Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Yeah, I know, I know...

Anon posts this reminder of an oft overlooked, yet critical player in the Crime Camera/MOS/MIS/CTO/Imagine/Netmethods/Logistix/Veracent....techie thingie....blah, blah, blah.....e-maelstrom....scandal....happening....like....thing:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Crime Cameras finally in Focus":

Principal
Logistix, LLC
504-722-2329
cdrake@logistixco.com

Chris Drake currently serves as a principal at Logistix, a consultancy providing vision, strategy, marketing and execution advice and management to corporate executives and municipal leaders focused on using wireless networks to deliver next-generation services and solutions.


Prior to Logistix, Mr. Drake served as CTO for NetMethods, where he designed, and successfully implemented major Wi-Fi mesh, video surveillance, public safety and communications projects for customers such as City of New Orleans, City of Baton Rouge, City of Lafayette, EarthLink, Motorola, British Telecom, New Orleans Police Department, and Louisiana Region 1 and 2 Homeland Security. Prior to NetMethods, Mr. Drake held various management and technical positions at a large insurance provider, a regional bank, and his own technology consultancy.



Mr. Drake attended Baylor University, where he earned a BA degree. He also earned a Masters degree from Tulane University, and a Master in Business Administration from SLU.

Most of my posts and the TP's reports have focused on Muppet, St. Pierre, and Mark Kurt....but I am constantly being reminded that Drake was plucking just as many strings in this quartet as the other 3. The truth is...I don't know a lot about Drake or his machinations. If all you Anon's who keep bringing him up would like to do a short Bio on him....I would be happy to post.

Update: Check the comment section

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have no idea if this helps (feel free to edit), but... from No. 1 federal OHS money would be a very bad thing to mess around with; from No. 2 it looks like Drake was the point man for all technical issues; and from No. 3 it looks like the BR contract followed him:

5/23/04 TP: >"We have a $1 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security for the first year with unspecified funds promised for further years," said Chris Drake , the city’s surveillance camera project manager. "Plus, we’ve got further grants applied for, targeted for crime prevention and homeland security." The federal involvement, however, appears to focus some cameras in areas more likely to attract the attention of terrorists than street criminals. The New Orleans Office of Homeland Security identified its top 10 targets, which include the levee system, the port, railroads, airports, Sewerage and Water Board facilities, the Crescent City Connection, the Superdome and the power grid, according to public records. Monitoring will include but not be limited to those sites, according to a summary sent to Nagin by the proposals’ evaluation committee. ---- Drake said there is no fixed breakdown for how many cameras will be devoted to such sites or, say, housing complexes, the French Quarter or rough neighborhoods. But Drake noted that Homeland Security retains the right to "take over and monitor" the cameras during an emergency or time of elevated threat. --- So far, 165 individuals, churches and neighborhood watch groups have ordered cameras through the city’s "adopt a camera" program, which Southern Electronics would provide under its arrangement with the city. --- A city of New Orleans Web site, www.iseecrime.com, estimates the price of a camera at $3,000 to $4,000, but in the proposal accepted by the city, the per-unit cost is more than twice as high: $7,540 to $8,789. City officials have said only law enforcement personnel, not the people or groups paying for the cameras, will have access to the recorded images.<

