Good Evening Sam;
I am more than happy to entertain a phone discussion. My number is 802-917-4540. I am generally available 10am-10pm EST.
Jeff Laughlin is an absolutely brilliant Engineer whom I had the pleasure of working with at Northern Power Systems in my capacity as IT Infrastructure Manager. My background is software engineering and system automation, and after Jeff’s departure at Northern I migrated to a hybrid role including a matrixed management of the continued development of our inhouse SCADA system Jeff had architected and developed away from VisualBasic 6 and Windows.
Jeff’s technical knowledge is amazingly broad. His name appears multiple times in our inhouse developed systems control board that powers our Wind Turbines (C), in SCADA code at the local (C++/VB/Python) and enterprise level (Python/PHP), throughout database schemas (MySQL/Postgres/SQL Server), into reporting systems (Pentaho, LaTeX, Excel), and can be physically seen on our installed products through his design suggestions.
Jeff was a key asset to Northern Power Systems, and I had an opportunity to work directly with our Director of Systems Engineering to discuss retention attempts despite Northern’s trending towards targeted reductions in force and strategic IP sell-off. Jeff was largely seen as someone who was self-motivated and thrived with a clear runway to architect and implement systems.
Jeff’s largest weakness within our small organization was handling the barrage of questions and support opportunities that developed as a result of his knowledge. I directly observed him pulled into implementing Fleet Service automation tools, diagnosing physical turbine component failures, and having to maintain a large deployed fleet on a poorly implemented SCADA system. A manager who can help adequately fly air-cover for Jeff, and allow him to focus on our product development rather than supporting ancient technology would have likely allowed Jeff to remain with Northern.