The Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) announced it hired Russell Rappel-Schmid as PRC’s first chief data officer (CDO), and also unveiled a new service performance data dashboard.
Rappel-Schmid most recently served as Alaska’s first CDO, where he worked with the State Office of IT on a data governance plan for moving to the cloud. He also served at the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (USPS OIG) where he was a member of USPS OIG’s data analytics team.
“I am excited to welcome Russell Rappel-Schmid to the Commission,” said PRC Chairman Michael Kubayanda. “With his experience implementing data initiatives and his knowledge of the postal sector, Russ is well-positioned to lead the Commission’s emergent open data efforts, and to support the Commission as it continues to provide transparency and accountability of the postal system.”
PRC also introduced a beta of its service performance data dashboard to make postal data more accessible and usable, and opened a public inquiry to gather feedback on the dashboard.
The dashboard displays data provided by USPS on national-level service performance results for specific “market dominant” postal products and/or product components.
For the dashboard, PRC is seeking public input on the following:
- Overall usefulness and desirability of dashboard-style visualization concerning USPS’ service performance;
- Current dashboard presentation, usability, functionality, and other features;
- The scope of products and/or product components covered by the dashboard;
- Frequency of desired updates; and
- Desirability of downloading source data, and in what format.
“In this inquiry, the Commission also seeks additional input from the public regarding what, if any, other dashboards and similar tools the Commission should develop in order to provide more accessible and usable data (e.g., postal finances, etc.) regarding the Postal Service,” PRC said.
