Y2K

	Sign In Sign-Up

Y2K

Monday, August 24, 1998

By Virginia Baldwin Hick

Of The Post-Dispatch

Big risks - and big payoffs - often begin with small steps.

That's what the owners and management of I. Levy & Associates in Des Peres believe.

It was a small step that led the computer software developers into the field of government contracting. It was a big risk that led the firm to work almost an entire year without a contract in the belief that it would eventually get paid for the work.

And the payoff is coming, as computer consultants all over the world are hurrying to fix computer systems and databases to work in the year 2000.

I. Levy & Associates will be finished with its big project a year early. By Jan. 1, 1999, it will have examined and fixed 27 million lines of COBOL code used in computers managing Social Security disability payments.

While others work 60-hour weeks to meet the deadline, I. Levy can concentrate on new business.

I. Levy makes and maintains the software used by 26 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico to process Social Security disability claims.

The year 2000 problem - called Y2K or the millennium bug - was caused by using two-digit years in computer systems. Computer hardware and software malfunctions in unpredictable ways when confronted with a date that reads "00."

But when someone in Florida, Ohio or South Dakota, for instance, applies for disability coverage in 2000, the computer systems there will be able to handle it - because I. Levy fixed the problem.

The rest of the states, including Missouri and Illinois, are on a different platform and could only benefit from I. Levy's work indirectly - through lessons learned.

It's too late to follow the biggest lesson: Start early, said Irv Levy, president of the company.

Levy hasn't always felt so prescient. He got into government contracting through a small, apparently random step.

Levy and his wife, Sue, started the company in 1975. He was the "I." in the title, handling the technical end; she was the "Associates," doing the administrative work.

They hired their first employee a year later. A year after that, the company became a vendor for Wang Laboratory, developing and customizing software that would run on Wang minicomputers - "little" mainframe computers the size of a two-drawer file cabinet that predated the PCs of today.

One Friday afternoon in 1979, a representative of Wang called to ask if I. Levy wanted to pick up a job that had fallen through. Another vendor had decided it couldn't fulfill the contract to develop a system for managing Social Security disability for Nebraska. Wang needed an answer by the close of business Monday.

All weekend the Levys looked the job over. On Monday, 15 minutes before closing time, they called and said, "We'll do it."

From there, the company kept adding states and applications until now, when its software sits on more than 7,000 desktops of state bureaucrats around the country.

The company has developed 12 modules (covering different applications related to the original job), from which states can pick and choose. I. Levy clients process 50 percent of the nation's Social Security disability claims.

It didn't happen overnight. Irv Levy called on Florida officials for seven years before the company got a contract.

The decision to develop only the Wang platform limited the company's growth. States like Missouri and Illinois wanted software that would work on IBM computers so they developed their own or went elsewhere.

But word got around that Levy's systems worked and the company stood behind them.

"Our relationship with our clients is our business knowledge," Irv Levy said. The company hires people who can sell, develop and maintain systems and then trains workers in the states to run them. But the most important part of the job is keeping customers happy.

At present, I. Levy has 35 employees, 19 working on the state disability systems.

By the mid-1980s, I. Levy programmers realized that computer systems using two-digit dates would run into problems in the year 2000, and they began building ways around the problem when they could.

At the time, nearly all computer operating systems, including Wang's, supported only two digits. "We brought it to (Wang's) attention," Irv Levy said. "They said they'd fix it, but they didn't say when."

Then in the early 1990s, Wang started losing the platform war as the computing world went to client/server technology.

About that time, Irv and Sue Levy decided they needed a project manager to supervise the growing state contracts while Irv headed up development of business based on the new technology. In 1992 they hired Steve Thiems, one of 20,000 laid off from downsizing McDonnell Douglas Corp.

Thiems fit in with the Levys' style of management.

Thiems said he likes to offer incentives to an entire team. "If I've got one person, I know can get something done quicker," he said, "I have to off-load the other small tasks on other people. We feel it's crucial to be team-oriented and reward everyone when the job gets done."

I. Levy is an intense, creative team. Workers work hard, play often and eat a lot, Thiems said. It's not unusual for a group to take a long lunch break at a nearby driving range.

In January 1996, Thiems' team told the company it needed to begin working on Y2K issues right away to be finished in time for the date change.

While Social Security is a federal program, the states have the responsibility for running it - and each does it a bit differently. I. Levy has 28 contracts for its systems.

But I. Levy has just one contract - with the Social Security Administration - to fix the Y2K problem. It took the company a year to get it.

Early in 1996, the management trio had to decide whether to wait for the government to sign and seal the contract, or begin work without it.

"The Social Security Administration said it was going to do something, and it was working on it," Thiems said. "But there's no way it would've been done in time."

Thiems and the Levys sat in a conference room and brainstormed. The big question, for Irv, was whether the Social Security Administration would have an alternative to a contract with I. Levy.

"We knew they had to bring their software into compliance," Levy said. "We didn't feel there was any way they'd not be using our software in 2000.

"We asked ourselves, `If they had another option, could they replace us with someone else?'

"The answer was no."

Levy said it was the scariest decision he's ever made.

The company hired four people and chose a state to bring into compliance. The team picked Vermont, a relatively small state that had just updated its software. That first state took the team nearly a year. But by early 1997, with Vermont done and a workable patch from Wang for its operating system, I. Levy felt it could get the rest done.

The firm walked into contract talks with the federal government with the hardest part of the job already done: one state in full compliance, a methodology for larger states and proof that it would work.

The feds were surprised. They didn't have a procedure for paying for something they hadn't yet ordered. But they worked that out, Levy said.

With each new state, the team learned a few more tricks. The staff kept detailed logs of how it fixed things and developed a "cookbook" approach for later states.

"We were three or four states into it before we didn't miss anything," Thiems said.

For the last stage, a team from the state comes to St. Louis with the data to test its system on a computer with the calendar set in 2000. That way, the state's other computers won't get confused over what the real date is.

The office played host to five states in June - "I think I gained 10 pounds, taking people out to dinner so much," Sue Levy said.

Nebraska was in last week and Montana, Kansas and Colorado are expected sometime soon. The company expects every state to be up and running by early December - in time for a blowout Christmas party.

About 60 percent of the firm's business is devoted to the state disability administration. All work besides Y2K has been on hold for a year and a half.

When the last state comes through the St. Louis testing site, sometime next month, the team will switch immediately to a backlog of other things the states want for their systems.

The company plans to roll out a generic case-management system that will work on any client/server technology and can be used by a variety of social service agencies

I. Levy is looking to hire 11 more people by the end of the year.

When Irv Levy looks back on the company's progress, it looks so linear now. But then, he had no idea where it would lead.

That first Nebraska job was "just one project," he said. "But there was a need and no real automation to help do the job. We started adding more states and before you knew it, we had a business."

*****

I. Levy & Associates at a glance:

Address: 1630 Des Peres Road, Des Peres.

Founded: 1975.

Employees: 35.

Business: Developing and customizing software for government agencies and others.

Growth: The privately held business declined to give hard sales figures, but says it has had a 20 percent increase in sales in each of the last four years.

Quote: "We listen to our accounts and deliver what they need." SUE LEVY,

co-owner.