Base Of Knowledge Servicesector Hopes To Be Main Source Of Industrial Expertise

Dan Watson deftly dismantles a pressure-relief valve, noting unusual wear on the disk holder.

The “chatter” that probably caused the wear indicates the valve has been subjected to operating pressures too close to its relief point.

“That tells me that process control isn’t working right,” he says.

For Watson, who maintained hundreds of such devices in Alaska for Atlantic Richfield Co., the diagnosis is a simple one.

But the newly retired Post Falls resident said his successors on the Alyeska Pipeline, or in other remote locations, probably will not have the expertise he acquired over more than 30 years in the military and private sectors.

And a generation of technicians just like him is leaving the work force, he said.

So, Watson said, two years ago he started to think about how that knowledge could be captured and passed on. He also looked at the expensive mass of engineering manuals, maintenance logs and other paperwork clogging depositories and thought there had to be a better way.

For example, he said, the Arco facility where he worked had 125,000 pieces of equipment. There were 1.5 million documents explaining and tracking their use, he said.

Watson said he decided to apply some database training he received to creating an Intranet site where all of the information pertaining to valves used along Arco’s pipeline system could be compiled.

He said he was stymied by vendors who did not want to provide codes, standards and other documentation.

That did not discourage Watson, who used the two weeks each month he was not on duty in Alaska to search the Internet for guidance on how to start a business.

“I did a master’s of business administration by surfing the Internet, basically,” he said, noting that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Entrepreneur Club was a particularly useful resource.

With additional help from the Washington Software Alliance, Watson found his way to Preston Gates Ellis LLP, a Northwest legal firm that arranged $400,000 in financing for his venture.

Servicesector Inc. was incorporated in January.

With the funds raised by Preston Gates Ellis, Servicesector is paying for development and hosting of an Internet site by Computer Science Corp., a Massachusetts company. The site will be a clearinghouse of information for technicians and others.

“It’s one of the more exciting projects of the projects I’ve been working on,” said James McDevitt, an attorney with Preston Gates Ellis.

Not only will industrial documentation be more readily available at far less cost, Watson said, the information could be constantly updated as technicians around the world logged in their problems, solutions, and questions about what others in the field were finding.

“Until the Internet, we didn’t have any way of doing that,” Watson said.

The Internet, he added, has also overwhelmed vendor efforts to keep information in manuals proprietary.

Once in place, vendors will be able to post product documentation on the site for a fee, Watson said. Users will also post a small fee.

Charges will depend in part on what security measures clients want to protect their data.

The site will also contain industry codes, as well as government safety and compliance regulations.

“There’s nothing quite as advanced, as revolutionary,” McDevitt said.

Watson said the energy and petro-chemical industries will be the initial targets for servicesector.com, the site’s address. The transportation sector will follow.

His former boss at Arco is on his board of advisers, he noted.

The marketing efforts are to be undertaken from a headquarters site in the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene area, Watson said, noting the site has yet to be chosen. Human resources, research and benefits administration will also be handled from the headquarters.

Watson there are CD-based products on the market that do some of what servicesector.com will do, but they are not interactive and not as comprehensive. He expects the system to be ready during the second quarter next year.

For Watson, Servicesector is a dramatic change from a retirement he thought would center on a Lake Coeur d’Alene charter business.

The Buhl, Idaho, native who once traveled the small-track thoroughbred racing circuit with his father said the company gives him a chance to give back to the industry the skills it gave him.

“I’m a happy camper,” he said.