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Building disruptive technology at O.M. Station with TASC

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Building disruptive technology at O.M. Station with TASC
Jessica Hill-Knudson at her desk and other TASC employees hard at work in Building 3. Photo by Shari Gasper

By Melissa Gloudeman
TASC

The former Oscar Mayer meat-packing plant is being redeveloped as O.M. Station and is a catalyst for business revitalization on the Northside. That makes it an appropriate site for TASC to build technology that will soon disrupt the employee benefits industry.

TASC (Total Administrative Services Corporation) is the country’s largest privately held third-party administrator of benefit services. About 350 of nearly 1,200 employees nationwide are headquartered at TASC’s International Lane corporate campus, which features 41,500 square feet of offices between two buildings.

As the first tenant at O.M. Station, TASC began leasing 13,000 square feet of the nine-story office building in June 2018. About 80 software programmers, developers and project managers moved into the second-floor offices that formerly housed Oscar Mayer executives and marketing personnel.

TASC first embarked on its journey to build technology for the future in 2016, when 10 employees took up residence in a little building near the intersection of International and American Lanes, nicknamed The Shire. Then hiring began in earnest and they quickly outgrew the space. The group relocated to another rental office on Pankratz Street, but when that building was sold, it was time to move again.

Apparently, the third time is the charm. TASC’s Universal Benefit Account project teams have settled in at O.M. Station over the past 10 months. Known among TASC employees as Building 3, the site certainly has its quirks, from a lack of natural light and seasonal HVAC issues to an employee getting lost in a dark maze of obscure hallways on a weekend (much to the amusement of the guards who pointed TASC’s chief operating officer to a side entrance and then tracked his progress on security cameras).

Building 3 has more of a startup atmosphere than the company’s other locations, including an open floor plan; ping pong tables; potlucks and off-site meals; overtime and weekend hours; cloud-based collaboration on Slack channels; creative naming conventions (i.e., Flamingo and Triforce conference rooms); and Celebration Fridays, complete with informal shout outs, a jersey award for high-performing individuals, a hockey stick award for top teams, and Penny the pig, a peer-to-peer award.

“Even though there’s a lot of overtime work and it’s kind of stressful, it helps that everyone is dedicated and all-in,” said Rommel Punzalan, application developer and tech lead for Team Mojo. “I’ve become friends with almost everyone on the team, which makes things easier. You joke around with them, so it’s not all serious.”

Hebba Mahmoud, manager of application development, agreed. “We’re like a big family here,” said the leader of teams Mojo, Voodoo and Hocus Pocus. They are an international group, working at Building 3 in Madison or remote from Belarus, Colorado, Chicago, San Francisco, South Carolina, Canada and across Wisconsin. Including countries of origin, some of the 18 nationalities represented are Egypt, New Zealand, the Philippines, Nepal, Ireland, India and Sri Lanka.

Each Universal Benefit Account workstream has an area of specialization, including designing, developing, testing, debugging, integrating, implementing and transitioning new and existing clients to version 1.0.

“The level of collaboration we have on the team is probably coming from the fact that we feel like it’s a startup,” Hebba said. “We’re building a brand-new platform. We say we’re building our future. And it’s huge — it’s not just a small startup; we’re building a huge system.”

Hebba and Product Owner Kyle Christian are two of the original team members who started working on Universal Benefit Account at The Shire. “It’s crazy to have been a part of the project since its infancy and see it get to the point where it is now,” Kyle said.

TASC’s Universal Benefit Account platform integrates historically disparate systems, such as medical flexible spending accounts, dependent care reimbursement accounts and tuition reimbursement accounts. Universal Benefit Account can be configured to include any and all of these products, as well as future offerings that don’t yet exist.

“With the Universal Benefit Account platform, TASC has established a foundation that will continue to drive growth for years to come, creating more jobs and opportunities for our community,” said TASC President Cliff Mason.

Jessica Hill-Knudson and Kyle Christian talk shop near the international flags representing countries of origin for TASC’s Universal Benefit Account project teams. Photo by Shari Gasper

Senior Business Analyst Jessica Hill-Knudson and her husband, Jeff Knudson, are Northside residents who are optimistic about the future of the 100-year-old plant that has come to epitomize their neighborhood. “I would love for it to be a place where more people on the Northside could work,” Jessica said. Jeff, who grew up less than 2 miles away from Oscar Mayer, added, “I’m excited to see more businesses like TASC at O.M. Station.”

TASC (Total Administrative Services Corporation) is the country’s largest privately held third-party administrator of benefit services. About 350 of nearly 1,200 employees nationwide are headquartered at TASC’s International Lane corporate campus.

As the first tenant at O.M. Station, TASC began leasing 13,000 square feet of the nine-story office building in June 2018. About 80 software programmers, developers and project managers moved into the second-floor offices that formerly housed Oscar Mayer executives and marketing personnel.

TASC first embarked on its journey to build technology for the future in 2016, when 10 employees took up residence in a little building near the intersection of International and American Lanes. Then hiring began in earnest and they quickly outgrew the space. The group relocated to another rental office on Pankratz Street, but when that building was sold, it was time to move again.

Apparently, the third time is the charm. TASC’s Universal Benefit Account project teams have settled in at O.M. Station over the past 10 months. Known among TASC employees as Building 3, the site certainly has its quirks, from a lack of natural light and seasonal HVAC issues to employees getting lost in a dark maze of obscure hallways on weekends.

Building 3 has more of a startup atmosphere than the company’s other locations, including an open floor plan, ping pong tables, cloud-based collaboration, creative naming conventions and Celebration Fridays. The employees are an international group, working in Madison or remote from Belarus, Colorado, Chicago, San Francisco, South Carolina, Canada and across Wisconsin. Including countries of origin, some of the 18 nationalities represented are Egypt, New Zealand, the Philippines, Nepal, Ireland, India and Sri Lanka.

“Even though there’s a lot of overtime work and it’s kind of stressful, it helps that everyone is dedicated and all-in,” said Rommel Punzalan, application developer and tech lead for Team Mojo. “I’ve become friends with almost everyone on the team, which makes things easier. It’s not all serious.”

Hebba Mahmoud, manager of application development, agreed. “We’re like a big family here,” said the leader of teams Mojo, Voodoo and Hocus Pocus. Each Universal Benefit Account workstream has an area of specialization, including designing, developing, testing, debugging, integrating, implementing, and transitioning new and existing clients to version 1.0.

“We’re building a brand-new platform,” Hebba said. “We say we’re building our future. And it’s huge — it’s not just a small startup; we’re building a huge system.”

TASC’s Universal Benefit Account platform integrates historically disparate systems, such as flexible spending accounts, dependent care reimbursement accounts and tuition reimbursement accounts. Universal Benefit Account can be configured to include any and all of these products, as well as future offerings that don’t yet exist.

“With the Universal Benefit Account platform, TASC has established a foundation that will continue to drive growth for years to come, creating more jobs and opportunities for our community,” said TASC President Cliff Mason.