Menlo Park, California, March 11, 1997 TABLE OF CONTENTS CPAC MEMBERSHIP TOWN MEETING WITH MENLO PARK STAFF Selected briefing statements by CPAC members Distribution Information System (DIS) office National Water Information System (NWIS) Hydrologic Applications and Support Section (HASS) Administrative Information System (AIS) Office of Water Information (OWI) Questions during Town Meeting from Menlo Park staff CPAC impressions from Town Meeting questions and comments REVIEW OF ACTION ITEMS FROM LAST CPAC MEETING Action items from December 1996 Open discussion WWW ISSUES FOLLOW-UP FROM SENIOR STAFF PLAN TO EXPAND FUTCOM2 REPORT, APPENDIX C, PUBLICATION ISSUES INVENTORY DATA BASE PROPOSAL FOR CPAC CONSIDERATION STATUS TO CPAC OF ELECTRONIC FORMS USAGE IN USGS REPORT ON GRAPHICS SUB-GROUP STATUS DESCRIPTION OF INVENTORY OF MENLO PARK COMPUTER RESOURCES DEMONSTRATION OF USER INTERFACES AND 3D GRAPHICS UPDATE ON FUTCOM2 APPENDIX ON APPLICATIONS DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT STATUS OF NWIS CONVERSION EFFORT ANALYSIS OF ISSUES AND DEPENDENCIES OF MIGRATING OFF THE AMDAHL BUREAU STRATEGIC PLAN RELATED WATER DATA BASES NexWIS PRINCIPLES CONCEPTUALIZED USE OF A CONTRACTOR WRD DATA COMMITTEE ACTION ITEMS FROM MARCH 1997 MEETING PARKING LOT NEXT MEETINGS CPAC MEMBERSHIP: Attending March 1997 meeting in Menlo Park, CA: Member Representing Alan Lumb Chief. National Water Information System (NWIS) Isabelle Halley Chief, Administrative Information System (AIS) Greg Allord (minutes) Office of Water Information Jon Scott National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Verne Schneider Senior Staff liaison Sharon Goss Administrative Officers Kevin Oberg Data Sections Jerad Bales Project/Studies Sections Richard Hollway System Administrators Steve Brady Data base administrators Graig McHendrie, Chair Regional Computer Specialists Bill Carswell Senior Staff liaison Dave Shultz National Research Program Linda Pratt National Water Quality Laboratory Janice Fulford Discipline Offices Bob Davis District Chief Susan Trapanese Acting Chief, Distributed Information Office (DIS) Absent: Brian Mrazik District Chief M.E. (Betsy) Daniel Facilitator and recorder Visitors: Jim Bettendorf SR Computer specialist 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm Open meeting with Western Region Office of Regional Hydrologist and Branch of Regional Research TOWN MEETING -- attended by six individuals from Western Region offices and CPAC Welcome and introduction by Graig McHendrie, CPAC Chair, including an explanation of CPAC, background and goals, including groups preceding CPAC (see http://mprcamnl.wr.usgs.gov/uo/cpac/) DIS OFFICE -- Susan Trapanese -- DIS was faced with many changes in the past year, including computers and personnel. DIS is experiencing growth in the number of operating systems being supported. There are changes in support with fewer resources. Guidance comes from CPAC concerning priorities. Pat Rael, Arkansas, will be filling Jim Fulton's slot in DIS. He will be working on graphics, including new strategies for replacement of G2. DIS Chief, Gloria Stiltner, is on a one year detail and Tom Wood will be next acting DIS chief after Susan. Terry Reinitz will be acting Applications Assistance Unit chief. TAC is working on NWIS implementation issues at Districts and retirement of Primes. Most major software packages, including SAS, Ingres, and Arc/INFO are multi- platform and can be transferred to other UNIX platforms. FrameMaker is an issue as DIS is struggling with Adobe to get a better price than GSA costs for FrameMaker 5 on other platforms. DIS is seeking aggressive discounts. Arc/INFO version 8 will not be supported on Data General platforms. A license can be moved to other Unix platforms. A contract is being placed to get ESRI products on non Unix platforms such as NT, Windowes95, and Macintosh. Sites can purchase Arc/INFO for NT at open-market prices now.When the new non Unix contract is awarded, we expect that there will be a provision to get those licenses purchased from the open-market covered under contract maintenance/support. ***************************************************************************** The following information was received from the DIS office after the CPAC meeting to clarify the Arc/INFO licesnse situation and was written by Mark Negri. DIS received a letter from ESRI dated March 14, 1997, signed by Jason Brouillette, Federal Manager, announcing the following ESRI GIS software product releases are the last to be supported on the DG AViiON DG/UX platform: Arc/INFO Version 7.1.1 SDE Version 2.1.1 (both server and client software) ArcView Version 3.0a This obviously will have a significant impact on our field office sites that do not have the hardware to transfer their ESRI licenses to another UNIX platform or to the Windows NT platform. Under the terms of the current GIS-II Contract with ESRI (good through April 2000), a site can transfer their license(s) to other supported Unix platforms at no charge. The impact of being frozen at Arc 7.1.1 will not be adverse in the near future as ESRI hasn't even released 7.1.1 to us yet and it will be the most recent version of Arc for at least a year. WRD has not purchased any SDE licenses to date, so there is no problem there. The largest impact this will have is with ArcView 3 (AV3). WRD sites do not have this version yet as it is still pending modification to the GIS-II contract. Acceptance of the AV3 modification will most likely occur in April, with distribution to the field in May 1997. The first version will be the last on the DG. The SDSU is in the process of formulating alternatives to the ESRI software hardware platform migration paths for AV3, as well as other ESRI products. DIS expects to have a sole source contract awarded in May 1997 to ESRI for all of their GIS software products on Windows NT, other Microsoft Windows environments, and Macintosh. There will be a provision in this contract to transfer ESRI UNIX licenses to non-UNIX platforms. In the ESRI letter sent us they mention such license transfers could be done at no charge. Because of this it is our belief that the no charge license transfer provision will be in the non-UNIX sole source contract to ESRI. Since the terms of this new contract are still under negotiation, there are no guarantees. This is our best available information to date and should not be shared with individuals outside of U.S.G.S. Questions should be directed to Mark Negri (mnegri). End of additional material ***************************************************************************** Work is proceeding on a Data General maintenance contract for post-February 1998 when the current contract ends. Current contract purchase prices for NCD X-terminals are already extremely low ($893 per monitor) but will end August 1997. DIS is considering the possibility of not pursuing follow-on hardware contract maintenance for X-terminals. A DIScussions newsletter in April will be talking about NT and other issues. A WindowsNT course is being offered March 24-28, 1997 at the National Training Center. NCTM98 will probably be in St. Louis. Formal approval for this meeting still needs to be obtained. NWIS --Alan Lumb -- The Idaho alpha testing of the conversion of NWIS from the PRIME to the Data General was two weeks ago. Currently the NWIS staff is fixing remaining bugs so they can do beta installations in 4 different Districts. The beta installations will be a real transfer from NWIS1 to NWIS on the Data Generals. NWIS office is seeking to assure that a District will have minimum down time. A District will not run NWIS on a Prime after the data transfer has begun. The process takes 1-2 weeks for installation and data transfer. ID and AZ are initial beta sites (April 7) and TX and MD (April 21). After beta will begin three installation cycles. Cycle 1 is