[Board] Personal matters

[Jeff McKenna]

Hi Mark,

I am very sorry to hear about your wife.  Family is all we have in this
crazy world, so I can understand how difficult a time it must be for
you.  If you need anything, anything at all, work or non-work related,
let me know.

As for your activities, you are beyond an essential part of the
community.  When I speak with you face to face I can feel the passion,
that same passion that I have, that is rare and can't be taught or
learned.  I can't be in DC later this week but I am glad to hear that
you will be representing our cause there.

Your friend,

-jeff



On 13-02-25 7:32 AM, Mark Lucas wrote:
> Unfortunately, my wife of 37 years passed away,  unexpectedly,  a couple
> of weeks ago.  As you can imagine, I've been surrounded by friends and
> family since that time. I remain very positive about life and am
> grateful for the life that we had together.  I think you will all
> understand that I have to take care of many obligations and I won't be
> able to attend tomorrow's board meeting.  I will re-engage shortly and
> will be at both FOSS4g NA and also in London, I also plan on supporting
> FedGeo day in Washington DC later this week.
> 
> I've thrown myself back into work at the best company (RadiantBlue) that
> I have ever had the pleasure to work for.  This is very therapeutic for
> me.  Things like this cause you to stand back and re-assess your life
> and your priorities.  I've made the decision that I'm in a fairly unique
> position with OSSIM/OMAR, the US Defense Intelligence Complex and open
> source software.  What you may not know is that my team has made their
> living developing these baselines under government funding for these
> agencies.  This began with little studies, experiments, but has evolved
> to our OMAR integration that is now embedded and used in critical
> operations.  I am not at liberty to give out exact numbers, but in 2012
> our Open Technology Division had revenue of over $10M in development,
> maintenance, and operations around OMAR.  The core team has been funded
> for 12 years.
> 
> As an engineer and scientist I've always started with technological
> trends and projected them forward to ideal conditions.  We all
> understand the vector that Open Technology is on.  If you think about
> the state of paralysis in the US Government, the need for dramatic
> budget cuts and technology outsourcing - it is clear to me that there is
> an opportunity to dramatically change the way these government agencies
> function.  Open source software is ITAR compliant - it is therefore easy
> to replicate these technologies in other countries around the world. 
> 
> I stand with one foot in both the classified and unclassified worlds.
>  Most of the interesting stuff has shifted to the outside, I go to
> Google and twitter to investigate almost everything.  Imagine a world
> where intelligence is open and shared.  I believe it would be a better,
> safer place. Our software technologies can provide basic infrastructure.
>  I'm installing OMAR in Europe in a couple of weeks, it has already been
> installed in a number of other locations around the world by coalition
> forces, maritime awareness projects, and various academic pursuits.
>  OMAR basically indexes and processes remote sensing data on demand.
>  Users can discover, manipulate, generate results from enormous ground
> station and library stores.  Anyone with a browser and network
> connectivity can share the underlying technology and information and see
> the latest goings on around the world.
> 
> I'll stop rambling for now.  Suffice it to say I have a new mission in
> life.  I intend to go public and viral-  and inside to my lifelong
> government contacts to see if I can move this along.
> 
> At this point, you may be wondering, "Just how stable is this guy?"  Let
> me assure you, I am very stable, focused, and energized towards the future.
> 
> You are all my friends and we are bonded together with a common belief
> in the evolution of world class open source software for geospatial
> processing.
> 
> To quote Arnold - "I'll be back"   
> bet you were thinking about the other Arnold…
> 
> Sincerely,
> Mark
> 
>