User:Topspin extreme/sandbox

"Man of the Millennium", a Renaissance Man

Lou Marcoccio, the Year 2000 Gartner advisor and watchdog who was on the front page of news and news programs around the world, was a Year 2000 analyst who was able to accurately report on the marginal impact of the millennium rollover before it occurred. He also helped millions of companies, institutions, and governments get through their Year 2000 software fixes without any significant catastrophes.

A large portion of the world's software uses time clocks and time designations within the software code. Many had dates programmed into the code to effect triggers and changes to occur, e.g., finance charges, quarterly changes, billing, timing of something being turned on/off, etc., etc. When the software was programmed in the 1960s through 1990's, they used pre-2000 dates in the programs. Without being fixed or modified, the software would have crashed, turned things on or off at the wrong time, stopped the device or vehicle from operating, or put out incorrect information, e.g., bills, interest rates, medication disbursing, transportation schedules, farming, etc., etc.

During the time before 2000, Mr. Marcoccio spent his time creating tools, methods, and aids that people throughout the world could use to fix their software code quickly and with very low defects. From 1997 to 1999, he monitored large samples of companies, institutions, and governments, to determine how much of their code was used for at-risk tasks and how much of that code was not yet fixed. He used this data to assess possible effects when the new Millennium was to roll over. Prior to 2000, he taught thousands of companies and governments how and why these fixes were needed. He advised millions of people/companies/governments throughout the world through news media and written advice. He was on the cover of most of the world's newspapers, magazines, and all over TV news. Bankruptcy judges wanted to know if they would have large numbers of cases to deal with. Governments wanted to know if public water, utilities, and food would be impacted. Transportation executives wanted to know if their scheduling systems would crash. Hospitals wanted to know if life support systems were at risk. Nearly all owners of every kind of automated devices wanted to know just how serious this could be and how to fix it. Mr. Marcoccio was quoted in thousands of articles/books, had documentaries filmed about him, and his words were dubbed into a famous rock song. The Chicago Sun Times called him, "The Millennium Man" and Canadian News called him "The Year 2000 Guru".

Besides Year 2000, Mr. Marcoccio was well known for many other significant achievements. From 1995 to 2001 he was one of the first analysts to predict major shifts in the use of the Internet for many areas of business, e.g., ATMs, retail purchases, travel tickets, knowledge base, search engines, etc., etc. He is also known throughout the world as one of the world's top Information Technology management and corporate technology advisors. His research and advice is used today by corporate executives in the world's most successful companies, universities, and government agencies.

The Lou Marcoccio not known to many is Lou Marcoccio the Renaissance Man. He is a well respected provocative thought leader, technologist, family man, artist, musician, writer, and selfless provider to those in need. He mastered over 30 different occupations throughout his career. In nearly every occupation he was rated exceptional by his employers and customers.

Jobs and occupations mastered:

Carpenter Architectural designer Landscape designer/landscape construction manager Auto mechanic and tow truck operator University security officer Loading dock worker Director of sports advertising Photographer Artist Retail business owner - leather, candles and jewelry Toolmaker and Machinist Machine programmer Musician Telesales representative and director of telesales Teacher - k-12, college, adults, and special needs Illustrator Writer Engineer - aerospace and undersea weapons Computer engineer Industrial designer - precision tools & automotive Engineering Group Manager - computer products Director of Engineering - workforce management systems College teacher/instructor Elementary, middle school, and high school teacher Adult education teacher Manufacturing engineer Director of Manufacturing Engineering Worldwide marketing group manager - software & computers Software architect Software development director Director business strategy Marketing executive Technology vendor negotiator Enterprise architect EVP head of global company CTO Research analyst and director of research VP Strategic technologies Corporate executive - EVP Big-4 consulting partner IT executive CIO/CIO advisor Research analyst Mr. Marcoccio grew up in Cranston, RI. As a teenager he played musical instruments in jazz/rock/dance/blues bands and orchestras, but favored percussion and drums. At 15, he joined two singers from Providence and made professional recordings played on regional radio stations. They performed on local and National TV and played in venues from RI to NY. He worked as a part time substitute musician with the R.I. Philharmonic Orchestra, and took percussion and drum lessons for many years with the famous jazz percussionist, "Yank" Raggusta. During his 50s and 60s, he furthered percussion training and took guitar lessons from guitar master, Israel Saldanis. From very young child to adult, Mr. Marcoccio worked with his Father in the construction of houses and commercial buildings. By age14, he managed construction vendors and created engineering and architectural building designs. After high school, Mr. Marcoccio entered a jewelry toolmaking apprenticeship at Textron, where he hand carved, heat treated, and machined hardened metal automated tools used to stamp and manufacture fine jewelry. He was selected from over 2000 art school graduate applicants. The apprenticeship included college classes in metallurgy, engineering, machine nomenclature, machining technologies, computer programming, and free-hand sculpturing of automated metal stamping tools used for jewelry. He also managed the manufacturing of jewelry components, where he introduced new manufacturing and computer methods which allowed jewelry parts to be manufactured in 1/4 the time and with fewer defects. After toolmaking, Mr. Marcoccio attended Rhode Island College and earned a BS degree in teaching - K-12 and special needs. He graduated with a 3.68 GPA while being married with two small children, and working 3 jobs. He completed a 4 year teaching curriculum in 3 1/2 years. Mr. Marcoccio's Sociology Professor told Mr. Marcoccio, "You have accomplished a great feat and you are one of the brightest students in this institution." His Advisor (Doctor O'Shea) commented to Mr. Marcoccio in his school yearbook, "You have a great gift of high intelligence, ability to learn diverse things quickly, and you come armed with unique knowledge of business, technology, and the academic world. You have shown to be uniquely gifted at motivating children of all ages, including disadvantaged special needs children." His teaching career began at Davies High School, where he won an award for Best New Teacher. From there he became the Industrial and Visual Arts teacher at Mendon-Upton High School, where he made changes to the curriculum to meet the fast-changing needs of students. Students who were labelled "difficult" or "special needs" were drawn to his classes. They left other classes to attend his and would not want to leave at the end of the day. Before leaving this teaching position, his students held a rally at a School Committee meeting trying to get him to stay. They presented him with gifts and personal awards. During this period, he also taught engineering courses at the Roger Williams College's (RWC) evening program in North Kingstown and Lasalle Academy under Dr. R. Calagiovani. Mr. Marcoccio received the highest grades on evaluations by students and the school and contributed many hours working with students with learning disabilities.

