Presbyterian Church U.S.A.- 2009-present
Currently I work at the Presbyterian Church headquarters in Louisville as the Manager of OGA Web Services. My office is a few doors down from the Stated Clerk, Gradye Parsons. I love this job and am in the process of expanding my professional horizons more than I though possible. Our current projects involve setting up online training using Articulate and Moodle, redesigning the OGA section of pcusa.org targeted for Dec. 09, posting an online version of the Book of Order and doing some video production for our large events such as Big Tent and General Assembly.
What I learned:
Get a job with a non-profit group. It's good for your soul.
Northrop Grumman - 2004-2009
Northrop Grumman is a dinosaur sized corporation that operates as civilian support for the U.S. military. They are best known for super cool stuff like satellites, large ships etc. Well, I didn't work on any of that. We created online courseware for soldiers in the Army, mostly. We also dabbled in work for the Marines, Air Force and others. We created work that served a range of Armed Forces members from enlisted men to officers. I supervised a team and/or teams of up to 18 and as small as 5. I wrote technical parts for contract proposals. I made suggestion for hiring/firing; unfortunately the latter comes with the former. I coordinated, scheduled, compiled, delivered/edited employee performance reviews, danced, sang, designed, templated and generally did whatever was necessary to get the job done. My strongest function seemed to be operating as a go-between for the technical staff and retired military facets of the internal team and meeting with the clients on-site or virtually to coordinate production of the courseware in agreeable terms for all involved. Don't be fooled; I did a lot of factory work as well. My track record with clients and projects was flawless. I contributed services on projects in the millions of dollars and I left confident that I had done a quality service for Northrop Grumman and the men and women of the U.S. Armed Services.
What I learned:
Working with the military requires determination, toughness of skin and aggressive presentation of concrete results. Aesthetics are ALWAYS #2 to functionality when peoples lives are at stake. Below are some images of a small sampling of the work I either supervised creation of or created during that period of my work life.
Knight Orthodontics - 2003-2004
I traveled often with him over this year and my task was to develop a practice educational website, patient materials, lecture material handouts, lecture presentations, set up audio/video for continuing education presentations, lay sod, sweep, move HUGE dental chairs and whatever else came along. This is a period in my working career that many would call "paying dues". Dr. Knight was an excellent guy but had an unnatural work ethic so I assumed that role as well. We worked late every day. We worked on the plane. We worked in the car. We worked at lunch. Do you see where I'm going with this? I was learning and he was being provided with 24 hour support. It was a great opportunity for me and I also picked up quite a bit about Bioesthstic Orthodontics as well. I spent the first month or so reading textbook materials so that he could even carry on a conversation with me. View the web site here.
What I learned:
An all Flash website is not compliant. You must work until you are sick for a couple of years and do work for nearly free and do it well to learn anything and gain any kind of respect at all. Below are some images of Flash project sites created during that period of my work life.
Humana - 1996-2003
After working at Humana in Louisville for 7 years converting contracts from an old mainframe based system and slowly suffocating I went to work with Dr. Doug Knight. Dr. Knight is a specialized Orthodontist that spends equal amounts of time traveling and lecturing to other dental professionals and practicing orthodontists.
A new site for the Highlands Festival to benefit CASA
Friday, September 17, 2010
An old friend contacted me recently and needed some work done on the Web site for the Highlands Festival.
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Posted by Randy Hobson on 09/17 at 11:28 AM
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A year in review
Monday, March 15, 2010
I’ve been working for the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. for a year now and what do I have to show for it? Plenty. So much so that It occurred to me that I hadn’t posted any of my work. Well, very little of it. To give an idea; I’ve responded to well over a thousand requests for action on the Web pages I manage, I’ve pushed almost 200 files live in the last month alone, I’ve release about 22 bulk email news feeds for the Department of Ecumenical and Agency Relations and posted them to their homepage, I’ve responded to over 200 requests for action or advice on creating online learning content, I’ve shot hours of video in an interview setting with a 3-point lighting set-up and attended a disturbing amount of meetings about these tasks while also considering the revamp of the OGA sections of PC(USA) with the Happy Cog team. Read more to see some examples of my work if you’re really really really bored.
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Posted by Randy Hobson on 03/15 at 04:16 PM
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Presbyterian Church U.S.A. - 219th General Assembly
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
I work full-time at the Presbyterian Church USA in Louisville and created the Web site for the General Assembly meeting to take place July 3-10, 2010. 
The Office of the General Assembly department in which I’m employed serves as a business arm, of sorts, for the national church. The General Assembly is a meeting, held every 2 years, that operates much like a congressional session. Rules are proposed and voted on by representatives from churches and collective groups representing clusters of churches around the country. Presbyterians operate under the guidance of a constitution that requires votes from representatives for every adjustment regardless of size. Tens of thousands of Presbyterians gather to discuss issues faced by the church. This year the meeting is in Minneapolis.
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Posted by Randy Hobson on 11/18 at 02:37 PM
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I recently created a small registration/informational site for Dr. L. Douglas Knight in Louisville. 
He is an orthodontist that spends a lot of time working with dental professionals on a specific discipline in the field. This new project is a course for practicing dentists and orthodontists that takes place in 4 locations over 5 weeks. In the full article I have some screen shots etc. I worked with Dr. Knight for a year out of school and I owe him plenty for giving me a chance to work in the field and get my hands nice and dirty as a staff member. I created all of his presentations, printed materials, Knightortho Web site and office educational materials. By the end of a year we had created, pretty much, everything he needed from a full-time employee. I moved on to work at Fort Knox for Northrop Grumman and we have remained friends for the past 5-6 years. He needed a small informational site and I was glad to help out.
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Posted by Randy Hobson on 11/18 at 10:40 AM
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My Portfolio
Friday, May 22, 2009
I finally posted some images and descriptions of work in the Bio section of this site. I suppose my students were beginning to think I was full of it and hadn’t really done any work. Well, now they can all rest at ease.
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Posted by Randy Hobson on 05/22 at 10:49 AM
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Night of the Twitting Dead
Thursday, April 30, 2009
I created a Twitter icon for fun and want to offer it up for free here and discuss what it is I see so great about Twitter anyway. I’ve only recently started to explore Twitter and now don’t know what I would do without it. Getting immediate updates to tech and design blogs that I follow is only one of the reasons I am a new user and devotee. I thought that maybe I should share what tech news I follow through Twitter and why for the benefit of my students so that they can see what a nightmare they have placed themselves into by becoming graphic artists or web-developers or whichever relevant field they choose.
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Posted by Randy Hobson on 04/30 at 12:03 PM
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