Expertise

Lori Ericson -- Bio/Expertise I am a multi-disciplined individual who grew up in Minnesota. I went on to work as a Police Officer on the Minneapolis Police Department where, after three years, I was promoted to Sergeant and placed in charge of shifts of 16-25 team members. I was moved into the Child Abuse Unit, a place few are excited to see in their transfer notice. My management skills were well-honed as I learned on the street and as an investigator how to handle quiet days and nights, and the days and nights of chaos when you believe they will never end. My education in management under good times and extreme pressure was excellent While on the police department, I strongly felt the desire to better myself through education. During a Terrorism conference in Chicago, I met a former FBI agent who had started a school for intelligence officers in Erie, PA at Mercyhurst College. I attended the school and later transferred to Vienna, VA where I completed an internship and finished my education with a Bachelor of Individualized Study in Political Intelligence from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. I went on to complete a Master of Science degree in the Management of Computer Information Systems from Phoenix University. My education gave my career a significant boost. Through education and an early career choice as a police officer, I was able to interact with both the public and private scenarios. I found my best skills are dealing with people in all settings (from quiet discussions to violent chaos), writing, problem-solving, and deep analysis. I enjoy analyzing a problem to find a sensible solution and then I find great satisfaction in seeing the solution work well for a client. In a technical writing setting, adapting organizational scenarios to the written word is the challenge that most interests me, and it is the challenge that often perplexes many others. I enjoy being the individual who can come in calmly and begin the process of making sense of any problem. This includes discussions with subject matter experts and building the story that will become the document or artifact. Compiling and sorting the story, and then putting the story's words on paper is where proposals are won or lost, where manuals become significant and useable tools, and where vital bits of information rightly alert or calm an emerging situation. While you may have the very best solution, if you are not able to articulate it to your most important audience, you have, in effect, achieved little. This is where I feel my background is best utilized. I can produce the written word such that it develops your story accurately, well focused and written, and readable. I love what I do. I love the challenge, the sacrifice made to present the best document. I push and ask for perfection when picking up the pieces of a complex problem, moving them around, and giving them back in a document that perfectly reflects the initial scenario requested. Lori is a multi-dimensional leader with unique insight and high-caliber acumen honed from more than fifteen years of technical consulting within an array of federal, state, local, and tribal agencies. As sergeant in Minneapolis, MN, Lori realized she had a propensity towards synthesizing complex thought into clear and concise written word. This skill pushed her forward to acquire a Bachelor’s Degree in the unconventional discipline of Political Intelligence. As the government environment focused more and more on technical options for cross jurisdictional systems, Lori adjusted her focus to Information Sharing across multiple jurisdictions and earned a Master’s Degree in Computer Information Systems. Lori’s education and experience provided her exceptional depth and insight into understanding RFPs and preparing focused and winning proposals and grants. Lori now combines exceptional cross-functional leadership skills with expertise in the analytics required to architect complex solutions and then accurately and clearly communicate those solutions in proposal efforts and to key personnel. Lori has the ability to craft solutions with a team, or as an individual, providing excellent analytics, program and proposal management, communications, and clear and concise writing. Lori: served as Proposal Manager for the DHS Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge (EAGLE) II effort. She oversaw the support of senior management and coordinated the involvement of six external companies as key team members in the development of critical EAGLE II solution sets; provided compliance review and analysis and give direction on proposal development for the Department of State, Protected Health Information Management Services; provided editing, writing, and compliance reviews for the US Navy’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group (EODGRU TWO) Readiness and Training for Combat Instructors and Support effort to acquire subject matter expertise (SME) and support to assist with various aspects of EODGRU TWO’s and Navy Expeditionary Combat Command’s (NECC) training mission; managed the development, and writing of the $60M DHS Information Sharing and Collaboration Support Services (ISAC) proposal effort. coordinated diverse teams of SMEs, writers and editors to develop and grow proposal theme and proposal message while assuring the creation of a follow-on, long-term, top notch group of team members. Lori utilized a unique array of analysis methods and tools to assess skill, experience, and education with appropriate placement within the developing organization (link analysis, SWOT, job analysis, questionnaires). She then made certain nuances of the effort’s requirements were better reflected in resumes, bios, statements of work for individuals and other related materials. worked a pair of highly classified efforts for National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). $50M and $130M. She generated an exclusive compartmentalized cross-reference Compliance matrix of PWS, in each relevant RFP section. This became a natural transition into detailed, focused, and highly structural writing templates that better provided to the proposal SME writers areas in the material which should be highlighted or enhanced as well as referenced back and forth, section to section to better hone in on the solution clearly and directly. It subsequently laid out a very vibrant guide to the solution, which the client immediately realized. Lori drew on this methodology for template development in many other proposals and grant efforts. Using Excel, Link Analysis, Visio and other modeling tools and methodologies, I was able to develop an array of unique graphics for the final proposal presentation.