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Gov. Ridge awards grant to Penn State to aid executives with Year 2000 computer challenge By Deborah A. Benedetti
Governor Tom Ridge	Outreach and Cooperative Extension faculty and staff members have formed a rapid-deployment team to help the Pennsylvania Governor’s Office address a critical state need.   The team has produced an Executive Survival Guide for the Year 2000. The guide will assist state government agencies and businesses, especially small and medium-sized companies, in modifying their computer programs to recognize the year 2000, according to Dr. Frederick D. Loomis, director of administration, planning and information technology for Penn State Outreach and Cooperative Extension. He is the team leader and project officer.   The “millennium bug” or “Y2K,” as this computer challenge is popularly known, is a result of how most computer programs record a year: using a two-digit format. In the year 2000, these systems will recognize “00” as the year 1900.   National associations and government agencies estimate the cost of fixing the “millennium bug” in the United States at from $150 billion to $300 billion. The cost to the federal government alone could run nearly $4 billion. Worldwide, the cost could total $600 billion. Other estimates predict only half of all companies will be compliant by the year 2000.   “Our rapid-deployment team illustrates how Penn State outreach can work to solve a real-world challenge,” Loomis said. “This project is based on the University’s strategic relationship with the Commonwealth. It takes advantage of our expertise to meet a critical government and business need identified by the Governor’s Office. The project is also consistent with President Graham Spanier’s emphasis on creating rapid-deployment teams for outreach purposes.”   The team developed a step-by-step guide to help executives understand the nature of the challenge and develop a management process to address it, he said. Team members used a variety of methods to gather and analyze information and design a way to communicate the information in an easy-to-understand, nontechnical format.   “We used an iterative process for this project, building the guide as we did the research,” Loomis said.   The Pennsylvania Governor’s Office for Information Technology has awarded Penn State a $76,000 grant to produce the “Executive Survival Guide for the Year 2000.”   “We are gratified by this award from Gov. Tom Ridge,” Dr. James H. Ryan, vice president for Outreach and Cooperative Extension at Penn State, said. “The grant signals the governor’s commitment to helping Pennsylvania government agencies and businesses address an extremely serious technology challenge.”   Project team members, in addition to Loomis, are Dr. J. Richard Zelonka, assistant professor of management development with Management Development Programs and Services; Dr. Carol Hodes, instructional designer, Outreach and Cooperative Extension; James Fong, director of marketing research, Outreach and Cooperative Extension; and Elizabeth A. Bechtel, associate director of marketing communications, Outreach and Cooperative Extension.   Penn State is working closely on this project with the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry and its members. Both organizations formed a program partnership in 1997 to tap Penn State’s research and resources for the benefit of Pennsylvania Chamber members. This project dovetails with the partnership’s goals, Loomis said.   The “Executive Survival Guide” is available in print and on the World Wide Web. The project team is working with the Governor’s Office for Information Technology to distribute the guide to executives and to develop additional ways of sharing the information, such as through training workshops.   The Governor’s Office for Information Technology grant is a result of the State/Federal CIO Summit on the Year 2000, held Oct. 28, 1997, in Pittsburgh. Penn State played a leadership role in the summit, in partnership with the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, organizing the summit and providing computer facilities, consultation, training and information technology support. The Pennsylvania Governor’s Office sponsored the national summit, which brought together more than 100 chief information officers (CIOs) and representatives from 43 states and U.S. territories and 21 federal agencies.   After taking office in January 1995, Ridge identified the year 2000 challenge as one of his first major information technology initiatives. Pennsylvania has more than 44,000 agency computer programs in need of modifications. The governor’s action plan for meeting this challenge is being coordinated through the Office for Information Technology. Larry A. Olson, deputy secretary for information technology and the state’s chief information officer, is implementing the plan.   Following the summit, Ridge extended his thanks “to all three universities, and especially Penn State, for their unselfish commitment that made the year 2000 summit an unqualified success. This event provided another example of how our world-class universities can expand their accomplishments by combining their efforts. Working together, Commonwealth universities, businesses and state government demonstrate the keystone spirit that truly makes Pennsylvania a leader among states and a competitor among nations.”