In 1976, Mr. Marcoccio worked for General Dynamics (GD) Electric Boat Division, where he taught courses to low income disadvantaged workers and many who were "at risk" and with special needs. These courses taught students how to machine and build submarine parts and components, as part of a Federal Title 10 Program. He successfully turned hundreds of these machinist candidate students into highly skilled precision machinists who got high paying jobs at GD after completing the course. At the end of each 12 week course, the students presented Mr. Marcoccio with gifts and awards.

Mr. Marcoccio continued teaching evenings at RWC. It was there, that he met someone who recruited him into a position at Ocean Technology Inc. (OTI) - an engineering company supporting the Naval Underwater Systems Center (NUSC). He joined as a Technical Illustrator, Artist and Engineer and was quickly promoted to Director of Engineering and Art Publications. He also managed Human Resources and other shared services within the company. His engineering work included the Mk 48 torpedo, Tomahawk missile, Harpoon missile, and various weapons launching systems. He designed weapon launching systems for nuclear submarines and warfare surface ships. He made significant contributions to the advancement and success of these devices. He also supported specific needs of top US Pentagon officials. Upon leaving OTI he was presented with awards for his achievements. At his going-away gathering his CEO told the crowd, "Lou has the ability to pull people together, motivate them, and achieve greatness against all odds. His subordinates would follow him anywhere." A top executive at the Naval Underwater Systems Center said, "Lou follows through and delivers huge complex projects successfully, even against difficult odds. His ability to pull teams together and have them overcome major obstacles is amazing."

After OTI, Mr. Marcoccio was successful in other engineering positions - Director of Engineering at a computer and medical instrumentation company; Director of Mechanical Engineering at a computer and workforce management solutions company; and Director of Mechanical Engineering at a large computer and process control company. During these positions, he designed and co-designed many computer products. He won design awards for a new printing technology, micro-sized card cage design, an extremely simplified and more efficient workforce time recording device, and industrialized PCs. He worked on new copying devices, EKG and heart monitors, electronic printers, personal computers, computer storage and memory devices, and industrial process controllers. In several of these, he managed manufacturing and manufacturing engineering functions. His areas of specialty were computerization, business optimization, CAD/CAM/CAE, computer integration, miniaturization of products, and lowering assembly and manufacturing cost of products. Since IT departments didn't really exist yet as we know them today, he took on the role of CIO and was responsible for procuring and implementing business, manufacturing, compliance, and engineering software solutions. He won awards for innovation, miniaturization of new product designs never achieved, creating innovative software solutions to streamline business functions, and achieving the highest degree of customer satisfaction. He also won two awards for CAD/CAM innovation, significantly reducing engineering development cycle time and accuracy of design. He was also given a commendation for managing the successful implementation of a global MRP software and process change implementation at a worldwide manufacturing company.

