Principal Partners
Michael Walker
Michael is co-founder and a Managing Partner of DataMadeUseful, LLC. He regularly mixes his sales responsibilities with his long-standing interest in exploring government data. In the past seven years he’s built more than 400 applications for state and local governments, newspapers, and public policy think tanks.
Michael has 35 years of experience working in a wide variety of IT projects for government, non-profits and profit-making businesses.
As a senior consultant for the Stephen Group, Michael provided technical data analysis for the team members assessing all aspects of the Arkansas Medicaid program, including the performance of Medicaid managed care (Arkansas’ Private Option); evaluating pharmacy claims for potential opioid abuse; analyzing member profiles with an eye toward changing work requirements; and data analysis for improving the effectiveness of the eligibility assessment process. And in Mississippi he used performance data supplied by MS DHS to help design improvements of the workflow for child support case workers.
In addition to his work with the Stephen Group, Michael leads DMU’s engagement with the Maine Department of Health and Human Services. This work includes using sophisticated data analysis tools to detect fraud in the EBT and Medicaid programs; identify potential opioid abuse in the Medicaid Pharmacy program; and provide ad hoc decision support for DHHS executives.
Jason Melancon
Jason is co-founder and a Managing Partner of DataMadeUseful, LLC. DataMadeUseful is dedicated to making large complex data sets accessible, intelligible and useful for policy assessment, analysis and planning. DataMadeUseful currently has is managing two pilot programs in two states which implement a new approach to EBT and related fraud and abuse detection. This program puts effective detailed analysis tools in the hands of appropriate investigation staff without requiring extensive training.
DataMadeUseful is also involved in multiple government transparency projects across the US, ranging from comprehensive municipal data comparisons to regional educational performance and cost comparisons to pension fund viability and tools for investigative reporting. DataMadeUseful technology is also being used for econometric modelling of regional family economic health and public transportation systems.
Jason worked as a Senior Consultant with The Stephen Group working in Program Assessment, Management, and Recovery. With The Stephen Group Jason has led Medicaid, traditional and expanded, eligibility and re-determination reviews for the State of Arkansas. His recommendations included revisions to policy and practice to meet federal CMMS requirements and state policy that have been subsequently adopted.
Also with The Stephen Group Jason worked with Mississippi DHS Child Support to make both system and process change recommendations and to create action plans that are currently being implemented.
Jason has been a managing officer of various small consulting firms as well as a Senior Consultant with Cap Gemini Ernst and Young. His primary role in these organizations has been as a program assessment, recovery and turn-around team leader. For the Federal Government, he successfully led the turnaround of the segment of Martin Marietta’s FAA systems engineering contract dedicated to project and program management and integration tools. He led a successful recovery of a Matsushita/Panasonic manufacturing systems redesign project, as well as the recovery of a printing industry program in support of Intuit corporation, and the recovery of a project creating a new generation of information systems for a wholesale tire firm, including an early instance of an integrated wholesale-retail sales and inventory system.
Early in his career Jason held various IT project management roles up through VP of Information Systems. He taught courses in Analysis and Design and Systems Theory at Sonoma State University in California, and delivered training in Project Management software tools to various Federal agencies.