About Jordan
Chaos is the law of nature;
Order is the dream of man.-Henry Adams
It's not in my nature to leave well enough alone. It never has been. I think systematically -- analyzing the composite instead of just the components. When a project is having a problem in Step Four, there is usually an easy solution to it in Step Two. So I make sure I have a full understanding of the system I'm working in before I make adjustments. Once I have that understanding though, I often suggest drastic modifications. I noticed an accounting system I was working with required a lot of manual input, so I built a more automated one and replaced it. I was asked to improve one function in a $1M+ project -- I looked into earlier functions to find more optimal solutions and ended up cutting and completely redirecting the project's approach.
After working in more academic fields as a computational physics researcher and a space nuclear propulsion scientist, I was accepted into one of the most elite industry training programs in the country. The Data Incubator takes the top 2% of interested academic scientists and trains them to be industry competitive data scientists. I originally intended to use this training at one of the West Coast tech. companies. During my application process with the Fed, I was also interviewing with Microsoft and Twitter. But the Fed employees had so much passion for their work. They were doing work they were proud of, and they were helping people. That's what drew me into working for the government; I want to help people. So I signed up with the Federal Reserve Board as a contractor through ISYS Technologies.
As I began work with the Fed, it quickly became apparent that there's a skills gap between the tech industry and the government where data analytics is concerned. The men and women I work with are highly intelligent and motivated; however, with no competition, it is hard to measure success. And with no measure of success, it is difficult to objectively analyze the current conditions. I have worked to create more inter-agency opportunities to break up some of the 'silo'ing that tends to occur in government organizations. I have spoken with data scientsts at the NIH and NIMH, participated in a group meeting with the CFPB, and had NASA reach out to me through a team member at the Fed requesting collaboration on some of their Artificial Intelligence projects. Working with other agencies helps set a higher standard for analytics work and breaks up the silos.
