Background

My career in data modeling has spanned disciplines from aerospace (McDonnell-Douglas Aircraft), finance (A.G. Edwards brokerage), genomics and agriculture (Monsanto Corporation). Most of my time was with relational databases (Oracle), but I have also been involved with data warehouse design and No-SQL databases (Hadoop and Couch). I have very much enjoyed branching off into Ontology and related subjects.

The biggest influence on my thinking was a project to study efficacy across an entire research pipeline from discovery of new genetic material, through genomics and cloning, to field trials and production. This involved cleaning up data from disparate legacy systems into a standard format that supported a range of analytics and discovery. This was done in a productive collaboration with a group which was using Business Process Modeling for developing new systems.

The result was a standard template that captured:

• Who
• What
• When
• Where
• How