A Congress.gov Interview with Dalvinder Multani, Former Director of LIMS in the Office of the Clerk

Today’s Congress.gov interview is with the former Director of LIMS in the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, Dalvinder Multani. 

Describe your background. 

I was born and raised in a small town named Tanda Urmar in the Punjab province of Northern India. I wanted to become a medical doctor but unfortunately, I could not qualify to enter a medical school. Instead, I pursued an MS Honors School degree in mycology and plant pathology at the Department of Botany, Punjab University, Chandigarh. My intent was to get into agricultural research, therefore, after completing the MS degree, I accepted a research fellowship to pursue PhD in the same discipline in the same school. My thesis topic was “The Fungal Flora of Eastern Himalayas.” Fate, however, had something else in mind. After about two years of research work, in 1978, I had an opportunity to immigrate to the United States, and did not complete the Ph.D. Upon arrival and after some research, I realized that securing a career in IT may be my best option. I, therefore, went to a trade school to learn computer programming.

I started my IT career with a minority-owned company that had a contract with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to manage a system/database on a DEC computer. The system was slated to be updated using newer technologies. The systems integrator, Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), was awarded a contract to redesign the system; therefore, I was hired by CSC as a subject matter expert. CSC trained me in Software AG technologies, which gave me a career path such that I eventually worked for Software AG and acquired a variety of skills from sales support to managing large professional services contracts. I was appointed Program Manager on a multi-year contract with the Office of the Clerk for the U.S. House of Representatives to migrate the Legislative Information Management System (LIMS) from an IBM Mainframe to an HP-Unix platform. The LIMS System feeds legislative data into Congress.gov daily when Congress is in session. Upon completion of the project, I was hired by the Office of the Clerk to manage the LIMS System.

How would you describe your job to other people?

In my job as the Director of LIMS, I led a team of highly skilled professionals responsible for developing, maintaining, and supporting one of the most important applications used in the House: a system that records and tracks all legislative activities, creates official records, and disseminates legislative data to our partners, the Senate, the Government Publishing Office, and the Library of Congress‘s Congress.gov platform.

What was your role in the development of Congress.gov?

The LIMS System was developed in the mid to late 1980s and utilized the data transfer system available at the time, which involved the creation and transfer of “slash files.” The “slash files” were highly cryptic data files interpreted by the Library of Congress’ processes before updating the website. As the need arose to modernize the websites, my team worked closely with the Library’s technical teams to replace the legacy “slash files” with a more modern JSON-based interface.

What is your favorite feature of Congress.gov?

The “search” features of Congress.gov amaze me. One can search based on almost any legislative data item or any “text.” I recently retired from the position of Director of LIMS with the Office of the Clerk. I was fortunate to be inducted into the Congressional Record for my service to the House. A quick search on my name rendered this – THANKING DALVINDER MULTANI FOR HIS SERVICE TO THE HOUSE.

What is the most interesting fact you’ve learned about the legislative process while working on Congress.gov?

The coordination between the Congress.gov and Office of the Clerk’s teams is exemplary. Both sides’ knowledge of the legislative process is second to none. Any proposed rule changes for the new Congress are communicated and discussed proactively.

What’s something most of your co-workers do not know about you?

I have traveled extensively through the Himalayas for graduate and post-graduate studies as my field of study was the fungal flora of the Himalayas. Also, as a performing arts fanatic, I have acted under the direction of a Bollywood veteran, Amol Palekar.

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