Happy 1st Anniversary to Big W!

It's hard to believe it, but it's been a year since I started this crazy journey! I nearly missed it, as things have really begun picking up steam.

A strong network

One of the biggest sources of uncertainty coming into this was my network, or lack thereof. The bad thing about the corporate world is that most of your network is in your Outlook directory. The Nuclear Security Enterprise is a fairly closed ecosystem, and due to security concerns most folks are not very active on LinkedIn. A couple years ago I joked that if you looked at my LinkedIn, you'd likely assume I was either unemployed or dead. It kept the recruiters at bay at least.

Since then I've connected with over 350 fine professionals, one by one, and I've discovered that networks are a lot more powerful when they aren't issued to you by IT. I've partnered with Apex Quality Assurance, Kansas Manufacturing Solutions, MetaExperts, Techam, T&O Group, Spectrum Management Solutions, TriVista, AeroGrowth, and too many independent partners to name.

I am particularly thankful for my network, as this has turned out to be a difficult time to get started as a consultant. In my first year, I've watched six of my early consulting mentors leave the consulting world for regular jobs. While I miss them every bit as much as any of my old co-workers, I'm thankful for the guidance they have given me to get me to a better start than I had imagined possible.

New foundations

Admittedly, I never looked at AS9100 or ISO 9001 until I had already launched Big W. In fact, it me took a couple months to really recognize what being a quality engineering consultant actually looked like. I found the standards very easy to learn, however, as in truth I had been living these standards for 11 years in the various Quality Management Systems I supported. The only real gap that remained was learning the clause numbers. It really helped that for every clause, I have a few stories about why it's important, and what can go wrong if you miss the mark.

I completed Apex's AS9100 / ISO 9001 Lead Auditor training in December, SAE's AS9100 3rd Partly Lead Auditor training in February, and Qualtech's Aerospace Auditor Transition Training in April, marking completion of all training requirements to become a Level 1 Aerospace Auditor. In April, I also completed PECB's ISO 9001 Lead Implementer certification, presenting a third party verification of my quality experience and competence in implementing quality management systems.

A bright future

The next 12 months are looking even more promising. I have several projects booked through next spring, and several others in discussion. I'm also building some cool things to help make it easy for companies to transition to ISO 9001:2026 and IA 9100. What I'm most excited about is that these aren't just templates, they are tools based on techniques that I developed and proved-in myself that met the spirit of these new requirements before the letter of these new requirements saw the light of day.

Here's to many more years!