<p>Welcome ALL to <a href="http://www.vcalc.com"><strong>vCalc</strong></a>! Here&#39;s a little about me, my exciting experiences building and using <a href="http://www.vcalc.com"><strong>vCalc</strong></a>, and my background that led me here. I joined <strong><a href="http://www.vcalc.com">vCalc</a></strong> shortly after its inception at the invite of long-time friend and professional colleague, <a href="https://www.vcalc.com/user/?handle=KurtHeckman">Kurt Heckman</a> the President of <strong><a href="http://www.vcalc.com">vCalc</a></strong>. I came from a background supporting the National Intelligence Community (IC) for over 28 years.</p>

<p>I met Kurt on my first project right out of college and we have been friends ever since. I support vCalc in a number of roles defined further below but I might be best characterized as the content guru at vCalc. I invite you to explore the breadth of vCalc.</p>

<p>toc_index start=&quot;1&quot; depth=&quot;3&quot; numbered=&quot;true&quot; scope=&quot;page&quot;/ = My Role in vCalc = I have played a number of roles in the launch of vCalc and if you&#39;ve found vCalc you can see there is an amazing array of topical mathematics across dozens of useful domains. vCalc equations and calculators span Industry, Academic, Scientific, Hobby, and Industry and Personal applications. I have been fortunate to play a number of roles supporting the evolution of vCalc: system engineer, content manager, tester, liaison to universities, and corporate methodologist. == Systems Engineering == In my Systems Engineering role in vCalc I participated in a team effort to both architect a process for managing vCalc content and evolving a process that ensures the regular updates to the site and app are as invisible to the user as possible. vCalc is always evolving and so the systems engineering role is always driving behind the scene. vCalc has evolved in some areas to be very easy to use and that is no small feat because there is a lot of complexity in trying to satisfy the mathematical requirements of so many different topical domains. The vCalc you see today is still evolving and new features are added almost every week. Managing change, providing guidance and feedback to vCalc authors, and working to evolve a seminal toolset is a full-time effort that demands attention in every sub-discipline of systems engineering. == Content Management == In my Content Management lead role on vCalc, I have reviewed and/or verified most of the equations that bear the &quot;vCalc Reviewed&quot; badge.  |=
|=This badge means that someone knowledgeable of the vCalc authoring requirements has performed a preliminary review of the the token (Calculator, Constant, Data Set or Equation) and the token performs as described in its wiki description. If a token passes this initial review, it is Approved and the badge is assigned to the token&#39;s wiki page. == Content Development == I personally developed a considerable number of the tokens that makes vCalc the best place on the web to find useful and useable equations and calculators. At the time I create this profile I have authored 1,293 Equations, 55 Calculators, 388 Constants, and 57 Data Sets. These tokens I have authored span many domains within vCalc. As examples of the breadth of content that vCalc provides: * Under Hobbies I have authored: quilting equations, NASCAR equation, model rocketry equations, darting equations, gardening equations, poker calculators, and much more * Under Sciences I have authored: physics equations, thermodynamics calculators, data sets of physical properties of materials, astrodynamics equations ... * Under Mathematics I have authored: statistical equations, equations and calculators of geometry, many conversion calculators, definite integrals in calculus ... * Under Industry I have authored: Financial calculators providing equations in mortgage and loans, bricklaying equations, electrical calculators, plumbing equations ... Please do make the attempt to exceed my approved count on vCalc! Establish yourself as the most published author in your area of expertise! = Curriculum Vitae (Professional Experience) = I have designed, built and led the development of some of the world&#39;s most complex software systems, as well as authored systems engineering methodologies used today in the Air Force Research Laboratories. In all my systems engineering activities I have focused on the integration of systems engineering with project management, where risk reduction and opportunity selection can be based on metrics. In college I spent two long summers in Poughkeepsie, NY as an intern engineer in a memory failure analysis lab at the time when micro-circuitry was first passing beyond the ability to physical probe and test integrated circuit technology. I worked with plasma etchers for the first time they were applied to failure analysis techniques. I got to work with an electron microscope to examine the picometer scale electronics of a IC chip in that era. It was an amazing experience to be part of that technology revolution of micro-memory components. A significant part of my career was involved in modeling and simulation and the application of systems engineering and project management to complex systems development in the aerospace industry. A good deal of that work was in satellite systems design and satellite architecture analysis. One of my notable achievements was leading the design and development of one of the more complex scheduling systems ever built for a remote sensing platform. That particular tasking and scheduling systems had to consider collection geometry, sensor collection characteristics, collection modes, political rules for collection boundaries, satellite system constrained resources, business rules, and much more in scheduling as many as 80,000 targets per planning period. That is a massive, NP-complete combinatorics problem. My modeling and simulation experience was also employed in the design, development and use of scenario-based studies and analysis tools to look at the complex interaction of potential risks and opportunities that occur in large scale war game-like scenarios. This is a stochastic combinatorial problem the analysis of which constitutes a statistically-based assessment of the potential implications of many random scenarios on the performance of individual system components. My key skill areas are in project management and life-cycle systems engineering. I obtained Project Management Professional Certification (PMP) and have authored over the years numerous original discussions on the methodology of project management and systems engineering. These methodologies are used in the budgeting and portfolio management at the Air Force Research Laboratories, having been rapped into the next generation policy, program, and project planning for all the ten Air Force Research Laboratories. On numerous occasions I have been involved in specific research and evaluation of systems, processes and policies applied in the decision analysis of major government institutions looking at future alternatives in topical subjects such as Space Situational Awareness, rapid space systems deployments options, and use of near-space assets. I&#39;ve been involved in both the project management and systems engineering of advanced radar systems, service oriented systems architectures enabling large volumes of intelligence data to be efficiently and effectively made available to the broad set of community users, and a system to convert extremely large format data into bite-size video streams accessible on the average PC&#39;s inherent standard video application. = Education = I have a pair of Bachelors of Science degrees in Mathematics and Physics from THE Ohio State University. OH-IO ! On the job and project focused training in numerous sub-domains of systems engineering and project management, to include participation in numerous standards development bodies. Various excursions into the depths of engineering and science disciplines to accurately represent the physics behind phenomena associated with communication systems, satellite systems, launch systems, radar systems, weather, organizational behaviors ... = What I Do for Fun = I live in the Colorado Front Range and that should lead you to think about outdoors, blue skies, hiking, biking, rock climbing, mountain climbing, snowboarding, kayaking. I also am a voracious reader. I gorge on mostly fiction, although you can find stacks of books at my bedside and a backlog of audiobooks that combined span almost every genre. Building equations and calculators in vCalc is so easy that that has become one of my favorite pastimes. I enjoy trying to make something useful that is explained well enough that anyone can use it. OK, that makes me a math geek but it also makes math and science accessible to virtually everyone. I challenge you to find a subject for which there is no possible vCalc equation to be created. Pick random topics and then consider if there exists an equation conveying information to a user on that topic. It really is amazing when you think about how difficult it is to list something that can&#39;t have a vCalc equation. Send me the topic if you think of one. I try to connect some of our vCalc efforts to K-12 schools. Helping kids understand the very basic programming it takes to make amazing contributions to math an science is an adventure. We also work with colleges to enable universities to use vCalc in the classroom. I hope to continue that side of the effort and so, if you&#39;ve read this far and represent some educational institution, please do feel free to contact me with suggestions about how we might support your school or university&#39;s efforts to expand STEM knowledge. You can contact me at Michael.Bartmess@vCalc.com .</p>