Leader Garden-Helping firms Cultivate and Grow their Leaders

With nary a sunbeam in sight, TVA and the Electric Power Research Institute on Tuesday unveiled a concept for charging the electric vehicles that are just beginning to hit the local highways.

Equipped with about 12 kilowatts’ worth of solar panels and a battery array with about five kilowatt-hours of storage, the six-parking-spot station will be used to analyze the potential impact of electric vehicles on the electric grid as well as ways to supplement that power. It is the first of two such stations to be built in East Tennessee and will serve as a research prototype to model how electric cars can be juiced up when they’re away from home.

via Solar Knowledge: TVA Unveils Electric Vehicle Charging Station Prototype.

Pretty fascinating technology that will support the upcoming launch of many electrical vehicle models.

Marriott International, one of the nation’s leading hotel groups, says it’s pulling access to adult movies from new hotel rooms it will open in the next several years.

Marriott says its decision coincides with a pending shift to new in-room entertainment technology for its new hotels. Traditional video systems, which included access to adult content displayed in the menu selection, will be replaced by Internet-based video-on-demand systems.

But the decision also comes after years of discussing whether the availability of lucrative adult films in guest rooms is appropriate and whether safeguards exist to prevent children from seeing it.

via Marriott decides adult movies have no place in its hotels | tennessean.com | The Tennessean.

I have to commend Marriott for having the guts to make this decision.  The pornography industry is a huge industry and having a major chain like Marriott pull the plug sends a loud signal to many others.

Education is an issue that always weighs heavily on my mind and the current time is no different.  The reason I am writing this post is to compare two issues that are only casually related, but that both truly matter on the world stage.  These two issues are the education of women in Afghanistan and Pakistan and STEM education in the United States.  While they may seem like they are a world apart, there is an interesting parallel that I cannot get out of my mind.  I hope you too will see this parallel.

In June of this year I had the honor to attend the Rotary International Convention in Montreal and during this convention I had the greater honor to hear Greg Mortensen 

speak about his work educating young girls and now women in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Seeing this presentation has inspired me to read both Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools.  If you have not read these books, please do so as soon as possible.  It is simply amazing to see what can happen when one person, one man, chooses to make a difference.  I will not bore you with all of the numbers, but be aware that the number of girls being educated in these two countries has increased by over a factor of 10 as a result of Mr. Mortensen’s vision and the hard work of many within the countries.  The Taliban had worked to minimize, if not eliminate, the education of women because they understand the  value and power that women have in the household.  Even the United States military has gotten involved because they too see how the true long term power we can bring to that part of the world is education, especially the education of women and girls.

The parallel I see is that while one easily recognizable force, the Taliban, has impacted the education of women and girls, there are many factors that have had similar impacts on the education of young people in America.  The biggest obstacle I have seen to STEM education, especially Engineering education, is the deterioration of interest and proficiency in mathematics and the physical sciences in our country.  There are many reasons that young people lose interest in the sciences, but one of the most basic is that Engineering and Science is not viewed as “sexy” and “cool.”  There are some exceptions to this, such as the CSI series, but when was the last time you saw someone in the engineering field depicted as cool rather than as a “geek?”  Even the IT arm of Best Buy is know as the “Geek  Squad,” hardly a flattering name for a valuable group.

Statistics from the National Science Foundation show that while STEM graduates in America dropped during the 1990’s and 2000’s, there has been some improvement in the later 2000’s, a small glimmer of hope in my eyes.

Why is this an important issue?  Think about this; the professions that truly create value are usually the sciences, whether through new technology or drug discovery or a whole host of innovative ideas that are firmly rooted in the sciences and in engineering.  While meaning to offense to the legal profession, attorneys do not create wealth, they only redistribute it.  Accountants add no value, they only add up the results.

What can you do?  If you are a parent you can encourage your children to consider STEM careers when they think about  career choices.  If you are an educator, you can make your offerings interesting and contextually relevant for your students.  If you are a business leader, you can get involved in STEM initiatives in your region such as the ACE Mentor

program, an initiative that promotes careers in Architecture, Engineering and Construction.

Each of us can play a part.  You don’t have to go to a third-world country to make a difference.  You can do great things in your own back yard.

Auburn University is slated to receive $938,000 from a BP initiative that designated $5 million in rapid response funds for Alabama’s Marine Environmental Science Consortium, Auburn officials announced this morning.

The money is to be used for immediate state research programs in response to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to an Auburn University news release.

Auburn’s funding is spread among multiple projects in the College of Sciences and Mathematics, Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, College of Agriculture and the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences.

via Auburn to get almost $1 million for Gulf oil spill response projects | al.com.

Congrats to Auburn for securing this grant from BP and kudos to BP for putting more money into research that will help with future oil issues in the gulf.

Montreal’s loss is Memphis’s gain. Electrolux AB, the world’s second-biggest home appliance maker, said yesterday its decision to shut its l’Assomption plant by late 2013 and shift production to a new $190-million factory in Tennessee is final.

L’Assomption, off the eastern tip of Montreal Island, loses its principal private-sector employer and 1,300 jobs. Electrolux will hire 1,250 employees in Memphis to produce new-generation built-in and specialty kitchen appliances in a new 700,000 square-foot plant.

Memphis city and county have provided the land in the Frank Pidgeon Industrial Park at no cost. They are putting up $20 million U.S. each for such infrastructure as roads and sewers and the state is kicking in another $92 million, local filings said. Another $400 million will be invested by suppliers.

