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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
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Mobile Technology Aids Visitors at Vietnam Veterans Memorial
This comes from Larry Day who works at Fujitsu. This article was on their intranet and he decided to share it with us. This is one of those uses of technology that really matters. It helps people out without really making its presence known, which is the sign of a well designed an implemented tool.
Bringing clarity to the community: Fujitsu iPAD helps visitors at Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Posted: October 15, 2002
"We were so close to being one of the actual victims. It makes you feel humble." -Robert Lee Bedker, U.S. Vietnam War veteran mistakenly listed as killed in action. For many people, the Vietnam War of the 1960s and early 70s was a confusing time. Just as there was confusion during the war, sadly enough there have often been times of confusion at its memorial.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, also known as "The Wall", is one of America's most-visited monuments, located in Constitution Gardens in Washington, D.C. It was designed to bring honor and recognition to the men and women who served and sacrificed during the Vietnam War. Many Fujitsu employees have been at one time or another intimately involved with the armed forces, whether through personal service, family, or friends.
Ron Worstell, an FTXS service delivery planning manager, served as a light weapons infantryman and radio telephone operator from September 1968 until May 1969 with the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division, Vietnam. He has been a Fujitsu employee for almost 26 years, and he has been a Vietnam Veterans Memorial volunteer for 3 years.
About three years ago, Ron approached Fujitsu's management team with the idea of using TeamPad handheld computers to help volunteers find names on the memorial wall, and the company donated two.
The introduction early this year of the smaller and lighter iPAD promised a much more effective tool for this purpose. Immediately recognizing the potential value to Memorial volunteers, Ron approached Austen Mulinder with the idea of Fujitsu donating several iPADs to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, and Austen invited Ron to pitch his idea to the operating board. A fellow Vietnam vet, Senior Vice President of Marketing Tom Juliano loved the idea and started working with Ron to donate 20 iPADs as a gift to the VVMF in recognition of the 20th anniversary of the memorial being observed this year.
Steve Becker, senior vice president and chief human capital officer, represented Fujitsu's management team at a Washington, D.C. luncheon honoring volunteers on Saturday, Sept. 7. Steve said, "Jan Scruggs, founder of the VVMF, incorporated the Fujitsu handheld donation in his remarks, and as he did so, asked Ron to hold up the unit. The response to the availability of a lightweight solution and to the Fujitsu donation was a round of strong applause. The volunteers were very thankful."
Steve continued, "The National Park Service has been getting complaints about the difficulty people have finding the right name on the wall. The NPS sees our contribution as offering tremendous help to volunteers and visitors alike."
Now, thanks to the generous donation by Fujitsu, in order to access information on a particular person, the volunteer simply enters the last name on the iPAD to search the electronic directory. The directory will typically pull up between one and 80 names, including the hometown and state for each record, in just a few seconds. That list can then be narrowed to the individual the visitor is looking for. When the desired record has been located, a click on the name pulls up the rank, branch of service, date of birth, the incident of the individual's casualty, the date of their casualty, the panel number and line within that panel where the name can be found. Each name has a unique spot on the wall, which corresponds to the unique spot in time when the individual perished.
Austen and the Operating Board have been very supportive in making this happen in order to help serve those in the community who selflessly chose to serve their country. Ron states that, "community service is a company value that the company really stands behind."
An effort is now underway to publicize the use of iPAD technology at the memorial as Veterans Day approaches on Nov. 11.
For more information on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund online at www.vvmf.org, or visit The Virtual Wall at www.thevirtualwall.org.
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