a plane, without carrying volumes of maintenance instructions, plug in to ‘hot spots’ embedded in the flight line and get those same instructions in small, easy to perform bits and carry out the task.
The primary plane we were using as our test bed was the C-141 cargo jet – the most complex aircraft at the time.
In the technical writing for this project we had to analyze the complexity of the task, determine how many words could be used for each step by the technician, the length of sentences and the actual nomenclature to be used, etc.
Right about now I’m sure you’re thinking, ‘What the heck is he talking about and what does this have to do with anything I care about’?
Stick with me for a moment.
While doing this project our main liaison and source of information was with retired Air Force technicians. They knew the ins and out of their tasks and more importantly they knew the way tasks were really done as opposed to the military gibberish in the printed technical manual. For example; taking a full page to describe how to remove a particular screw in an access panel.
The technical writer (me) would condense this task down to sentences of no more than 7 words each (and get the entire panel off, not just one screw!).
Now the good stuff and at the risk of preaching to the choir.
When someone retires from your agency, no matter what their rank or responsibilities, a lot of institutional knowledge goes with them, such as the answers to ‘who did what when, why do we do things this way, what were the dynamics of the decisions, what were the political ramifications, why did we reject the other alternatives, etc.
Those same people are also highly trained and have exemplary technical skills (such as our Air Force liaison technicians) and most important to the current discussion matter, may have an interest in maintaining contact with your agency in some meaningful way beyond just attending future retirement ceremonies.
Some agencies have used ‘technical reserves’, for lack of a better term, that assist the agency with various tasks or projects at little or no cost to the agency compared to a full-time employee and thus retain those otherwise lost technical, administrative and institutional abilities.
Some of those technical reserves are volunteers or are paid a stipend for work performed and there is nearly no limit on what those jobs might entail.
Think Level 1 reserve officers (able to function on their own), on-call backup dispatchers, desk officers, background investigations, report review, rangemaster or range safety officer, personnel investigation, property and evidence, personnel and training, in-house trainer in various disciplines, IT tasks (dare I say ISE, Speed Shift, Officer Scheduling guru!), motorcycle instructor, etc. The list could go on.
In today’s tough economic times, with personnel cuts, program eliminations, reduced hours and unfilled positions being abandoned, any resource cannot be overlooked if you are to continue to maintain even the minimum level of service expected.
With respect to scheduling with any of our products, none of them require the user/scheduler to be a sworn or certified officer. But having a volunteer or per diem person with the appropriate skills and knowledge could help with a budget crunch.
By the way, our serendipitous retired Air Force technicians all worked as volunteers and were invaluable to the project. I hope yours are as well should you decide to proceed.
One caveat; before embarking on such a program be sure to consult with your HR/Legal people lest you run afoul of FLSA, pension system or other legal parameters.
Be safe out there.
Trivia Answer: The Pluto Platter
Bonus Answer: Lighter than Air, referring to the 2 huge, non-centrally supported blimp hangers on the base.
