Dick Watt - UBSC

[ This article was a "featured" article in the January, 1994 issue ]
[ of The Mountain News -- a montlhy newsletter published by the ]
[ "new organization" -- and is presented here in its entirety. ]
 

What has a computer that runs at a speed of 114 MILLION instructions a second, 150 employees and 1.2 terabytes of information? Who cares, you ask?

We all do because that "what" is Norwest Technical Services Colorado (NTSC), a major operating unit of Norwest Technical Services (NTS) in Minneapolis. It is the NTSC staff and its computer system that support not only the work we do for our customers but also our own business operations.

On an average day, NTSC handles more than 870,000 customer transactions, including banking transactions through Colorado's Integrated Banking System, as well as teller and ATM transactions, EZMail, AXCIS, laser printers, etc. In addition, NTSC systems support the processing of an average of 1.6 million checks a day.

Do we need NTSC? You bet! Without it, its 150 employees and outstanding technology, we'd be doing business the old-fashioned way -- one transaction at a time. It is the 'heart' of our business.

Provides a Stable Operations Environment
"Our highest priority," says Tom Mauro, a 20-year veteran and vice president, "is to be the production system supporting practically every Norwest Colorado employee in one way or another."

That priority includes providing a stable operations environment, as everyone is affected when the systems are not available. And NTSC has made good on that. During 1993, its systems were available 99.71 percent of the time. That works out to be less than an average of two minutes of downtime a day.

"We value the strong colleague relationship we have developed over the years with the line." says Dick Watt, senior vice president of NTS and head of NTSC. This team approach, unusual in the data processing business, to meeting user needs has been a major factor in the high quality of the computer systems that exist in Norwest Colorado today.

"Those of us who came to Colorado from other parts of Norwest," says John Nelson, Norwest Colorado chairman, "have been impressed with how well the people in Colorado engineered their system. While the NTSC staff doesn't have a lock on good ideas, they certainly have implemented a lot of them -- many of which we at Norwest have talked about doing for years."

One of NTSC's major accomplishments, since its founding in 1971, is the AXCIS system for storing and retrieving archival data. It is now a standard system used throughout Norwest -- quite an achievement for a company that was unknown to Norwest Corporation four years ago. In addition to on-line disk storage capacity of about 250 gigabytes, AXCIS has an additional optical storage capacity of more than 500 gigabytes -- enough to store 3.8 million reports with 7.2 billion lines of information.

Another achievement mentioned with pride is the Signature System. It has been used in Colorado for the past ten years. When Teller II was being modified for Colorado, that system was number one on the list of "must haves." The integrated banking system NTSC developed years ago is the reason such products can be developed. And also on the drawing board are more cash management tools for our most financially sophisticated business customers. One in particular, the electronic window, is used by U S WEST, Safeway, Janus Funds and others. "This system allows a customer to do all financial transactions from his own shop that he used to hire an intermediary to do," says Mauro.

Programmers, Systems Analysts and Volunteers
About a third of NTSC's 50,000 square feet of space in the Tech Center houses its giant IBM computer -- a series of blue and white boxes with no doors or windows -- and related equipment including that used to prepare about 425,000 customer statements each month. Most of the rest of the space is filled with work stations of the programmers, computer and network operators, systems analysts and customer relations staffs.

NTSC has two major operating units. Jim Piccinelli, vice president and another 20-year employee, manages finance, computer and network operations, data base, customer and delivery systems, the deposits, investments and loan systems and systems administration.

Mauro manages payment systems, corporate services (general ledger), electronic banking systems, product support and information services.

The customer relations area is the primary NTSC contact with the rest of Norwest Colorado. Those customer relations folks are considered the "bankers" of NTSC and, in fact, all are ex-bankers. The staff of six is headed by Laurie Shaffer, with 24 years at Norwest, who reports to Bill Ditman, one of the longest-tenured employees in Colorado at 32-plus years. Also reporting to Ditman are the people who prepare user manuals and install the banks' data processing and computer equipment.

Most of the folks in Norwest Colorado know that when they have a problem, they can call Bill and his staff.

Community involvement is an important part of NTSC's mission. For example, NTSC has represented all of Norwest Colorado as a United Way Pacesetter Company for the past 11 years. During that time, the employees have been awarded seven goal awards for their level of participation and average amount pledged per employee.

"I think our people are most rewarded," says Watt, "when they develop and put into the system a new product that people (customers and employees) really use and like."

20 Years
. . . . . . . , Lyle Hurdel, . . . . . . .

15 Years
. . . . . . . , Donald Nelson, . . . . .