between May 26-July 3, 1997, Cycle 2 is July 7 - August 8, 1997, Cycle 3 is August 11 - September 12, 1997. RCSers have identified preferences for which District is in which cycle but this has not been finalized. AZ and ID are anxious to get off Primes. DCP and real-time will be unavailable for about 12 hours. Alan suggested a District pick a window for transfer of real-time processing with a favorable weather forecast. No data is lost but it is unavailable until DG NWIS comes up. ID was pleased with Alpha test. The office is beginning a process of NexWIS. Preliminary discussions and plans are being held -- beginning with the Senior Staff NexWIS information later in the minutes. HASS -- Alan Lumb -- HASS is a small group in Reston and the purpose is support, quality control and distribution of hydrologic applications. HASS support 50 packages with more than 100 programs, working with programs from Discipline offices and NRP. A Web site, mirrored in Germany, is available for people to download programs. HASS established procedures in terms of providing software and test data sets to help improve the quality of software. There are three initiatives in terms of Graphical User Interfaces (GUI). Meshmaker (proprietary package) interactively creates grids for GW models. This provides for a number of packages that can attach to Meshmaker. One staff person is supporting GW models for use with Meshmaker. Java is being used on a project to explore pitfalls and capabilities. SEDCALC (sediment calculations) prototype will be available with Java programs in several months. This will indicate if Java should be used in-house or not. Initial efforts were GUI but all calculations will be converted to JAVA within SEDCALC program. Recommendations will be provided to WRD regarding use of Java. This is being tested on Sun and Windows environments. Java forces clean code writing but limited in terms of widgets, like Visual Basic or C++. Graphical editing is included in Java capabilities. Visual Basic programming is third effort with river basin modelling. NAWQA, Carson-Truckee and IL cooperator are funding the visual basic programming effort. Demonstrations have been done for Hirsch and Reston NAWQA staff. This effort is also using a contractor and a Georgia Tech professor who is a specialist on human interface design. AIS -- Isabelle Halley -- Isabelle described 4 areas in AIS. Financial, project, human resources (completed this year with paperless T&A); organization management. Division was requested to take a Bureau 3rd party software package for payroll. Major initiative is conversion of payroll system by end of this year from Primes to Data Generals. A small group of Project personnel are trying to come up with the requirements for a streamlined project budgeting module. This project model will fully interface with AIS. It is still at the requirement phase Bureau has changed assessment policy and AIS software needs to be changed by FY1998. This affects every piece of software and will be in place in a November-December time frame. The timly update of project information has become an isssue. WRD is required, by law, to provide NTIS with our project information. She requested keeping project information updated even if budget information is not entered. This system is used by Senior Staff plus potential Congressional queries. MIS data is available to the public (problem, objective and approach only). OWI -- Greg Allord -- Information council sponsoring a Bureau-level committee, Information Management and Delivery Committee, to prepare a policy framework for information management policy. OWI is active in this effort with Gail Wendt and Greg Allord participating as WRD representatives. There will be a workshop in mid-May in Sioux Falls for 6 to 8 people from each Division. The Internet Services Coordinating Team, chaired by Ken Lanfear, will at the same time host a workshop for all Bureau webmasters. A Bureau level group is being formed to address publications issues with Jo Ann Macy ,OWI, and Ed Swibas, Colorado District, representing WRD. OWI is working on defining distribution issues for all types of publications. There is a need for an electronic reports series but it must not be like current paper report series. This new e-pub series must allow for dynamic updating of materials but include archive and revision control. Questions during Town Meeting: QUESTION -- Do we buy Data General hardware anymore? Answer is no. Then why do we say we are moving to DG? WRD has a large install base of DG servers. They are the only widely available platform that could be used for both the NWIS conversion effort and for running the software. Hardware comes with a very inexpensive INGRESS license. IT was decided a year ago that it is cost-effective to port NWIS to DGs. Experimentation has also been done testing with Sun. NWIS testing indicates it is a minor issue to move to other UNIX boxes. We must get NWIS up and running on the DGs first, then think about porting to other platforms. However, support of a number of operating systems in UNIX is a problem. AIS is also looking at porting to other UNIX platforms. The FUTCOM2 report talks about a migration to other platforms. QUESTION -- Regarding Futures report, were any end-users on FUTCOM2 writing group, esp modelling and visualization? Steve Regan from HASS represented this group. QUESTION -- Regarding Futures report, reference to Suns and SGI did not emphasize the advanced scientific computing these platforms support. They were not mentioned heavily as very high end computing. Graig said the report was aimed at the majority of WRD users and did not intend to address the needs of super-computer users. That could be addressed in the update if it was felt appropriate. Question about how much of the product high end computing represents in WRD and how do you measure the proportion of high end users. Suggestion is that decision to upgrade to a higher end computer is a true struggle to select the appropriate system. Interpretation of product information is very difficult and better guidelines need to be made available. All of the guidelines have pointed out that the Regional Computer Specialists are available for help in this area. QUESTION -- Were Macintosh represented fairly on the Futcom2 group? FutCom was concerned about Apple's viability in the marketplace. A Macintosh supporter (Greg Allord) was included in the group. Hardware future of Intel is clearer than future of Apple. Report hedged by agreeing that Mac is appropriate for some applications -- especially publications. Example of release of Illustrator for both Mac and Intel this summer with same capabilities shows Intel systems are closing in on Macintosh systems for publication applications but they have not completely closed the gap. This is the first time both platforms will be at parity for Illustrator software. However, there are some on FutCom who still advocate Macontosh computers for selected requirements. QUESTION -- Where should software be developed -- in-house or outside? This is currently being done in both places but there is pressure to not use our FTE resources to do what is being done in the market. Front ends are being released by private companies but source code is not available. Interface will not provide support for current USGS versions unless source code accessed separately. Office of Ground Water has policy regarding verification of results of programs for which source code can not be verified. These are complex issues especially where small companies are involved. If we put our resources into a conversion then a company's viability is important. CPAC will keep aware of what is going on for the next 6 months and make nudges where needed. Ground water programs are ahead of surface water software because of Modflow being released so widely. Surface water programs do not have