Well said Jim. And I know it is appreciated. Bob thought a lot of you. As you know, I first crossed paths with Bob and you back in 2008. We hit it off immediately and I joined you at OPM. I've lost a good friend and mentor.
-----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Jim Marshall Sent: Friday, February 10, 2023 9:55 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: Goodbye and thanks for all the fish Bob Richards will be missed by all up here in the greater DC area. When I was the Data Center Technical Lead at the US Office of Personnel Management, 2001-2013, after retiring from the Air Force. I'd read Bob's posts and knew he was well qualified. He and Rebecca were in Atlanta where Bob was working for Suntrust Bank. He was let go and immediately I asked if he would be interested to come to this area and work for my Systems Services contractor. He said yes and he was hired, onsite and got to work in no time. This was in the late 2000s. He worked with the team maintaining our z9BC Parallel Sysplex providing a 24/7 system for the US Federal Retirement & Healthcare Systems and also then OPM did 95% of all the Federal Background Investigations. It was an operation covering the entire world. Bob and the team made my Disaster Recovery Plan come true when they would fully recover our Sysplex at IBM Sterling Forest NY, in 24 hours with only up to 5 seconds of Data loss and be able to run a 72 hour test of our worldwide operation without impacting the 24/7 production systems in DC. Bob did z/OS and really made me look good when the Data Center achieved 5 years of Continuous Operations, including all the Database systems with only unavailability of our system including all applications for 4 hours per week. In 5 years we only had 28 hours of systems unavailability of which 18 hours was due to UPS batteries which were 13 years old; non-IT management would not spring for the money for new batteries until.... I retired in 2013 and tried to get Bob to apply his 8 years of Air Force service into a Federal Job but he enjoyed what he did and if hired he'd fill my old job which was strictly hands-off despite being an ACE Systems Programmer. Bob knew the end was coming but worked up until a week before it was time. My heart goes out to Rebecca and know she will miss Bob terribly. He was one class act, a knowledgeable professional and fun to be around. He and the team sure did make me look good in the eyes of the CIO, non-IT Management and our retirees of which approximately 500K Federal Retirees are located overseas. Thanks Bob and to Rebecca for supporting him on all those Sunday Mornings from 0500-0900 to do upgrades and changes getting all system up by 0900; speak about pressure Jim Marshall, USAF(Ret) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
