In June 2003, Wilson hired a systems analyst, Simon
Kovecki—a recent computer science graduate—to
increase the MSCC’s computing capabilities. Wilson con-
tinued to manage the computer systems and, with the help
of Kovecki, upgraded the hardware and software almost
every year. Under Kovecki’s watchful eye, the systems
were very reliable.
The Necessity for Change
By 2005, Lassiter was bothered by the lack of a compre-
hensive information systems plan that would provide
the MSCC with the kind of ongoing support the organi-
zation needed. Even though the systems were stable, the
data used by the MSCC were segregated onto several
workstations. Lassiter felt the information systems area
needed more attention and integration. He took it upon
himself to send out requests for information to a number
of firms servicing the software needs of organizations
like the MSCC. In August 2005, Lassiter attended a
national association meeting where a session on man-
agement software led to Lassiter’s discovery of a small
firm called UNITRAK. UNITRAK had recently devel-
oped a software system that Lassiter felt the MSCC
should consider—based on his (and Kovecki’s) 2004
assessment of the MSCC’s current and anticipated
divisional needs.
Planning the New Information Technology
System
Lassiter had identified features provided by the
UNITRAK software that he felt would allow the MSCC to
be more efficient—including quicker access to account in-
formation, the ability to use a centralized database of
information, and increased quantitative analysis of activi-
ties. In a memo to the management group, Lassiter com-
mented, “The UNITRAK system not only meets our
needs today, but this user-friendly package is also power-
ful enough to provide the MSCC with the room to grow
over the next five years.”
In October 2005, Lassiter invited Greg Ginder,
President of the UNITRAK Software Corporation, to give
a short demonstration of the system’s capabilities. Wilson
observed about 30 minutes of the three-hour demonstra-
tion and told Lassiter, “I’ll support it if you want it. It will
work for my project in public affairs.” Kovecki’s com-
ments were different. He remarked, “The software has its
strengths and weaknesses and it probably would save some
of my time. But I don’t like the idea of the staff having
uncontrolled access to so much data. It’s not clear what
they’ll do with it.” Lassiter was able to convince the
MSCC’s Executive Committee to approve the purchase of
178 Part I • Information Technology
the UNITRAK system, including a small IBM server and
the UNITRAK software.Implementation of the System
Despite Lassiter’s interest and urging, implementing the
new system took much longer than was planned. Delays in
issuing the purchase order and testing the software only
added to the time to make the system operational. Training
finally took place in August 2006. The training went well,
but data migration became a serious problem. On the final
day of training, Lassiter told Kovecki to migrate the data in
the current workstation systems to the new system.
Kovecki had considerable problems doing so as less than
15 percent of the data rolled over into the proper assign-
ments. Because there was no documentation on the old
software to refer to, it took him until late 2006 to get the
data migrated to the new system. In the meantime, most of
the MSCC workstations were essentially inoperable.
Requests for lists and labels for mailings could not be
fulfilled. And word processing, payment and invoice post-
ing, data changes, and list management were very difficult
during this time.
Lassiter was also finding it very difficult to gain
information from Kovecki as to the progress and status
of the system conversion. It seemed that Kovecki, frus-
trated with the problems he was having and irritated with
the staff coming to him to ask for assistance, was going
out of his way to avoid staff members.
UNITRAK came through, however, and by the end
of the year the system was up and running—and at no
additional cost (beyond the initial hardware and software
cost) to the MSCC. Problems still remained, however, as
it soon became clear that the system had severe limita-
tions—most importantly the lack of a relational database
management system. Nevertheless, the MSCC managed
to get by with the UNITRAK software through 2007.
Then in February 2008, a more severe problem cropped
up—UNITRAK was experiencing serious financial
problems and filed for bankruptcy protection. Soon
thereafter, UNITRAK’s existing support staff was dis-
missed, and the MSCC was left with no technical sup-
port. To alleviate this problem, Lassiter hired an outside
consultant, Zen Consulting, to write programs, generate
new reports, and assist in the maintenance/support of the
software.Moving Past the UNITRAK Implementation
In September 2008, Kovecki became concerned about his
future with the MSCC. As a result, he resigned to take a
position with a local law firm operating a similar hard-
ware platform. In late October 2008, Dick Gramen, a