Papers and essays:
1988, "Laboratory Software Applications Development: Quality Assurance Considerations" (PDF)
You enter some numerical data into a computer and get some results back out. Do you simply assume they are "accurate" and report them to the client? Not in our lab. For example, even assuming your data and formula/function entries into a spreadsheet are correct, does it thereby necessarily invariably follow that the calculated results will be so?
Monitoring and verifying that environmental radiation lab instruments remain stable and accurate within a high-volume trace-level production environment. I developed and managed this system for the IT Oak Ridge Laboratory. This paper, which was eventually published in a radiochemistry journal, was presented at a number of industry conferences to report on our tentative findings and to solicit feedback.
In which we challenged conventional (and requisite) EPA policy regarding small sample inorganic solids radioactive compound analytical precision requirements.
1991, "The PDM-QC Connection: A Proactive Approach to Quality With Predictive Maintenance Technology" (PDF)
This was the first of two commercial advocacy white papers connecting the functional dots between "Quality Assurance" and the industrial maintenance department.
1991, "Emerging International Quality System Standards: The Role of the Maintenance Function" (PDF)
A second Predictive Maintenance (PDM) commercial advocacy white paper arguing the utility of PDM deployment in industry as an effective component of ISO-9000 compliance and certification.
1995, "Probability from 'C' to 'G'" (PDF)
In the mid 1990's I was the Newsletter Editor and Publisher for the Las Vegas Section 705 of ASQ (American Society for Quality). This was a flip piece I wrote that had a serious underlying message -- a cautionary look at some widely held and insufficiently examined statistical probability assumptions. Subsequent (and a good bit more erudite and comprehensive) works a decade hence by the likes of Nassim Nicholas Taleb gratifyingly confirmed that I'd been on to something.
1998, "Toward Effective and Ethical Drug Abuse Prevention Policies: The Case Against Indiscriminate Drug Testing" (HTML link)
Should you have to take and pass a drug test as a condition of employment generally or to take part in school sports programs, etc? This is from the online draft of my UNLV Master's thesis. I posted it incrementally as I was writing it in order to draw fire from every quarter in the hopes of tightening my argument (Note: this piece, being ancient by internet standards, is by now shot through with expired or otherwise inoperative hyperlinks). This collection of web pages comprises perhaps 75% of my final cut.
1998, "One in Three: A Father's Continuing Journey With Cancer" (HTML link)
A painful personal essay recounting my late daughter's fight against her horrific terminal cancer. Someday I will finish that piece (the details of the final 6 months of her struggle); it still seems like last week.
2003, "Operational Risk Assessment and Mitigation: Pending Regulatory Incentive and Opportunity" (PDF)
During my tenure in risk management at The First National Bank of Marin (2000 - 2005) I wrote a number of in-depth white papers, all of them having to do with the bank's proprietary mathematical credit risk and portfolio management modeling -- and all consequently confidential, save for this one exception, wherein I addressed the direct applicability of Baldrige Criteria for the management and abatement of bank "operational risk."
Current, ongoing: "BobbyG's Binge Thinking: Random Ruminations" (HTML link, my sociopolitical blog)
This comprises my topical scratchpad wherein I hammer on my myriad interests and concerns ongoing as time permits.