The new plant, starting up in mid-2012 and slated for full production in 2013, will mesh closely with Electrolux’s existing kitchen-range plant in Springfield, Tenn., with a workforce of 3,000.

via Electrolux jobs moving to Memphis.

While I am happy for Memphis and my home state of Tennessee, economic development can sometimes be a “zero-sum” game when some lose while others win.

Efficiency will continue to rule the day and those who believe in a socialist economy will do well to see how these jobs moved from a strongly socialist, union environment to a free-market, non-union market in a sun-belt state.

India’s economy is projected to grow by 8.5 percent this fiscal year, and last year mostly dodged the slump that hit the US and Europe.

Trade between India and the US is expected to reach $50 billion this year. Last year, the US exported almost as much to India ($16.4 billion) as it imported ($21.2 billion). A study by the India-US World Affairs Institute linked those American exports to 96,000 US jobs.

“Many American companies still don’t think of India as a serious market. When I tell people that India has a trillion-dollar economy, many are shocked,” says Gunjan Bagla, principal of Amritt Ventures, a California company that advises companies on how to do business in India. “I’m hopeful that Obama’s visit will change that.”

via Why some young US workers now seek fortunes in India – CSMonitor.com.

If you are not aware and awake to what is happening in India, you need to get caught up.

A day after Afghanistan’s president stridently criticized United States military tactics in Afghanistan, the US general in charge of international troops there has hit back. Gen. David Petraeus told officials Sunday that President Hamid Karzai’s remarks threaten to undermine the war in Afghanistan.

The war of words puts the differences between Mr. Karzai and the US in sharp focus just days before the Obama administration will present its plan for transferring security responsibilities from coalition soldiers to the Afghan military and security forces. It also comes as 30,000 additional US soldiers have recently arrived in Afghanistan as part of a new US strategy there.

via Petraeus strikes back at Karzai ahead of major NATO conference on Afghanistan – CSMonitor.com.

Afghanistan is a strange ally and I trust General Petraeus’s judgment here.

New Book Hit Stores Oct. 12

Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen’s broad government and healthcare experience and expertise are brought to bear in his first book, a thought-provoking examination of why America’s healthcare system can’t be reformed if government and the industry don’t change course. Fresh Medicine: How to Fix, Reform and Build a Sustainable Health Care System will hit bookstores on Oct. 12, offering the governor’s insight into a model that he calls “hypercomplex” and “obsolete.”Bredesen is wrapping up his eight years as governor, which were preceded by two terms as Nashville’s mayor. In 1980, he founded HealthAmerica Corp., a Nashville-based healthcare management company that grew to more than 6,000 employees and traded on the New York Stock Exchange. He sold that business in 1986.

via Bredesen Offers “Fresh Medicine” to Reform Healthcare on Nashville Medical News.

Phil Bredesen is a businessman who chose politics for many of the right reasons.  I would suspect his writings and opinions will be valued by many, including me.

I would encourage you to read the article and find a copy of the book.

I suspect he will resurface in other significant roles after he leaves office this year.  I hope he does not completely retire.  It would be a great loss to us all.

Europe’s largest exporter kept up pressure on China to more fairly align its currency with those of its trading partners, warning that a trade war could result from countries competing to aid exports by holding down their currencies.

German Economy Minister Rainer Brüderle said it is up to China to prevent a damaging trade dispute with the U.S. “We have to take care that the currency war doesn’t become a trade war,” Mr. Brüderle told the Wednesday edition of Handelsblatt daily. The ministry later confirmed the comments. “China bears a lot of responsibility for ensuring that it doesn’t come to an escalation.”

via Germany Warns of Trade War Over Yuan – WSJ.com.

Not a good sign, but not totally unexpected.

On Oct. 24, 1996, Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole got up at a campaign rally and promptly lost it: “I wonder sometimes what people are thinking about, or if people are thinking at all,” he shouted. “Wake up, America!”

Those words — an unmistakable harbinger of the humiliation Dole would experience by losing to Bill Clinton in a landslide 12 days later — seemed to echo painfully like Taylor Swift singing without the benefit of an auto-tune machine in the bewildering comments made over the last couple of days by President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

Not off the leash? Joe Biden’s “stop whining” lecture to Democrats echoes the president’s “inexcusable” comments to Rolling Stone.

It’s odd, to put it mildly, that the veep chose to go to New Hampshire on Monday and declare that Democrats disappointed with the president should “buck up” and “stop whining.”

Vice presidents are at times tasked with issuing direct broadsides against enemies while the top guy stays above the fray. But never before has a vice president served as an attack dog against his own party’s voters.

One might have chalked up these wild words to Biden’s propensity to speak incautiously. But then Rolling Stone released excerpts of an interview conducted 11 days ago with Obama in which the president said almost exactly the same thing: “People need to shake off this lethargy,” he insisted. “People need to buck up.”

via Blaming the voters – NYPOST.com.

A strong breeze is blowing across our county and it will “blow many incumbents out of office” this fall, especially those aligned with the big-spending and fiscally irresponsible administration that was swept into office by thousands, if not millions, of Kool-Aid drinking drones looking for change.  When we as taxpayers start picking up the tab for the damage that has been done we will realize just how hoodwinked we were with the Dem’s duo of Obama and Biden and thier henchmen, Pelosi and Reid.

This election will make the ’94 election look like a blip rather than the spike it really was.