Jerry Norris’ Lansing-based software company,
jadian enterprises, is moving faster than a speeding skateboard. By the end of 2010, he expects to have doubled his beginning work force to 34 engineers. He spends a third of the year travelling to cities in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
He’s just completed his fifty-eighth trip to
Dubai. He skateboards frequently there, much as he does around his home in Grand Ledge and at
Ranney Skate Park near
Frandor.
In any field, Norris would be seen as a rare sort. The 46-year-old, who grew up in Lansing, now wears his hair in a ponytail—not one of those stubby little wads, but one long enough to reach his shoulder blades. His ears are pierced with a small hoop in each, and a diamond in one lobe.
Does he hide his tats? No way. A quarter-sized tattoo on one hand depicts a peace sign; on the other hand is inked the
Chinese yin-yang symbol depicting the concept of balance.
And he travels with his skateboard, aiming to hit 20 more cities he’s not already ridden in before the end of the year.
His visual cues say artsy, playful, spiritual. But they’re only half the story.
He’s also a
University of Michigan-trained software engineer and statistician. Precision is his thing, and the company he dreamed up while still a student at
Lansing's Eastern High School specializes in helping clients monitor exacting certification requirements using hand-held devices jadian developed. Untidiness bugs him. Process is important.
It is perhaps that free-spirit blended with exactness that allows him to function in any world.
My Middle EastImagine the day soon after Sept. 11, 2001 when Norris stood in the offices of the Municipality of Dubai, in the
United Arab Emirates. New York City’s
World Trade Center was still burning and much of America was blaming the Arabs.
“I couldn’t wait to learn about that part of the world,” he says. It seemed there was so much to know.
Norris was competing for the Dubai contract against
Microsoft and
Oracle, giants of the software world.
He presumes his competitors presented their software. He did, too, but he did more: He talked about the compliance process, as he always does, from beginning to end, and the management of risk throughout.
He won. And now, many contracts and nearly a decade later, he maintains a representative in Dubai and is re-negotiating digs there.
He keeps up with his young children, Rain and Raven, and his older daughter Daniella, using a toll free Dubai number. (
Skype is blocked there.)
Norris speaks just enough Arabic to be polite, but he understands the spoken language.
He considers himself something of an ambassador. When he is in Dubai, he interprets Americans’ actions as best he can. When he is home, he describes what he has learned of the Arab community.
“Every one of them is a father, a sister or a brother. They are humans, with relatives just as are we,” Norris says.
The Graffiti Wall of Growing UpNorris is part Native American, of the
Ojibwe tribe, and reflects First Nation sensibilities. He quotes
Chief Seattle: “Man did not weave the web of life. He is merely a strand in it. Anything he does to the web, he does to himself.”
The quote is written on the jadian entry wall, not in molded bronze or in a fancy frame. Rather, it is scrawled with felt pen in red, along with perhaps 30 other sayings on the company’s “graffiti wall.”
Another quote on the wall is from
e. e. cummings, a favorite poet since Norris was in high school and the reason his company’s name is written in lower case.
“I just thought that was so neat,” he says now.
“jadian,” by the way, is a mash up of Jerry David Norris, and is the name he selected in high school for the company he dreamed he would one day found.
He lived then in the Capital Garden complex on North Grand River Avenue, ironically visible from the current jadian offices, located in the Metro Internet Exchange building owned by
ACD.net. at 1800 W. Grand River Ave.
As a teen, he ran the
Lansing River Trail to get to Eastern High in time for wrestling practice. He ranks Mr. Spagnolia, his advanced placement English teacher, as a major influence because he taught Norris that he could combine literature, art and poetry with the math proofs he was already designing. He can use his artistic, poetic side to create a vision before solving a problem mathematically, Norris says.
He won a wrestling scholarship to the U of M where he majored in statistics and psychology.
The Management MixFor all the eloquence on the graffiti wall, other walls in the jadian offices are covered with quantifiables, represented by large index cards. Each represents a client and a deliverable. The card’s position on which wall instantly shows its place in the process.
“As cool and as homegrown as we want to be, we have to make a profit. That’s our oxygen, our nutrition,” he says.
Each card has a number with corresponding computer files. But shorthand on the card determines its wall placement.
“I can tell instantly when we are falling behind,” he explains.
The company’s software designs include programs for health inspections, organic certification, labor law compliance, public safety and human rights activities.
Norris practices networking with a capital “N.” His business is all about meeting quality standards that are set by national and international bodies to standardize terminology and quality levels. He lunched recently in Washington D.C. with the president of the
International Accreditation Forum that promotes a common focus throughout the conformity assessment chain, learning what standards may be tweaked soon.
At home and in the global marketplace, standards set expectations. Norris explains: Everyone eats at restaurants. Each place has a license or permit from the
Ingham County Health Department. The restaurants will have a set of requirements to be sure employees wash their hands, surfaces are cleanable, etc.
jadian created a software device inspectors can carry on which they can monitor the entire process, from the original inspection to the remedial efforts the restaurant will make to completion, to the permit being issued.
But when it comes to inspections, resources are limited.
“It would be lame policy to inspect every restaurant every six months,” he says.
Using risk analysis, it is determined the restaurants serving raw seafood to children would represent the highest risk, and restaurants serving coffee to adults would have the lowest. Then policies would be set accordingly.
“We work to understand the business and how it makes money,” Norris says.
He keeps lists of everything. Number one on his life list is to avoid dying with regrets.
“I can avoid that risk by managing those potential regrets now,” he says. It’s part of his own “continuous improvement.” It’s the long-haired, skateboarder managing the mathematical wizard, be it in Grand Ledge, north Lansing, Maylasia or Dubai.
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Gretchen Cochran has been to many cities in the world, but none in the Middle East. Dubai is on her bucket list.
Dave Trumpie is the managing photographer for Capital Gains. He is a freelance photographer and owner of Trumpie Photography.
Photos:
Jerry Norris with his skateboard
The “Graffiti Wall”
Norris in his office
The office conference room with dozens of index cards taped to the walls
A hand held device Norris utilizes in his work
All Photographs © Dave Trumpie