7/31/04 TP:
>A prebid conference had just ended Friday morning when a trio of vendors gathered outside New Orleans City Hall with a bushel of unanswered questions. --- Had anyone known the work’s scope had been expanded to include the district attorney’s office, one asked. Did anyone get a clear picture on whether this is strictly a low-price bid or some hybrid of bid and professional services, the second asked. Did they say the guy we need to pose technical questions to is out until Tuesday or all next week, asked the third. --- Rampant confusion surrounded the Nagin administration’s latest of two proposed video surveillance camera contracts over the past 19 months. ---- In March 2003, Southern Electronics Inc. won a bid for a $230,000 contract to design and install video surveillance cameras at City Hall. But that contract was voided when it was discovered Southern Electronics did not possess the state licenses required to perform the work. ---- With the original contract in limbo, the administration of Mayor Ray Nagin moved forward on a second, much larger video surveillance camera contract. Officials said it would involve 1,000 cameras scattered around New Orleans and would cost somewhere between $2 million and $3 million. Despite the problems associated with the $230,000 City Hall deal, the city announced in April that Southern Electronics, which had since obtained the necessary state permits, had won the citywide contract, too. --- Records showed, however, that the figures for the cameras and costs provided by the administration on the citywide contract were inaccurate. In fact, the second, larger contract called for only 240 cameras and fixed the cost of them at almost $5 million. --- When questioned in May about the discrepancy between the proclaimed and real number of cameras in the citywide arrangement, Chris Drake , the administration’s point man on the surveillance camera projects, said other agencies would purchase cameras from the citywide contract and eventually bring the total close to 1,000. Since then, however, the administration seems to have passed on two opportunities to do so: the French Market has advertised its own security camera contract and now the City Hall deal is being rebid. --- When asked in June why the French Market hadn’t piggybacked on the larger camera contract, Drake said the board of directors there felt it was their "fiduciary duty" to conduct their own request for proposals and that the winning system would be compatible with the one the city is slated to purchase from Southern Electronics. --- Thus, considerable uncertainty enveloped the city’s far-flung video camera surveillance efforts even before Friday’s meeting began, and what happened at it did little to clear the waters. --- For starters, Drake did not attend, and vendors were stunned to hear Purchasing Director Earl Jackson say Drake would be out until Tuesday or Wednesday, or perhaps all of next week. Yet it is Drake who will handle all technical questions the bidders might have, and his absence was one reason that the city extended the bid deadline from Aug. 11 to Aug. 17 late Friday, a spokeswoman said. ---- Friday’s meeting also featured, however, conversation among the would-be vendors about who was present. And those words reflected resentment toward Southern Electronics and the string of successes it has scored with the Nagin administration on video security contracts. ---- When Southern Electronics’ representative arrived last in the conference room, a vendor already seated called out, "Ah, get out of here!" to scattered laughter. Later, when it turned out that not all prospective vendors had received or been told about an addendum to the specifications, one potential bidder muttered, "Ask Southern, they’ve probably got a copy." --- John Tobler of Technical Services Group wanted to know why the bid specifications asked in some places for a specific Sony camera "or similar" and, in others, a specific Sony camera "or equivalent." Jackson said the boilerplate language should, in all cases, be "or equivalent" and promised to make the corrections. --- Some vendors were startled to learn the contract now includes the district attorney’s office and noted that the language in the prebid contract did not make that clear. As a result of the expanded scope, vendors asked repeatedly for schematic drawings of the buildings covered by the contract. Officials promised to make them available via e-mail as soon as possible. --- Nevertheless, the uncertainty of the contract left several vendors grumbling. The sour mood echoed that following the prebid conference for the huge security camera contract awarded last spring, several security experts said. So many potential vendors showed up for that meeting it had to be switched to the City Council chambers, but at least one representative walked out because, he said, the process didn’t seem equal to everyone. In the end, fewer than 15 companies entered proposals.<

3/3/07 TP:
>Baton Rouge link: To hear Perrin tell it, signs of trouble surfaced early last year when St. Pierre shouldered Southern aside and landed a contract to install 58 anti-terrorism cameras in Baton Rouge - a job Perrin had hoped was Southern's. --- Before Katrina, Perrin said, Baton Rouge officials had favorably reviewed Southern's presentation, which was assisted by Chris Drake , at the time an Imagine employee who had overseen the initial camera procurement and installation in New Orleans. - After the storm, Drake began working for NetMethods, a firm started by St. Pierre to do crime camera work, among other lines of trade. When Perrin moved toward clinching the deal in Baton Rouge, he claims that St. Pierre told him to butt out -- the implication being that if he didn't yield to NetMethods, Southern's contract with New Orleans would be in jeopardy. Perrin also alleges that officials in Baton Rouge told him they thought they were using the company that did the New Orleans work, leading Perrin to believe that NetMethods misrepresented itself.<

Anonymous said...

I don't know if you have seen this site from Nov. 2005, but search for "Drake" on these two pages of comments and feedback. Amazing how some people were on to this guy's routine early and given the circumstances many were not happy. It also has some commentary re: the setup of the city's wifi network (and is *that even working or usable?). It also has this exchange: [poster] "Is this the Chris Drake that was responsible for coordinating communication systems between parishes in and around the city of New Orleans prior, during and post hurricane? Wasn't your title director of inoperability?" [Drake, missing shot]: "Yes I was Program Manager for an interoperability grant for a while as one of my jobs for the City. Katrina changed a lot of peoples jobs descriptions."

http://www.engadget.com/2005/11/29/new-orleans-to-get-free-city-wide-wifi/1#comments

Anonymous said...