clear distinction of being commonly used like Corps adoption of Modflow. We do not have the necessary resources to put a front end on surface water software and private companies have not identified one program to advance or support. QUESTION -- Regarding Futures report, there is an increasing diversity in software within the Division. Will we move back to greater unity or is diversity the trend? Richard stated the market drives what is potentially in and out. What does a project chief acquire to prevent changes? Scope of projection is more in line of three years rather and is not able to project out ten years. True issue is supporting too many operating systems and management issues. Limited choices of platforms which can meet your technical needs. Decide if added support burden is justified to maintain numerous platforms. QUESTION -- NWIS hardware -- is 16 Gb of disk space required for NWIS implementation? Number of physical drives is 4 for optimum performance and data base recovery. Optimum size for a drive is 4 Gb. This does not mean that NWIS requires 16 Gb of space. Regional Computer Specialists should be consulted for assistance and a complete explanation. QUESTION -- Would people be steered to a Sun or a SGI or would an Intel box be recommended? The answer is dependent on what the requirements are and are pc's already being supported in the office being affected. An office without local support should consider not supporting many pc's. QUESTION -- Are Sun and SGI being recommended because that is what we know? For the most part that is true. IBM and HP are not being eliminated for technical reasons. Many sites are staying with Sun because of system administration reasons. 3:30 pm - 4:00 pm Discussion of open meeting CPAC impressions from Town Meeting questions and comments (Note these are individuals comments and are not CPAC policy but are good indicators) Good questions considering the small size of the group. Graig had hoped more people would attend. He noted a district actually went to the trouble of calling in questions. Futcom2 report did not go far enough to help a person choose and buy equipment. Impressed that some people read the Futcom2 report. Many deleted it when they saw Hirsch was the one who sent it as they assumed it was another administrative e-mail, of which we are getting many. Inconsistent answer concerning Arc/INFO license on NT. Susan later asked to forward to CPAC Mark Negri's letter explaining this issue and provide clarification. Recognition from many that support for multiple platforms is a true issue. Visitors were confident in WRD's ability to move forward -- no depression. Menlo Park is a more free environment than is a District. It is also not a NWIS site. People in some Districts still do not believe that NWIS will happen this year. Status reports are helping to eliminate fears. Readers want answers from Futcom2 report and do not want to have to explore the entire market to select a machine. Some want option of selecting and some want a machine specified for them. It is not considered efficient for everybody to start building their own systems from scratch. Briefings from DIS and offices are very informative for CPAC members as well as those attending the town meetings. This should be done even if there is not town meeting. Surprised there were only six people. They were interested but CPAC outnumbered visitors almost 3 to 1. Graig noted there was a conflict with Region staff having another meeting to prepare for District program reviews. Disappointed that NRP staff says they do not use our corporate data base. They use something available to only one or two people. Senior Staff is addressing this issue. Some parameters being collected that are not being accommodated is usually a weak excuse for using our corporate data base No willpower to deal with this issue. Regarding issue of advanced computing resources -- This may be a legacy of modelers trying to do models on a DG 300. Concern that NT will not be able to provide required support. Perception is a carryover from the past. Sun and SGI are potential choices because there is an unofficial knowledge base for system support. DIS is being asked to do 4 times the level of support at a time the Division is cutting support funding. Some ar uncomfortable that Senior Staff is unwilling to provide required levels of support. There is truly a need for a certain level of support and Division is not providing this support. Futcom2 report is a good report but the information is lengthy and a summarization would broaden readership. A summary at the beginning would increase interest. Possibly send the summary plus the url. The report was confused with junk mail. Note - see related action item Pleased that National Research Program (NRP) staff attended and were not negative. They were seeking feedback from this group. Not dismissed as just another Division effort. Looking at this as it will apply to NRP. Further questions can be sent via e-mail to member of CPAC. - --End of town meeting-- Review of agenda and schedule for the next two days. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 1997 REVIEW OF ACTION ITEMS FROM LAST CPAC MEETING -- Steve Brady AI - Dissemination of Futcom2 report. --> Futcom2 Done but another action item is that in the next few weeks that Graig should send out the summary with a reference to the url ACTION ITEM -- Futcom2 will put together a draft for CPAC review stating the purpose of the document. --> G. McHendrie Done ACTION ITEM -- Memo to be drafted for Futcom2 report for Bob's signature. - --> K. Peter Done ACTION ITEM -- DIS to prepare instructions on retiring Prime computer by the first positive NWIS alpha test. --> DIS In progress as a TAC action item. This will be done by end of 2nd beta installations. Working on a check list for Prime and DG side to do prior to installation of NWIS. ACTION ITEM -- Announce availability of information on port of software from the Prime through an all employee distributed email. --> Lumb Not done. List prepared but email not sent. Exist on a web site. People concerned about duplicated efforts. Will send out what is available by 3/21 (Verne to follow-up to get this sent out.) ACTION ITEM -- Include feedback on this issue to Senior Staff as part of report on minutes on this meeting. --> K. Peter Done -- Kathy briefed Senior Staff. ACTION ITEM -- Report on status of WWW issues at March 97 CPAC meeting. - - -> K. Oberg Done -- Kevin is on agenda for this meeting. ACTION ITEM -- Form a subgroup of CPAC to analyze DIS organizational structure and funding by May meeting. --> J. Bales, B. Mrazik, S. McEwen, M. Bunch, S. Goss In process -- Brian is assembling information. To be done by phone and e- mail. ACTION ITEM -- DIS will explore license manager software options with NCD. --> DIS Being done and expected to be completed by July as part of WinCenter Pro release. Sent as part of the status in February. Currently relying on honor system. Note: Microsoft announced a multi-version of NT in the future and put Microsoft in competition with WinCenter Pro functions but not serving of X- Windows. Software not aware of multiuser capabilities and preferences, etc need to be shared. Long term goal is to catch up to UNIX. ACTION ITEM -- DIS will see that each issue of "Discussions" will contain an update on developments using Windows NT, Wincenter, and non-DG Unix around the division. --> DIS Release date of next DIScussons is April and will include articles on NT. Graig referenced a potential article with Bob Sutherland as the contact about backing up NT servers. ACTION ITEM -- RCSers to request Districts to do case studies and include as part of Program Review. --> RCS Just getting started with Merritt sending a request to go out in the near future. Request is being reviewed. Concern about asking for more information form the Districts