While a Director of Mechanical Engineering at two different computer products manufacturers, Mr. Marcoccio was one of the first people in the world to create and co-develop an engineering and manufacturing process/methodology known as "Concurrent Engineering". Mr. Marcoccio wrote whitepapers and published articles on this topic and gave presentations at professional conferences. The process allowed manufacturing engineering, planning, time studies, and tooling to be done concurrently while a product was being designed and documented, prototyped, and tested in engineering. This method was responsible for tearing down walls and sequential processes between engineering-business-manufacturing. It allowed these companies to get products from concept to customer in less than half the time. This saved manufacturing companies billions of dollars and gave them tremendous competitive advantage globally. During his engineering and management positions, Mr. Marcoccio traveled to many parts of the world to create business partnerships and obtain new and innovative product components. During this period, he lived temporally in several countries.

While a Director of Engineering and CAD/CAM at a workforce management computer solutions company, Mr. Marcoccio had a frightening experience on a business trip to Hanover, Germany. While in Germany for a technology conference, he traveled across Eastern Europe to experience the people and cultures behind The Russian Block wall. It was still up and very well guarded in 1984. He travelled by car through East Germany and Berlin, Poland, and on to Russia. During his trip through the heavily guarded check points, he was harassed, pushed, and hit by Russian soldiers. The soldiers stole money from him and threatened him with automatic rifles. They were physically abusive and rude once they knew he was an American. Driving East on a main road in Russia, he was stopped by Russian soldiers and arrested. The soldiers hit him with rifle buts and handcuffed him. They threw him into their car and drove him to a cold run-down police station. The building was dark and dirty. They threw him into a cell in the basement where there was no glass on the barred windows and the temperature outside was -10C. That night they came into his cell and hit him with rifle buts. They ordered him to remove his clothes and left him in the freezing cold for 3 days with no food. He had an old dirty sheet thrown on the wet floor where people urinated. After 3 1/2 days, they threatened to shoot him. A superior officer told him that he can leave. He told him, "Stupid American. You drove on curfew road". When Mr. Marcoccio asked if he could make a phone call, the superior said, "Stupid American, you watch too many movies…you get no phone call!" They threw his clothes on the wet floor and stole his money and many items in his billfold. They gave him his rental car, but it had been stripped and the seats were cut up and barely fastened back where they belong. When Mr. Marcoccio complained, he was told, "Dumb American. We usually keep rental car!  You take it and go now!" It took him quite a while to get back to Germany, while begging for food and gas. The people of Poland and surrounding countries were helpful and many took him into their own homes and provided food. The wall around the Russian Block countries was huge. It had lines of tanks, missile firing vehicles, and many Russian soldiers. The automatic weapons were aimed most of the time and they were poised and serious. It was a sight every American should had been required to see. When the wall was torn down, Mr. Marcoccio got a piece of it. He keeps it with his most important possessions, but tries to forget the visit to Russia during that troubled time.

In 1987, Mr. Marcoccio moved from engineering to an executive group management position in marketing at a large global computer company. He was in charge of globally marketing software applications, integration software solutions, and various computer products. He managed marketing efforts in 37 countries and drove the marketing of products sold in more than 80 countries. He helped build a software reseller function, where he negotiated reseller contracts and maintained relationships with the world's largest and most successful software companies. Mr. Marcoccio also managed analyst relations and became one of the company's most knowledgeable technology analysts. He advised company executives and executives of customer companies in regard to automation of business processes, Information Technology methods, software development methods, and Internet business models and technologies. Using past experiences, he drove solutions that customers could use to get products to market faster and with higher quality. He participated in the purchase of software companies and maintaining close relationships with the world's technology companies. He held positions of Chief Corp Architect, CIO Advisor, and Director of Strategic Technologies. It was here that he created partnerships with the world's leading technology companies of that period - Microsoft, Netscape, Sun Microsystems, Norton, SAP, Apple, Lawson, Oracle, and many others. He drove requirements into these companies and managed the use of their products. He created new Internet business models and helped implement online solutions at some of the world's most popular and successful online retailers. In 1996, Mr. Marcoccio was asked to check and see if the year 2000 computer problems was real or not. He had no idea what it was at that time. Before he knew it, he became the world leader and guru of the year 2000 computer software problem. He headed up a 1500 person worldwide year 2000 program office which had to deal with the most complex year 2000 issues in the computing industry. He defined methods for dealing with the issue and created conversion software by buying companies and technologies and partnering with software companies throughout the world. His methods were used by most of the world's companies and it allowed them to correctly fix the programming bug in millions of lines of software code quickly and without defects. Mr. Marcoccio was now in very high demand worldwide. Most of the world's corporations and technology vendors needed this knowledge, methods, and tools. He gave keynote presentations, wrote articles/whitepapers, and advised government leaders and company executives throughout the world on how to fix the software defect in 80% of the world's software and hardware products. He was also in demand by the world's Press for quotes, articles, and appearances.