Ok, you'll enjoy this:

If you look up the Logistix website on a Who Is search the domain is registered to Michael LaFrance at the same address as Logistix. Well, guess what, LaFrance also appears in the Nagin email story from the 3/5/09 TP online from some random blogger "Popmartian" as follows:

"--Mayor's Office of Technology--

M. Harrison Boyd - Interim Chief Technology Officer
Heads up the Office of Technology

Anthony Jones - MIS Enterprise Director
He currently is responsible records management.

Janice Darby - MIS Project Lead
She is Responsible for Data Networking, Voice and Email, etc…

Dalta Watts - Software Security
She is the manager of Passwords

Michael Lafrance, IT Systems Operator
Works in the Main Server Room"

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/03/new_orleans_mayor_ray_nagin_ca.html

http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/logistixco.com

Anonymous said...

Its about time you started putting the pieces together. Baton Rouge is going to cause some people some serious heartburn and guess what Jim Letten isn't involved in that because its outside of his jurisdiction. The rats have jumped ship and threatens to take Baton Rouge politicians down now. Keep up the good work federal law enforcement agents.

Anonymous said...

Little Michael LaFrance isn't 16 anymore, Zombie : http://twitter.com/mlafrance

Anonymous said...

How about an update? ---> Am I completely nuts or did the Domain Who-Is registration for Logistix's website ***change***????? Meffert is now shown as the registrant, not LaFrance. I wish that text had been copied and pasted instead of just leaving a link.

But, hey, guess what, LaFrance is shown as the registrant for Mayor's own website. What a coincidence.

"Registration Service Provided By: Enom, Inc
Contact: CustomerSupportenom.com
Visit: www.enom.com

Domain name: mayorofno.com

Registrant Contact:
City of New Orleans/MIS Department
City of New Orleans ()

Fax:
1300 Perdido St Room 3E05
New Orleans, LA 70112
US

Administrative Contact:
City of New Orleans - The Mayors Office of Technology
City of New Orleans The Mayors Office of Technology (mlafrancecityofno.com)
+1.5046587900
Fax:
1300 Perdido Street Suite 3EO4
New Orleans, LA 70112
US

Technical Contact:
City of New Orleans
Michael LaFrance (mlafrancecityofno.com)
+1.5046587900
Fax: +1.5046587929
1300 Perdido Street Room 3E05
New Orleans, LA 70112
US

...
Creation date: 14 Jun 2002 14:51:44
Expiration date: 14 Jun 2013 14:51:44"

http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/logistixco.com

http://www.domaincrawler.com/domains/view/mayorofno.com

Anonymous said...

Hey, more fun, kids, check this out:

"Registrant:
Greg Meffert
Suite 2060
1515 Poydras
New Orleans, Louisiana 70112
United States

Domain Name: LOGISTIX.NET
Created on: 30-Jun-02
Expires on: 30-Jun-11
Last Updated on: 31-Mar-09

Administrative Contact:
Meffert, Greg
Suite 2060
1515 Poydras
New Orleans, Louisiana 70112
United States
(504) 636-3880 Fax -- (504) 636-3881

Technical Contact:
Meffert, Greg
Suite 2060
1515 Poydras
New Orleans, Louisiana 70112
United States
(504) 636-3880 Fax -- (504) 636-3881

Domain servers in listed order:
NS49.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
NS50.DOMAINCONTROL.COM"

SO HE CHANGED IT ON 3/31/09.

Wow.

http://whois.domaintools.com/logistix.net

Anonymous said...

Here we go: Lafrance is still shown as being a part of Meffert's group in this City of NO Guide:

"Technology
Phone: 565-7792
Fax: 565-8074
1515 Poydras Street, Suite 1150
New Orleans, Louisiana 70122

Greg Meffert, Chief Information Officer
Phone: 565-7793
Fax: 565-8074

Nicole Robino, Administrative Assistant
Phone: 565-7792
Fax: 565-8074

Mike Bevans, Director of Network Support
Phone: 565-8136
Fax: 565-8074

Michael LaFrance, Network Administrator
Phone: 565-7564
Fax: 565-8074"

Michael Lafrance still works for the CNO:

http://www.cityofno.com/pg-98-33.aspx

http://secure.cityofno.com/resources/portal35/CNO_Directory_Web2003.pdf

Anonymous said...

I heard a rumor, when this project was first bid, that Chris Drake was related by marriage to Iggy Perrin of Southern Electronics. It was unsubstantiated and from a questionable source, so I never contacted the TP.

Has anyone else heard that rumor?