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Farrell Taylor stands above the city of Sierra Vista with a spectacular view of the Huachuca Mountains.

Nestled in the shadow of the Huachuca Mountains in southeastern Arizona, Fort Huachuca and the city of Sierra Vista are home to a cadre of MITRE staff supporting several Army knowledge management initiatives. Farrell Taylor, a lead software systems engineer, started at MITRE as a Northeastern University co-op student in 1983 and made his way back to MITRE in 1997.

"I was already living in Sierra Vista when I interviewed here for a position supporting information management systems for the Army," says Taylor. "After working at MITRE as a co-op I knew MITRE's reputation for good work and excellent benefits was true. It made coming back to MITRE an easy decision and a good opportunity. Plus, with its expertise in systems engineering—my field of choice—MITRE was a good fit for me.

"My first five years back I worked on projects related to Army Enterprise Systems Management. Then, last year I became the task leader for the Army Enterprise Directory Services (EDS) project," he continues. "The primary mission of Army EDS is to provide a seamless, scalable, directory service capable of securely providing accurate and pertinent information in a timely manner to the Army's global community. The long-term goal is to have EDS become a common directory service infrastructure that supports Army information management and dissemination."

Farrell Taylor receives an award from Department Manager Harry Loper in May 2003.

The EDS project is supporting the U.S. Army's Network Enterprise Technology Command, also located at Fort Huachuca. Taylor finds this close proximity to his customer beneficial. "I've found that working with our Army customer on a day-to-day basis keeps us in sync, which I think promotes better solutions. And the resulting synergy is quite productive."

When asked what he enjoys most about his work, Taylor answers without hesitation. "The variety," he says. "When you do system engineering work, you incorporate many technologies to support your task—everything from databases to protocols—so there is a constant influx of information. I enjoy delving into the new technologies and then using them to provide the customer with a good solution."

As for working and living in Arizona, Taylor loves it. The temperate climate and 300 plus days a year of sunshine were easy to get used to. "After growing up in New York and New England, living in the desert was a dramatic change for me. I followed a job here 11 years ago and stayed—it's become my favorite place. For me, moving to Sierra Vista and coming back to MITRE were great decisions. I can't imagine being anywhere else."

MITRE's Fort Hachuca site

Located in southeastern Arizona approximately 75 miles from Tucson, Fort Huachuca is located adjacent to the city of Sierra Vista. MITRE first established a site there in the late 1970s and now a 25-person staff supports the U.S. Army’s Network Enterprise Technology Command, commonly called NETCOM.