Thursday, September 18, 2014

That takes guts

Normally I do this post Wednesday morning, but quite honestly had day job and personal distractions (I'm moving in about a week) this week, so I'm doing it today.  Wednesday morning at the HL7 Plenary the God Father of Health Level 7, Ed Hammond gives out the Ed Hammond awards, and I traditionally also give out an ad hoc award.  I do that not so much to compete with Ed (I hope I can do what he does when I reach that degree of tenure)., but to continue the tradition.

Tuesday morning I saw a combination of ribbons on an HL7 Member's badge that I found stunning. They were "First Time Attendee" and "Co-chair".  When I asked further, I discovered that this person was a new co-chair of perhaps the most technically challenging, and also difficult collection (which is a compliment, not a critique) of people to manage.  The Security Workgroup is relatively small, but contains some of the top names in Health IT Security, and has always been a very challenging place to engage.  I leave that to my colleague John Moehrke, who has much more experience in this area.  I know enough about security to know that I'd rather defer to seasoned experts that to try to do it myself.

So this combination of badges deserves special recognition, because while it takes guts as an HL7 first-timer to join the Security workgroup, it takes even more than that be willing to co-chair the group.  An extra special thanks and here we go ...


This certifies that 
Alexander Mense of HL7 Austria 


Has hereby been recognized for for having the guts to take on a role as cochair of the HL7 Security Workgroup

2 comments:

  1. This guy has the guts.
    Alex Mense is a member of the HL7 Security Workgroup since 2008 - not at all a "First Time Attendee".
    He is Head of Department
    Information Engineering & Security on University of Applied Sciences Technikum Wien - for all who did not know... :-)

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  2. Suzanne Gonzales-Webb, HL7 CBCC Co-Chair, Security WG memberSeptember 22, 2014 at 12:29 PM

    Alexander Mense is indeed an asset to the Security Working Group. With the stepping back of Bernd Blobel--HL7's Security expert contributor and Educator extraordinaire, Alexander has taken on the position of being the Security WG's International connection along with Trish Williams from Australia whom was re-elected as a Security co-chair. Congratulations to both!

    AND not to steal from Alexander and Trish's thunder....a nod toward Bernd Blobel...In Bernd's case, stepping back may not be the correct terminology----I'm still waiting for Bernd to ever REALLY step back for anything (he did let me know I can still contact him via e-mail if needed.), Bernd is an icon in Security and is long overdue for several accolades, (among that a vacation) should Bernd truly step back it will be a sad day for HL7, several other Standards Organizations and Security folk everywhere.

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