but requests out in some Regions. No set answers. Language included in program review documents. RCSers will provide a summary for CPAC but Region reviews not done until early summer and will go to CPAC ACTION ITEM -- After Program Review, RCS'ers to compile summaries for CPAC. --> RCS Done -- Agenda item for this meeting ACTION ITEM -- OWI to provide a plan on expanding appendix C and include Web issues. --> G. Allord Done -- Agenda item for this meeting ACTION ITEM -- Invite Steve Regan to the next meeting and brief him on what is to be done regarding appendix B. --> G. McHendrie Done -- Conference call on agenda for this meeting ACTION ITEM -- Provide reference citing policy concerning the creation of electronic forms. --> G. McHendrie ( Done Done -- Start Frame; click on HELP in the 5-button initial popup; click on USGS-Specific; click on USGS Templates; on the right, click on Policy and Guidelines. AI: Provide a status to CPAC on electronic forms usage in USGS by the March Meeting by Feb. 1, 1997. --> S. Trapanese Done -- Agenda item for this meeting ACTION ITEM -- Prepare a literature study of total ownership cost of desktops. Report due by May to CPAC with a status for the March meeting. --> K. Oberg In process -- Kevin has handout. Student has been picked but is just starting ACTION ITEM -- Discuss with group doing WRD's strategic plan CPAC's future computer vision. --> G. McHendrie There is not a link and plan is being done at such a general level of principles that too early in the process. Looking for a link. To go on the agenda for each CPAC meeting. Two possible tie-in points a) are computers and developed software an investment in terms of technical investments for training, etc; b) how do we behave in respect to data from others (store internally or access their data) ACTION ITEM -- Minutes due by Dec. 20, 1997 for review. --> S. Brady Done ACTION ITEM -- Technical Support (TS) to prepare analysis of issues and dependencies of migrating off Amdahl. --> V. Schneider Done -- Agenda item for this meeting ACTION ITEM -- K. Peter to draft a memo for Hirsch's signature thanking the members rotating off CPAC. --> K. Peter Done ACTION ITEM -- Memo to new members for Hirsch's signature outlining responsibilities, procedures, and the upcoming meeting date. --> K. Peter Done ACTION ITEM -- Provide a memo to inform all employees of major items in bullet format for the past year. --> K. Peter Done and on web page ACTION ITEM -- The successes as bullet items should be made available on our home page. --> J. Solomon, DIS Done ACTION ITEM -- DIS to update mail alias for CPAC. --> DIS Done ACTION ITEM -- Charge WINSIG to produce a list of URLs for sites who want to buy Wintel server hardware and software. Report due by Feb. 1, 1997. --> DIS Done -- have been updated by Chris Barnes OPEN DISCUSSION: Procurement problems and possibilities -- get someone from another Federal agency with a success story. Talking in general of both large and small purchases. Shelley Welch, OPS, mentioned as a procurement source as was NASA. Rules are changing and have changed. Large contract committee in existence in WRD. Basic guidelines are not out to Districts, includingbasic systems, requirements, and functions. There is potential of getting junk through current procurement process because anybody can bid. CPAC needs to give guidance about successfully writing technical specifications. Need for a training document for getting specifications right and how to evaluate and apply that evaluation when it arrives. Regional Administrative Officers are meeting with Contracts. Graig to see who can talk about this. Observed that most of action items got done -- a success. Thanks to Steve Brady for the minutes of the last meeting The subgroup of CPAC to analyze the DIS organizational structure and funding by May meeting will look at functions and required staff. WWW ISSUES FOLLOW-UP FROM SENIOR STAFF -- Kevin Oberg Three handouts were provided. Two are Web pages of interest to CPAC. The other handout is outline of talk that Web team will be giving to Senior Staff. Outlines provides a status. Kevin is considering sending out a status report but the role of Illinois is vague and he is hesitant to presume authority they may or not have. Management of this exercise has been evolving. Time lines are now available for the first time. Management tools are being brought into place. There is a meeting next week to talk about how to manage this process. Nobody knows this group exists. Frustrating process. Role of OWI, Internet Services, versus Illinois is unclear and unknown who is in charge. A spirited and open discussion took place addressing a number of issues. A topical list of these issues is provided and does not contain the detailed discussion. Illinois District has a team who has received funding from OWI to write specific applications. Technical management by NWIS with program management by OWI. January meeting (OWI and TS) spent considerable time developing time line as shown in handout and this made for a major step forward. Hirsch stated realtime and historical values are true priorities and Division resources not available this FY for serving other types of data. TS and OWI will conference Monday to look also at daily values and water- quality data. Hopefully OSW and OWQ will attend. NAWQA told they have to archive their data and serving on Web is just one of the options. Writing data base in an example of this efforts possibly happening at multiple sites. NC spending in excess of 75K of FY97 money to experiment and coordinates with OWQ. Basic issue is all efforts not being managed as a Division. This is impacting the Division. Selection of database is also a decision that maybe shouldn't be made locally. NWIS frustrated in viewing this process with all resources dedicated to conversions and can't participate in this development. Many complaints from OFA and contractors about how data is being served. Illinois has proposed a developers conference. Verne proposed a possible scenario for advancing this problem. Summary: INFORM Communications that need to be done regarding status of developments. CONSOLIDATE Consolidate Web serving of data and determine a common time line and management. DEVELOP Data bases that can should be used, evolve this process, developer's workshop. Managers are interested in what has been done and it is important to bring players together. Advocates tend to get bought into their own approaches. Remove any biases and take a honest look at what is possible. This could be a major goal of a developer's conference. MOTION -- Kevin Oberg be tasked to form a small team to establish a purpose and agenda for a July developers conference. Approved by CPAC Jon Scott will assist and volunteered to represent NAWQA interests. Isabelle to assure administrative side is represented. ACTION ITEM -- Verne will try to get this issue of lack of coordination for Web data serving and software development addressed at meeting between Water Information, Technical Support, and Discipline Offices Team, Monday, March 17, 1997. Verne will report back to CPAC via minutes of this meeting. Observed there is still a lack of coordination of Web development activities. A national strategy for serving data on the Web has still not been accomplished. Individual and national sites distinctions need to be clarified. PLAN TO EXPAND FUTCOM2 REPORT, APPENDIX C, PUBLICATION ISSUES -- Greg Allord Greg presented the following: Focus of this new article will be on the transformations that are happening in print publishing technologies s well as the adoption of electronic communications of information and data in the Water Resources Division. This will not be an expansion of the thoughts presented in the December 1996 version of the Future of Computers in WRD report. A basic premise will be that is agreed that the Internet