Anautics, Inc.

On September 12, 2008 President George W. Bush visited Oklahoma for the purpose of educating our people on the Health Savings Account.  The local Small Business Administration (SBA) Director gave our name to the National SBA as a potential participant and the Whitehouse issued an invitation to me. Seven woman-owned business leaders were selected to participate in a roundtable discussion with the President. Anautics was represented by Dr. Johnson. The President actively listened to each participant’s discussion about health care needs of our employees and benefits offered by each company.

Also attending the meeting were OKC Mayor Mick Cornett, Congresswoman Mary Falin, Congressman Lucas, Senator Coburn, Senator Tom Cole, and Senator Dan Boren. The number of people attending the meeting only numbered around 25.  There was one reporter from the Daily Oklahoman and one from the New York Times.

The meeting was held at the Presbyterian Health Foundation Conference Center in Oklahoma City and was hosted by the Oklahoma Women’s Business Center. Said the President afterward, “I do want to thank you all very much for, one, being pioneers; two, being risk-takers; and three, giving me a chance to hear your thoughts and concerns and — about a very innovative way for small businesses and individuals to be able to better afford health care.”

I was honored to be recommended, and I was amazed at the personable, caring, and attentative nature of the President. The seven business women spent about 75 minutes with the President. He listened to each of our stories about our companies and he asked personal questions. It was a most memorable moment. After he dismissed the group, he stood for about 20 minutes and spoke with us alone. Before he left, we all took personal pictures with him.

This was quite an honor for Oklahoma business owners and Anautics is certainly blessed.

As an Honorary Commander for the 552d Air Control Wing at Tinker AFB, I had the privilege of accompanying America’s Wing on a training mission over the states of Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico aboard a U.S. Air Force #-3 Sentry. The mission, flown April 8, 2008, aboard Tail #OK557, was crewed by the proud members of the 552d Air Control Sing 966^th Airborne Air Control Squadron from Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma. Carson “Mo” Elmore, Lt Col, USAF is the Director of Staff.

I was honored to fly behind the pilot outbound and inbound on the flight. I observed the simulation of battle between 16 fighter jets as 8 protected a designated air space and 8 posed at the enemy. Some of the things that impressed me were: the honor and respect of all service personnel for others; the training methods that were utilized (e.g., one-on-one instruction, answering questions with questions, praise and reinforcement with praise); dedication to the task to give your best effort; commitment…all seemed to respond as if their tasks were critical to the success of the mission; camaraderie – more than a sense of teamwork…more as if everyone recognized that all need to be successful in order to attain the best results in the warfare; and finally – awareness of the effects of the Air Force effort on other Joint Forces. This was vividly expressed by the Lt Col at the end of the first mission when he expressed concern that the Forces on the ground would be in the trenches if the Air Force timing was not improved.

The emotions and realities of wartime that I experienced during this flight were very vivid. Our military defense personnel provide so much for us. I feel humble and honored to be part of the Honorary Commander Program at Tinker AFB. It renewed in me the assurance that our Air Force is cutting edge, our young men and women are committed to winning any battle necessary to preserve the peace that we sometimes take for granted, and our service personnel make many sacrifices to keep us safe and secure and to protect this great nation.

I am so proud of our Air Force airmen at Tinker AFB. This is truly an extraordinary group of service men and women from the top down. Oklahoma should be very proud.

These are exciting times at Anautics so I decided to try and get back in the habit of updating our blog (AGAIN!). We have new projects kicking off, a web-product launch and of course we are still writing and submitting new proposals on a weekly basis.

I’ll start off the our blog run this weekend with an entry about ProgramBook.com (our web based program management tool) which will be launched in the next 30 days.

We have also increased our staff by two more software developers and are very excited about the things we’ll be doing together.