It’s good to see everybody back at work and on the road again!  It seems that we’ve started out of the gate with some big projects and have many more lined up to fill out the year.  We’ve seen a pretty decent increase in computers/laptops in pickups and on jobsites again this year.  The US Cellular air cards allow our project manager’s to access the corporate data system from just about anywhere in the state anymore.  We’ve also expanded our frame relay system to 2 new sites this spring…the size of our wide area network is really amazing compared to just a few years ago.

John and I are pretty well moved into our new building by now.  As I write this Rick Hudson and crew are finishing up our driveway and parking area out front.  A few more items need to be finished up before we can “close” the project, but all in all everything is just about done.  Now Lonnie and Dave have to figure out how to make the grass grow back!

The LL Pelling Viewpoint conversion is in the books!  Candace, along with a lot of help from all of our accounting staff, did a great job in getting this done.  I know we’re still working out some kinks but I really believe that we just made both Manatt’s and Pelling much stronger.  The next conversion should go even smoother…we just need to decide who it will be!

Ultimately I think it would behoove us to move all our data towards Viewpoint.  We have a plethora of  “data islands” out there in legacy software that would flow into Viewpoint very nicely.  If you use Access or Approach to track anything give some thought to having it converted.  Sandy and Candace can make this happen.  The biggest benefits to doing such a project would be data integrity, security, and sharing.  It would also cut our support costs a great deal.  Food for thought.

Summer is going to be busier than normal in our department.  We have some unique projects going on that will keep both John and I busy.  The Iowa Speedway is probably the biggest.  As I mentioned above, Sandy and Candace will be doing more development work in Viewpoint with both Pelling and us.  Stop in and see us at the new IT Building if you find yourself in Brooklyn.  We’ll give you the dime tour!  Work safe and work hard.