is here to stay and it is altering the way we need to do business both for print products as well as electronic delivery of information. He proposed it is not effective to go back and document how we should have handled reports using DISII technologies. Time and attention will be given to new and emerging issues which must be dealt with to successfully implement a new data and information delivery system. The following is a list of topics which may be addressed. This is a working list and one that he is not willing to commit to being the final or a list to be limited by. The order of presentation also needs refinement. This update to the FUTCOM2 report will probably best be presented as a white paper from the Office of Water Information to CPAC. Digital work flow: Technology and cost models Authoring and layout New electronic series required Page viewers versus formatting on the fly Graphics software Document managment systems Document repositories Customer and cooperator requirements Production utilities Business opportunities Commercial developments Image library List of specific issues Definition of Bureau publication series Other discussion: MOTION -- Greg proposed getting off CPAC and have Internet Services representative from OWI replace him. Greg feels he is not adequately representing all of OWI and the Web issues are important to the Division in light of expectations, promises, and funding going to these efforts. Greg would remain as a member of the FutCom group to keep the publications issues advancing. Carswell and others disagreed and think that publications need to be represented. Motion was not seconded and therefore failed. This triggered more Internet discussions: We need to develop strategies at a high level in how we will use the Web for our customers, internal and external -- we need to evolve. How would you approach the process? It was proposed that CPAC take up the mantle of this suggestion and provide the focal point for a web development strategy to the Division. There is a Bureau level committee called Webwow that is putting some of the technical underpinnings to an initiative to improve our capability to serve real time warning information including earthquakes and floods. FutCom2 subcommittee is also acting here. A Southeast Region committee is also considering the problem. Internet groups need to answer the questions of site recovery and serving large quantities of data. OWI internet services needs to be more open and be accountable for actions. LUNCH NCTM 98 -- Susan Trapanese Pat McAlwee reviewed hotels in Kansas City and St. Louis. Best location appears to be the Adams Mark hotel in St. Louis. Best dates are April 5 - 10, 1998. 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm INVENTORY DATA BASE PROPOSAL FOR CPAC CONSIDERATION -- Steve Brady Inventories of the number, types An excerpt from the document Steve distributed is: Inventories of the number, types (makes/models/version) and locations of: server workstations personal computers )(PCs/Macs) X terminals other network computers or thin-clients proprietary software packages warranty or maintenance period on hardware and software item WRD mission critical applications primary and backup system administrator year item purchased would provide useful and often critical information to aid in the management and support of the WRD computing environment. For example, the number ... The complete url is: http://wwwqvarsa.er.usgs.gov/cpac/private/inv_db.html For example, the number and types of servers/workstations and their operating system versions become critical information for threat assessment when the WRD security team receives CERT alerts or other warnings. Server configuration information also aids the systems and software support staff in determining which sites need key patches to fix problems. As the support staff finds out problems between third party software and versions of the WRD operating systems, management can adjust resources to respond to these problems based upon the potential impacts. One example of this is the assessment of the costs associated with ensuring mission critical computer operations for the Year 2000. Quantities of hardware and software installed also give DIS negotiating leverage when establishing draft procurements, maintenance agreements/modifications or special vendor offerings. The inventory would also provide management the information needed to plan for the DIS budget and field support, training needs or thrusts, and locations of computer expertise that might be utilized for future Division support. Having this information readily available would eliminate the need to constantly survey districts for this data. Districts may still need to be contacted concerning their level of interest in new product offerings. Steve Brady had distributed an outline of the problems, possible solutions, and cost associated with those solutions. Group met through e-mail. This group did not discuss selection of two people required to do the work outlined by this proposal. This is an effort that cannot start until FY 98 because of lack of available people. Funding will be put into DIS budget for FY 98 as a request. The complete url is: http://wwwqvarsa.er.usgs.gov/cpac/private/inv_db.html QUESTION -- will this be part of AIS? This is not seen to be part of AIS. There should be no problem get access to AIS externally. QUESTION -- What will be tracked? This is only for tracking hardware and software. There are currentlyt no centralized records for property control and procurement. A suggestion was made to look at systems used by other agencies. BLM takes information from procurement system and populates the inventory database. QUESTION -- Is there anything else like this in existence? The vision would be to order equipment electronically and get summaries of orders from this system. Inventory systems exist as off-the-shelf. Issue is the fact that our organization is very de-centralized. QUESTION -- Is this a spreadsheet? -- No, this would be an inventory database. QUESTION -- Is the cost of acquiring this information acceptable in terms of how this information will be used? This information is important. Some answers are given in document distributed by Steve. The value of this system is only as good as the information in the system. It is necessary to make this useful at the District level in order to get the data input. Enforcement and compliance is an important issue. Encouragement would be savings for maintenance. The first time will be painful but updates will be easier. Focus on the bottom-up use and have one system. There is great utility in having such a system. QUESTION -- Who will come up with the design of this system? The design is critical. There should be a prototype of the interface. Suggested to have a RCS, administrative officer, and site administrator. QUESTION -- Is the requesting funding level too low? No, it is a realistic assessment. QUESTION -- Will attention be made to bank card procurement? Bank card entries are one sum of everything purchased on that order. It was suggest the we do not complicate the expenditures side just in order to get this information. QUESTION -- Does this duplicate the material already in the property system? This tracks different information, including maintenance. There may be some overlap and this will be explored. Settle links to other databases at a later date but account for these links during the design. Linking to the inventory system may be too much to handle. CPAC endorses this inventory as a good idea. Resources should be made available for this effort next year. The recommendation should include a brief description as to why this an important effort and its benefit to Districts and the Division. STATUS TO CPAC OF ELECTRONIC FORMS USAGE IN USGS -- Susan Trapanese Nobody is successfully using the latest version