During the period of 1995-1999, the document's author worked with or managed R. Benjamin Ordonez at McDonald's Corporation. Ordonez was responsible for the installation, operation, and maintenance of McDonald's Lotus Notes environment. He ensured the environment operated at required service levels and a favorable total cost of ownership. Ordonez also identified unused capabilities and recommended changes, such as implementing a NotesPump capability to integrate data between Notes and Oracle databases for McDonald's Site Development unit. The author confirms Ordonez had exemplary skills across diverse technology areas and performed his responsibilities with a high degree of professionalism.

1. Group
Technology
Architecture
ManagementTAM
TAM Group Inc. • 541 Big Thompson Ave., Ste F • P. O. Box 957 • Estes Park, CO 80517 • 970 586-1090
http://www.tamgroupinc.com
24 November 2003
To Whom It May Concern:
During the period 1995 – 1999, I worked with, or managed, Mr. R. Benjamin Ordonez in the Information
Services department of McDonald’s Corporation in Oak Brook, IL. I was McDonald’s Enterprise
Architect and directed the work of McDonald’s Applied Technology Laboratory. I am currently a
Principal with the TAM Group, Inc.
During that time, most of my first-hand experience with Mr. Ordonez was in the area of Lotus Notes
system administration. At a high-level, this means that Mr. Ordonez was responsible for the installation
and operation of McDonald’s Lotus Notes environment at required service levels. Lotus Notes is a
distributed environment that incorporates a variety of technologies and disciplines into a single integrated
suite; some of these include:
1. EMAIL clients and servers,
2. Internet / web capabilities such as web servers and web development tools,
3. Guaranteed delivery and the ability to work remotely or while untethered,
4. Databases for the storage and management of unstructured data, “pumping” data to / from
relational stores, such as Oracle, and capabilities and services for knowledge management,
5. An application development environment,
6. Workflow capabilities,
7. Enterprise-wide calendaring, and
8. The ability to run in a heterogeneous platform environment (MS Windows and UNIX were used
at McDonald’s).
Mr. Ordonez was responsible for both service delivery and service management in each of these areas. As
noted before, this included day-to-day operations as well a planning for and recommending change that
would enable McDonald’s to either reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of the Notes environment
or would enable McDonald’s to take advantage of new / unused Notes capabilities to its advantage,
respectively.
Mr. Ordonez executed his responsibilities in each of these areas in an exemplary fashion and with a high-
degree of professionalism. Perhaps the best example of his ability to operate and maintain the Notes
environment at required service levels and at a favorable TCO was that, during my tenure at McDonald’s,
two outside studies were commissioned by the Chief Information Officer (CIO) to assess the benefits of
outsourcing the Notes environment. In both cases, McDonald’s IS department was found to be the low-
cost provider of Lotus Notes services.
With respect to identifying and recommending change, Mr. Ordonez investigated and developed
McDonald’s initial implementation of the NotesPump capability that provided the ability to interchange
and integrate data between Notes databases and Oracle databases. The initial implementation of this was in
McDonald’s Site Development business unit that resulted in quality, quantity, and cost improvements in
basic data capture and analysis. From the business’ perspective, this reduced the window required to open
a restaurant once the site was selected.
Finally, Mr. Ordonez’s expertise in the Lotus Notes environment and all of the supporting networking,
database, and administrative technologies and procedures was demonstrated in 1996 through the
publication by McGraw-Hill of the book Lotus Notes The Complete Reference (co-authored with Barbara
Bolin).
A diverse set of technology competencies, administrative, and organizational skills were required to be
successful in Mr. Ordonez’ position. He was (and is) well respected by his peers, management, and

2. TAM Group: PLAP Ordonez 25/Nov/03 Page 2
external business partners. I was quite surprised when I found out that he did not possess a college degree
as his knowledge, performance, and work ethic often exceeded that of the degreed professionals around
him.
Please contact me directly at nwybolt@tamgroupinc.com or at 630-215-7748 if you have any questions.
Very truly yours,
Nicholas Wybolt
Principal