Application Architect, System Software Projects, US Steel Corp

>> My name is Brad Root. I'm an application architect at U.S. Steel. But mainly I'm a project manager for system software projects. I started out at U.S. Steel as a programmer and worked my way up to where I am today. You know, U.S. Steel's an integrated Steel company. So we do everything from mining to ironwork [phonetic], all the way through finish product. And we have a number of systems that we've built, you know, in house. And so, you know, anything accounting systems, HR systems, to production systems. You know, where we count inventory. You know, both inventory that we're buying that we're purchasing and inventory, our own stock that we're selling. So we have a number of applications. And we have three different portals, you know, extranet portals, Internet portals. So there's a lot of development going on. And U.S. Steel, we don't outsource any of our IT. So we do everything in house on the South Side, Muriel Street facility. That's where I work. There's about three hundred people that work in there. A typical day is, there is no typical day. I guess I should start out by saying. Especially since I'm involved in so many projects. You know, projects are just short term endeavors that, you know, some of them last three month, some of them last two years or longer, actually. But a typical day for me is I probably have three to four meetings. Anywhere from a half an hour to an hour and a half each. Status updates on, you know, where the project is. Answering e mails, quite a few e mail. I probably get about fifty e mails a day, if not a hundred some days. Just, you know, because the role of a project manager is really communication, mostly. So every day is different, and that's what I love about it, actually.