of InForms. Nobody is using this package to its potential, including electronic mailing and electronic signatures. Date/time math function untested. The software also needs tracking and database. One problem was getting one good copy of the software from OPS. Manuals and software modules never the same version. DIS brought the vendor out to Reston and showed that the software does not function correctly on Wincenter Pro. Quoted cost of doing a form from scratch is $75. It is unknown about the future of Travel Manager and the relation of InForm package to Travel Manager. Travel lab recommendations are done and two other teams looking at contract for travel centers and electronic software for travel. First phase report includes general requirements of what the Department wants to see. RFI is being prepared for software companies and agencies to send us their comments. Concern is that this would be a DOI developed package. This is not the way finance officers team want to go. USGS will not move unless there is an interface. If Travel Manager can modify their software and meet our requirements then it is acceptable to go ahead. Team not positive about Travel Manager and InForms is also not what we want. The issue is getting an interface. USGS is only Bureau in DOI that has fully implemented interface to FFS. Some Bureaus still do travel manually. There will be forthcoming changes in travel regulations (like getting one travel authorization for the entire year). DOI looking at streamlining the entire process and WRD has not gotten to these issues and WRD is ahead of all other Divisions. Maintenance costs are per voucher. Overall cost is worthwhile but software needs to be improved. Do not go back to the vendor until responses are received from RFI. Sharon will get final report out to all Administrative Officers. Isabelle has personal feeling that there will no changes in Travel Manager for two years. QUESTION -- Do we continue to use FrameMaker for forms? There is a cost associated with maintaining FrameMaker for just forms. Futcom2 report indicates FrameMaker will continue to be used for the foreseeable future. QUESTION -- When in the future will there be need a replacement system? This is one of DIS lowest priorities. We can do everything we need today without buying and training for a new package. Cost is more than the worth. QUESTION -- Can we use the PC version of Travel Manager? No. PC version cannot be used due to the lack of an interface to FFS and travel vouchers would have to entered manually. There is basically no possibility that an interface will be written for the PC version based on the experience of the high cost of getting the DG interface written. Verne offered to use InForms between Reston and Yucca Mountain and report on TS experiences. There is a policy memorandum in place stating that electronic versions of forms need to be approved. Terry Reinitz is the WRD point-of-contact. CPAC will monitor InForms capability. Frame is principal forms use package within WRD and it will stay this way for the near future. OPS should pick up this issue and do the testing for the Bureau, including testing on a Wincenter Pro platform. REPORT ON GRAPHICS SUB-GROUP STATUS -- Susan Trapanese Status on graphics group sent as a url: http://wwwqvarsa.er.usgs.gov/dis/graphics_group/secret/status1.html From this status report, the preliminary Charting Specifications, preliminary User Survey, Report, new and old Timeline, and preliminary Software Applications list are available. These WEB pages can all be printed as postscript. The Report will be getting updated almost daily from here on, so it may be difficult for CPAC members to all access the same version. The URL for the Report is: http://wwwqvarsa.er.usgs.gov/dis/graphics_group/secret/Report.html The scope has been narrowed to charting and excludes illustrations and data visualizations. The group is behind on original milestones but new schedule was sent to CPAC. a. The User survey is currently a very rough draft. It will need review by various people for technical content and "form/survey" design to ensure good metrics collection from user responses. Suggested reviewers are Greg Allord, RCSers, Charlie Merk, Bob Pierce, NRP - Menlo and Jim Slack. b. There is good progress and examples of good graphics. Jim Whitmer is leaving WRD and a replacement is needed. OWI needs to name a replacement and this person does not need to be in Reston. This function is now more in terms of reviewing charting products for conformance to publication requirements. c. The draft specification lists many applications; the group recognizes the need to narrow this list to manageable levels. CPAC suggests that FutCom2 group can help trim this list. d. Other issues concern funding and resources. Pat Rael will be reporting for duty on Monday 3/17. This will allow for more time and coordination of the graphic group's tasks. Resource needs will be put into the FY 98 DIS funding request. Issue 4 lists many applications and group needs to narrow this list to manageable levels. FutCom2 group can help trim this list. Other issues are funding and resources. Pat Rael reporting for duty on Monday allows DIS to focus on this and provide assistance. This need will also be put into the FY 98 DIS funding request. QUESTION -- Is there a problem with groups time? There could be as this will continue to be a volunteer effort but so far there are no problems known. QUESTION -- Is there funding for this? Jo Ann Macy, OWI, waiting for a target request in terms of dollar amounts and has agreed to support at a relatively small dollar level. DESCRIPTION OF INVENTORY OF MENLO PARK COMPUTER RESOURCES -- Graig McHendrie The move into consolidated quarters was from multiple offices in Menlo Park plus the Deer Park location. The composition is 20 percent Region staff and 80 percent National Research Program. The move spread over 6 weeks (3 groups each in 2 week time periods) April 1996 March 1997 People: 137 DG Servers: 3 Work stations & X-terminals 63 PCs 102 130 Macintosh 10 Printers 18 Menlo Park has installed Wincenter Pro on a HP Pentium with 6 Microsoft Office licenses. A current nightmare is keeping applications current on all the PCs. Complicated installations are more effective as computer unit does install to prevent drastic crashes and network configuration problems. Biggest uses are: word processing (WordPerfect with increased use of Word) charting (Excel, Kalidea and others); and spreadsheet (Excel). SAS usage is low but will be recommended. The office will move toward applications servers in the next year. New procurements are Windows 95. Currently 75 percent of PCs are Windows 3.1 with a few WindowsNT (previous OS2 systems moving to NT). (Aside: the Denver Lab is going all to WindowsNT) New systems must include a local backup capability. Group behavior is spotty and users are reminded through horror stories. People are careful of their data. E-mail is exmh and plum but there is an increasing use of e-mail service within Netscape. Two things to do differently: Upgrade systems before the move rather than after the move and make all systems network capable. Computer group moved most of the Unix computers themselves and gave NRP guidelines for moving PCs. GD had commercial movers move their systems who were careful. Movers are available that can do a good job. Label absolutely everything. Move experiences were captured and are available on the Web. Contract Graig McHendrie. DEMONSTRATION OF USER INTERFACES AND 3D GRAPHICS -- Paul Hsieh Hydrologist (GW modeler) with NRP-Menlo Park Paul got into this as he sees possibilities for those in a technical arena to be more efficient and better communicate information. Showed applications developed with Visual C++ as well as scientific visualizations. Aquifer test analysis program Mesh generator ModView (written with Open GL, a