Context:I wrote the original version of this right after coming back from Hurricane Florence, working inside a very mixed group of agencies, contractors, and mission partners. On the org chart, everyone lived in neat vertical silos.In the room, we were a temporary coalition that had to act like a single team under time pressure. That…
Before AI, before everyone had a 4K camera in their pocket, video inside government felt risky and mysterious. Executives worried about looking foolish.Scientists worried about oversimplifying their work.Comms teams worried about policy, branding, and accessibility. And everybody avoided the camera. That was the environment at the U.S. Forest Service in 2017 when I decided to…
“Proudly Maintained By Mike E.” On a site visit of Hoover Dam, I noticed a small plaque on one of the alternators that said “Proudly Maintained By Mike E.” It has been living in my head as a systems principle ever since. The plaque that explained the whole systemthe Hoover Dam is an easy place…
In late 2005, in places like Bay St. Louis on the Mississippi coast, I learned the hard way that trust and sovereignty mattered more than any federal logo on a badge. The backdrop: a coast that had already paid Hurricane Katrina did not hit every community the same way. New Orleans dominated the headlines, and…
A field note on responsibility outrunning authority when the system breaks and the mission does not. In April 2010, the Iceland ash cloud grounded flights across Europe. It also turned a routine civil-military engagement into a test of whether I could actually deliver when the system fell apart. The backdrop: former Warsaw Pact, new realities…
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Anthony Veltri · Senior Public-Systems Practitioner & Enterprise Architect · Interoperability, governance, and continuity for cross-boundary ecosystems. · Introductions