Marcia Elaine Walker is a principal consultant in the industry practice of SAS, where she helps clients apply data management and analytics technologies to make better decisions, faster. Walker’s career has revolved around the industrial sector including energy, manufacturing, and mining. She holds eight issued and multiple pending patents related to analytics in the industrial space and was named one of the most influential women in IoT by the IoT Institute. Ms. Walker was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Heidelberg and in addition to her academic studies has hundreds of hours of training in martial arts. She is also an accomplished improv actress and an enthusiastic though very off-key singer. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and their excessively furry orange cat and loves to write.
As an American child growing up on a military base in Germany, I learned many important life lessons. One of the most important was about language and communication. I realized at age 12 that, even though I could speak German, I thought in English -- and it led me to
As he watched me unpack yet another Amazon delivery, my husband decided to do an intervention. Scattered around me on the floor were solar panels, water purification tablets, tarps, hunting knives and enough batteries to power New York City for many weeks. It was 2019 and hurricane season was upon
Singer-songwriter David Wilcox kept me out of prison. That’s not a country song gone bad – it’s a real-life experience. Almost two decades ago, I attended a David Wilcox concert in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. His songs have always hooked my heart, and one in particular caught my attention that
GAHHHHHHHHH! My screams filled the office hallways on a Sunday afternoon. In agony, I hopped to the ice machine to find relief for my crushed toe. Moments before, while hanging my shiny new patent plaque on the wall, it dropped six feet and landed on my big toe joint. Since
“I do not like this modern technology,” said my father-in-law. “It is making people too lazy. Things are too easy now.” He was referring to my grocery order. I was sitting in his kitchen in Reykjavik, Iceland, the day before my return to the United States. I had just explained
The expletive leapt from the lips of the orthopedic surgeon as he entered my hospital room. He was swathed in a green gown, purple gloves, and a white surgical mask – for his protection, not mine. He was clearly upset. “What, exactly, does $#@! mean?” I asked. “It means you’re
