This was an interesting morning, doing one of my recurring practices of calling and talking with those in the practice with mutual interests. I spoke to Neomi, at a firm out of Switzerland, seeking to network and having a focus to tie their floodwater modeling algorithms to the mission. And, I spoke with my retired friend Terry talking about USACE flood risk management work.

Neomi’s contact was timed well. The mutual interest really is in the digital transformation mentioned on the webpage under TotalFRM.org, Time for a Change. Her expanding firm is offering analysis for flooding on a real-basis with the readily available data, internationally. The software is useful to the many impacted communities across the world. The opportunity to expand our work is real.

Terry note the ongoing frustrations in a large agency. The focus on things as simple as wording, or even one single word, can cause bureaucratic hang-ups, jeopardizing our schedules with unnecessary delays. This is why TotalFloodRiskManagement.org is important. We also chatted about the huge brain-drain at USACE and FEMA. We already had these problems, and this Administration is making it magnitudes worse. The USACE Planning Associates Program was the solution for the loss of knowledge due to regular retirements with a year-long training program (2007 grad).

Anyways, our work is important. I look forward to partnering with you all to arrest these problems and turn the ship around in flood mitigation. Let’s do this!