graphics library) DEMview Software is available fromi and has been sent to Regional Ground Water Specialists for comment Paul is working on applications that use graphical user interfaces that take full advantage of computers and do not just mimic old methods. Paul suggested that it would help him a great deal if there were more communication with investigators who are doing model development. He has seen reports of other activities, but there has been little actual communication. DEMONSTRATION OF USER INTERFACE FOR MODELS -- Alan Lumb The plan includes working with Arc/INFO to generate rdb files and put those files in data base and do post-processing of that data. This has vbeen demonstrated twice (NAWQA-Texas and Reston) and user feedback has been requested. The purpose is to pull in pieces to assist the modeler -- pick up code and embed in application. River basin modelling Commented on need to use common widgets in applications (like date widget) Programming is done in Visual Basic Using a Professor at Georgia Tech who is a specialist in human interface issues. Total of $50 K to $75 K invested to date for all analysis programming and interface. Contact Alan Lumb for more information -- this is still under development. THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 1997 UPDATE ON FUTCOM2 APPENDIX ON APPLICATIONS DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT -- Graig, Alan, and Steve Regan (via teleconference) HASS is working on converting hydrologic software. Steve read a list of programs being developed or converted with a brief status of each program. Basin modeling action team is bringing the watershed models together with Fortran 90, Java, and a browser to allow users to build their own models. Graphically build a model using pre-formated rdb files (demonstrated by Alan Lumb to CPAC 3/12/97). Other developments are being done in the Districts. Training for programmers in Reston will take advantage of object oriented programming and make programs portable over time. Twenty people signed up for a 3 day course (March 31, 1997), mostly from Reston. People doing Fortran and C (structured and procedural) programming have a hard time moving to object oriented programming. It requires a major change in the way programmers think. Peer group and weekly seminars are to get people up to speed. There are no current thoughts on how to get this training out to the Districts. Alan stated this training may be offered a second time for District personnel. Steve requested CPAC to think about how many programmers in the Districts need this type of training. It is not known how many people need this type of training as it is not needed for Web page design, etc. He feels greatest benefit will be with corporate software. C++ training taught by Jim Fulton before he left USGS had people involved in national programming effort who work out of Districts. These people need this type of training. There is a need to get people trained in Reston and then to hold in-house training. We need infrastructure and support libraries established before training offered. Isabelle very concerned about waiting to get Districts involved as they are often ahead of HQ with access to Universities and students. There are key District people who should get involved at the beginning. Libraries need to be prepared but field people may help populate the libraries identified in a structured defined by HASS. QUESTION -- Who decides, and how, what language these libraries will written in? This is currently a HASS and CPAC decision. It is unknown if we will have both Java and C++ libraries and the Java project is to see if it is mature enough to give an advantage over C++. An issue is limited resources and this needs to be sorted out. Maybe it is a question of coordinating what is going on as people will be developing in both languages and this will save us from putting all efforts in one place (basket). Most of this is still in an experimental phase and there is a need to improve communications. Many libraries are already out there and we do not need to develop these libraries. There are still are many choices and the choice (standardization) needs to be communicated. Documentation and archiving of these libraries after development will be published as AN open-file report and made available on A Web page. It is not known how formal the process needs to be as these are just utility programs. When these are usable then they will be refined and used by developers. It will take 6 months to flesh out these issues. The library needs to be made public when the larger model is released as this is part of the model. Discussed Paul Hsieh's comment regarding improving communication between developers. Steve stated best method is Web pages, set up a programmers Web page through HASS. David Boldt being with HASS may make this possible. There is a tendency not to read these pages if they get too trivialized. Put forward who is really doing what and comunicate this way. Example is SW modeling interest group page. CPAC comfortable with this method. Graig will ask Paul Hsieh to put together a page describing what he is doing. Possibly a cross referenced set of Web pages with individuals describing their efforts and cross-linked to a HASS page to bring these all together. HASS will help if someone does not want to do a local page. QUESTION -- What are these libraries like, downloadable? Libraries are downloadable and executable. Conceptually like IMSL. Need to know what you can get. Two issues: development of documentation of libraries and second is communication of development efforts. Documentation is a hard effort. MOTION -- HASS to develop a Web page to communicate what development efforts underway in WRD. This is to be set up by the May meeting. HASS is developing libraries and status of this effort is waiting for personnel assignments. Currently not being done. What are the steps involved in designing this library and can this be accelerated by tapping into the interest there is in this effort? QUESTION -- Does this need to be done in a centralized way or can standards and reivew be set up so multiple sites can provide routines to this library? This can work. Take effort as this requires shifting FTE allocations. Waiting too long will make us lose the opportunity. This will be happening this spring. Potential for overlap between hydrologic appications and Web applications. Web developers conference needs to include hydrologic applications. ACTION ITEM -- HASS to give a status report at May meeting describing the library development effort. Important to give people the opportunity to be given a framework and and be able to use that framework. Recognized that Steve's summary shows this is a good start and and CPAC appreciates his progress. STATUS OF NWIS CONVERSION EFFORT -- Alan Lumb See section in Town Meeting TAC is getting some partial funding to attend beta installations and this will distribute knowledge base. TAC members can be a resource for implementation. District and Regions may have responsibility for assisting implementation. A discussion is going on between TS and Regions to decide on support levels. The implementation plan is very good but is more than TS can afford. Districts may attend other installations and then proceed in their own Districts with support from NWIS impementation teams. TS will have to give up some other high priority items to fully support implementation on their own but Hirsch has given implementation highest priority. This needs to be resolved very soon. NWIS is preparing a pre-installation document to go out this week or next. TAC will be meeting on May 8 to agree on all implementation plans. Three reports from users groups will be going up on the Web. QUESTION -- Are 4 installation teams necessary as the ID install went well? ID has talented individuals with fairly clean