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The development of budgets, managing contracts, placing
major equipment purchases and the tracking of expenditures
are performed by the Program Manager and Deputy Program
Manager. Additionally, initial communications with the PIs
for instrument scheduling are conducted by the IRIS staff on
site in Socorro. Transportable Array Manager Robert Busby,
based in Massachusetts, coordinates with the overall AOF
operations and remotely directs day-to-day TACO operations
in association with TACO Manager, Steven Welch.
Resource prioritization, aspects of instrument development
and acquisition schedules, and annual budget recommendations
for the PASSCAL Program and the PIC are provided
by the IRIS PASSCAL Standing Committee (Appendix A),
which meets semiannually and reports directly to the
IRIS Board of Directors.
PIC Operations
PASSCAL management and staff are generally organized
into supervisory and specialization groups. Five of these
groups have supervisors reporting to the director: Hardware,
Sensors and Logistics, Software, the Transportable Array
Coordinating Office, and a Front Office. The Director
directly supervises a sixth group that includes Polar,
Data, and Accounting and Shipping activities. Because
personnel are frequently working directly with PIs in the
field, there is considerable overlapping expertise and a
sharing of tasks across these groups. Many of the staff have
distributed support reflecting overlapping responsibilities
between PASSCAL and EarthScope Array Operations
Facility operations.
Hardware
The Hardware Group overseen by Associate Director
Mike Fort is responsible for quality assurance and maintenance
of dataloggers and ancillary electronic equipment
and power systems.
Sensors
Between the PASSCAL core program and EarthScope,
PASSCAL supports over 1200 broadband and a nearly equal
number of intermediate- to short-period seismometers.
Sensor staff are responsible for both testing and repair, with
three staff using the PIC’s two seismic piers essentially full
time. Broadband sensor evaluation for new and returning
seismometers is typically done in simultaneous batches of
ten sensors per pier. Each pier test typically takes from three
to five days, after which staff reviews the time series, both
individually and in comparison with a reference sensor. A
sensor that fails a pier test will evaluated by a repair staff of
two, who have received special training from both of our
principal broadband sensor vendors, Guralp and Streckeisen.
Logistics and Shipping
PASSCAL currently supports roughly 60 unique experiments
per year worldwide. Logistics and shipping, overseen
by Noel Barstow, typically handles all shipping arrangements
from the PIC to the remote field in close association with the
Hardware Group. Logistics and shipping staff work closely
with PIs at all project stages to ensure that projects run
smoothly and that science objectives are achieved. Services
include shipping and customs documentation, carrier information,
and general liaison activities with brokers and carriers.
Shipping activities are also assisted by Jackie Gonzales
under the direct supervision of the Director.
Software
The Software Group, supervised by Steve Azevedo, includes
software developers and systems administrators. The group
supports software development and implementation essential
for processing PASSCAL data from raw field format to
formats suitable for quality assurance, archival and scientific
analysis. The staff also develops software for in-house hardware
testing, programming, and quality-control tools, as well
as supporting and distributing a PASSCAL software suite of
data format-conversion, inventory control, metadata, data
visualization, and quality-control tools that have overlapping
uses both in-house and for the user community.
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