Due to his expertise and popularity, Gartner Group recruited and hired Mr. Marcoccio as one of the world's most knowledgeable year 2000 experts. At Gartner, Gartner's worldwide clients and the world Press sought Mr. Marcoccio's knowledge. He was in high demand by companies and governments everywhere. Since this problem had the ability to ruin world economies, shut down the world's largest companies and governments, and cause disaster for many companies and governments of the world, Mr. Marcoccio decided to use the world's first year 2000 computer-related audit and status comparison methodology. He partnered with large research universities and together they surveyed and monitored the status of the world's companies, technology vendors, and governments related to their status of fixing the year 200 software problem. These countries and governments needed to fix these problems before the millennium rollover and the fixes were costing them a great deal of money. Stock prices, valuations, manufacturing relocations, business expansions, buying new computer solutions, power, fuel, healthcare, banking, and many other daily functions were all at risk related to these issues. If they did not fix these software problems in time, the result could have been devastating. Mr. Marcoccio was used as an advisor to the U.S. Congress in Washington DC, where he testified multiple times. The CIA, NSA, most US government agencies, presidents and country prime ministers, and many other governments and corporations throughout the world used his expertise. Due to the unique audit survey, he had the only global status of fixing these problems in all software and technology products, by country, industry, and company size, in the world. In 1999, he reported that the world could relax and that most companies and governments had fixed the problem and staved off disaster. He was called, "The Millennium Man". He appeared on the Today Show, CNN, NBC, ABC, Moneyline, Jim Layher Show, and many more. He was quoted tens of thousands of times in world publications, books, and newspapers. He was the technology advisor to many branches of the US and other governments. He became trusted advisor to companies throughout the world and personal advisor to thousands of CIOs (Chief Information Officer). He helped keep the world from experiencing devastating cost and disasters.

While at Gartner, Mr. Marcoccio co-developed predictions and models showing the impending business model shifts about to occur related to the use of the Internet. It would impact businesses in air travel, publishing, government services/transactions, shipping, retail, financial services, and many more. His vision of Internet use to perform basic personal and business functions was going to happen sooner than people realized. In 1999, he warned the local travel businesses that they needed to change their business models and that airlines would soon be selling all tickets online and without the use of small agencies. He warned other businesses of revolutions about to overtake us and how they could transform and survive.

After Gartner, Mr. Marcoccio focused on providing consulting help to countries and governments via major consulting projects and temporary roles. In this capacity, he helped the world's largest companies modernize their business models and the information technology systems. He helped one of the largest energy companies in the UK figure out how to operate more efficiently, provide better products and services, provide better value to their customers, reduce time to market related to technology and IT, and increase quality. As a Partner for Deloitte Consulting, he helped a large retail company transform into a much larger global retail giant.

Mr. Marcoccio also had a somewhat unique childhood. He is of 100% Italian ancestry. His Mother and Father were devoted Catholics and gave most of themselves to their children. His Mother raised 5 children and held several jobs to help pay the bills. All the children did chores and supported each other every day. His Father held 3 jobs at a time and worked many hours per week to buy clothes, education, a house, and food for his family. Mr. Marcoccio's grandparents came from Italy to the U.S. in the early 1900s. He practices the morals and teachings of his religion. He is highly intelligent, a fast learner, and is highly accomplished in many occupations. He's a hard worker who drives excellence in those around him and is always known as a great mentor and example of excellence. He works in and mastered many professions over 50 years and was excited about every new challenge. In senior executive positions, Mr. Marcoccio garnered performance reviews touting his strong work ethic, ability to take on many different and varied roles, moral character, and the ability to team with and rally people to achieve great feats. His employers and clients always rate him exceptional.

Mr. Marcoccio always participates in giving. He gave much of his money to aid "at risk" children and provide them the best possible education. Mr. Marcoccio was brought up with a great love of people, friends, and family. He is a passionate romantic who is very social and enjoys all people of the world. He loves talking with and sharing experiences, culture, and customs. His friends at his favorite restaurant know him to be social and makes friends easily. Mr. Marcoccio has traveled to more than 50 countries of the world and has a deep appreciation for all societies and cultures. Mr. Marcoccio donates time and expertise to many of the leading non-profit organizations who help disadvantaged and "at risk" youths. He donates his time to help woman's small businesses get off the ground. He participates in rebuilding a Salvation Army youth camp, where low income and "at risk" children attend. He has helped young children as a volunteer coach in soccer, little league, Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, and the Boys and Girls Club of America. He walks and raises money in the Boston Marathon 26.2 Mile Cancer Walk, contributes time to the Metro West Lion's Club events, donates time and money to a children's Crew team, donates to the Salvation Army and our troops in the MIddle East.