data and therefore may not actually be a common denominator. RCSers should be able to identify Districts which may need help. Key is finalizing the District installion schedules. ANALYSIS OF ISSUES AND DEPENDENCIES OF MIGRATING OFF THE AMDAHL -- Verne Schneider There is no written master plan for moving off the Amdahl. Alan is taking the steps to check what is on the Amdahl versus what is on District DG systems. It may turn out that data still on the Amdahl will be put in a file and let Districts decide what to do with this data. This will go on throughout the summer. Another issue is Water Qualtiy data and 150 parameter codes. There may be some derived data. Districts will serve their QW data to STORET (17 Districts have this requirement to do this monthly) Streamflow daily values updates are required annually. There is a need to also meet our commitment to EPA STORET. Maker certain districts have all the data they want from the Amdahl and they backfile the Amdahl data. Districts woud upload the correct data to a site for serving data nationally. Amdahl will not serve data. A couple FTE are working this effort. QUESTION -- Are we discontinuing a publically available data base? It is understood by TS and OWI that proper 60 day notification must be made, including Commerce Business Daily announcement and OMB requirements. Peak flow file must be updated one more time and several days effort required to do this. It should not be difficult to recreate peak flow files. Basin characteristics files will be moved to another server and will be made accessible as an internal page only because it is out-of-date. Highest priority is daily flows and will be done by September 30, 1997. Others are next fiscal year. Amdahl bill is two pieces: Administrative is several million dollars; other negiotated cost is $275. This is a bureau resource and we will pay for it whether we use it or not. BUREAU STRATEGIC PLAN RELATED WATER DATA BASES -- Verne Schneider NexWIS status -- Verne Schneider Organization, structure and CPAC involvement Overhead of NexWIS -- fitting the pieces together 3 groups and roles -- Senior management (not Senior Staff); Cooperators/Users; NWIS team. Discussion regarding composition of the groups and appropriate roles, expecially the Senior managment board. This is being developed and Verne made some notes regarding CPAC comments. A complete description will be sent to CPAC for review and comment. This exist in rough draft form at the moment. The issue that technical review needs to exist was noted-- including configuration managment and quality assurance. Overhead of NexWIS priorities: Short term - Novemeber 1997 current problems reports and requests Estimate effort set priorities - who? draw a line based on resourcess and schedules June 1998 and on NexWIS PRINCIPLES -- -- Bill Carswell Draft is being sent via e-mail with comments due March 26, 1997. Revised by April 8, 1997 with comments due April 14, 1997. Bill walked through the principles and provided a handout expanding on these principles. CPAC recommended Adding: 15. Assume 7 days a week, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year availability for some data CONCEPTUALIZED USE OF A CONTRACTOR -- Alan Lumb Overhead -- NexWIS - Initial contractor role (tasks) mutual orientation and cultural familiarization review NWIS project and status review technical environment and engineering practice predict impact of infusing emerging technologies report on condition of and best path for NWIS Overhead -- NexWIS - Initial contractor role (questions) What can we plan on achiving for NWIS in the next 3 years? What adjustments should we make to processes? What adjustments should we make in managing our data? Where can we leverage available and projected technology? What can give us the best return on our investment? Others? Indications are that contractor work could be done in the range of $30K. This would be an independent perspective. A decision has been made that it is best to go outside our organization. NMD recommended that we go this direction. There is still work to be done on the scale of this effort. Statement of work has not been written and is to be done by Alan who will be COTR. Contracting mechanism already in place to do this as a work order. This will be shared with CPAC. PartWIS is not continuing into this next step. It is formally being ended. WRD DATA COMMITTEE Handout DISTRICT PROGRAM REPORTING SYSTEM (DiPRS) FOR IDENTIFYING STATION FUNDING handout provided as report to CPAC. Mission critical for a handful of Districts. There is a hope a project will be funded in Illinois next FY. Kevin will work with the Data Committee to try to answer their needs. Issues are varied from links to site files and AIS funding reporting. OTHER BUSINESS: Greg Allord requested feedback from CPAC regarding amount of detail required in minutes of the CPAC meetings. Is complete discussion description necessary or are only hightlight in bullet format required? Is there more verbage recorded than will ever be used? Greg also requested that any material being shown as overhead or handout be provided to the recorder at the start of the meeting on a floppy disk. ACTIONS ITEMS FROM MARCH 1997 MEETING ACTION ITEM -- Announce availability of information on port of software from the Prime through an all employee distributed email. --> Lumb Not done. List prepared but email not sent. Exist on a web site. People concerned about duplicated efforts. Will send out what is available by 3/21 (Verne to follow-up to get this sent out.) (This an uncompleted action item from this meeting) ACTION ITEM -- Resend a notice about the FutCom2 report as only a summary and a reference to the url -- Graig ACTION ITEM -- Arc/INFO contract -- Forward Mark Negri's report that was sent to GIS contacts -- Susan ACTION ITEM -- Prepare a literature study of total ownership -- Kevin ACTION ITEM - - OWI needs to name a replacement for Jim Whitmer on the charting workgroup. ACTION ITEM -- DIS to provide Jo Ann Macy a target request in terms of dollar amounts needed to support Graphics Workgroup. ACTION ITEM -- Form a subgroup of CPAC to analyze DIS organizational structure and funding by May meeting. --> J. Bales, B. Mrazik, S. McEwen, M. Bunch, S. Goss ACTION -- Verne will try to get this issue of lack of coordination for Web data serving and software development addressed at meeting between Water Information, Technical Support, and Discipline Offices Team, Monday, March 17, 1997. Verne will report back to CPAC via minutes of this meeting. ACTION ITEM -- Provide an explanation of progress on E-pubs series development and guidance on publishing paper and WWW products -- Allord (to provide via e- mail as he will not be at next meeting) ACTION ITEM -- HASS to develop a Web page to communicate what development efforts underway in WRD. This is to be set up by the May meeting. ACTION ITEM -- HASS to give a status report at May meeting describing the library development effort. PARKING LOT: 3 day training recommendation needs further discussion Migrating off the Data General Need to define a process for generalizing and documenting locally developed software for wider use. NEXT MEETING: 2nd quarter meeting: Next meeting is Urbana, Illinois, May 13, 1997 (Tuesday) at 9:00 am and ending May 15, 1997 (Thursday) at 4:00 pm. Conflicts have been exteranlly imposed for May dates with some other committees meeting that same week. It was decided that the CPAC meeting dates would not be changed. Jerad Bales will be the minute taker. Tom Wood will be attending as Acting DIS chief. 3rd quarter meeting: Week of August 18 will lose fewest members. Tentatively selected North Carolina for a location. Meeting will begin at 1:00 on August 19 (Tuesday) through 3:00 pm on August 21, 1997 (Thursday). Isabelle Halley will be the minute taker. Submitted: Gregory J. Allord March 17, 1997