My Greek Olympics: Meeting Semos and contract

Kolonaki Square named for a column fond on the sight.

The office is nice and it was an apartment at one time, there are two young people as staff who get us coffee and drinks as we sit. Semos arrives with Jay, this is my first meeting with Semos and I wasn't quit sure who he was and how he fit into the mix. He was nice and friendly as he usually is. I soon find out that the whole contract has been changed and nothing has happened because the government committee was pushing for more information. It was a mess, but I though Jay, David and Vic had it under control. We went out to a cafe a half block up the street. We sat and I listened to the talk and the bitching of Jay and David. I still wasn't quite in the loop yet and I didn't want to say much. Semos seemed happy but complained about the government committee.

We went to dinner that night at Tops or Tops of Kolonaki, which was just down the street from Semos and Trep's office. An old world type place and the seating area was under a large canopy with lots of little lights. The one odd thing was the floor was on a slope. This meant that half the seats faced uphill and it was a bit uncomfortable to sit that way. Lots of older men and young ladies sat around the other tables, this was not looked down upon. The restaurant is in the fashion district of Athens and also is a haven for TV and Movie star types.

The food was OK and the service was a bit slow, there was a nice waitress, Albanian, and the rest were older Greek men. The interesting thing was that Kolonaki being a fashion and shopping district, in one of the windows of the restaurant they played a constant stream of fashion shows on a large TV. The girls walked or strutted the runway and they were half dressed at best, no seemed to care or watch.

We were to have a meeting with Siemens the next day, but today there wasn't much to do. I was only going to be in Athens for a couple of months, then go back for a short time before returning for good, so this was an introduction meeting of all the players and get familiar with the "new" project. I still thought that it would be like Salt Lake, but I wasn't sure because of all the changes. It seemed like I was going to have to build a lot of the system. I though we were going to be doing a similar thing as before in Salt Lake, but with all the changes to the contract and the system being so much larger and complex, the work would be dramatically different.

The contract was divided into 30 sub-systems. SAIC would do about half of them and the subcontractors the rest. Out of the main command systems, there were about 12 subsystems. Subsystem 1 was the main command and control piece and the subsystems 2 through 7 were complementary. I was directly responsible for subsystems 3, 4, 6, and 7 which worked with chunks of subsystems 1, 5, 14, 15 and 17. I would work with the Police, Fire Brigade, Coast Guard and some of the intelligence groups along with civil protection (like FEMA). I would be doing the Bomb Management, Dignitary Athlete Protection, Fire, and Coast Guard components, which were added to the main command and control decision support system (CCDSS).

David was responsible for subsystem 1, 2, and 5. All of these were mostly software systems, but they had relations to the hardware also. That's why I had to deal with so many subsystems since the software would be working with certain hardware components. As it turned out, I would get dragged into several more subsystems before it was all through. When we wrote the contract in DC, we had planned to use specific software and by the RFP, we had to bid certain systems. SAIC wanted to use other systems that they had and they were inserted into the bid. When the contract arrived, Jay, David, Vic and some of the contractors had to re-write most of the proposal to get rid of these additions. It all had to be done that night and then new copies printed and delivered.

Since I was not there during this time, I didn't know the full scope of the changes. I did know that some things changed and new stuff added, but I didn't know exactly what the specifics were. So being there and getting to see the contract and to hear all of these things really made me wonder about this project. The government was continually pushing for more information and the company pushing for changes.