There’s a saying: “If you can read this, thank a teacher.” I’ve had a lot of teachers and professors in my time. I’ve not thanked them enough. The standout of all my teachers was Ruth Chapin, my sixth-grade English teacher at L.C. Curtis Junior High in Santa Clara, California, for Read more…
I remember 9/11 it like it was yesterday. 10 months after the horror of 9/11, I joined E-ONE, a fire/rescue vehicle manufacturer in Ocala, Florida, to help them implement mass customization. We had fire/rescue vehicles on backorder for the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) as a consequence of that Read more…
Every week, I ponder what to write about for “Thank God It’s Monday.” Somehow, I hope to come up with something that will be of interest to you. Over the past month, it seems the world has gone mad. I’m sure you are feeling this, too. We’ve seen: 49 people Read more…
About 3 years ago, I traveled to Istanbul to write stories in FastCompany.com about women in the Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network. The day my plane left, citizens rose up in protest over the unilateral decision by then Prime Minister Erdogan to kill 600-year old trees in Gezi Park for a Read more…
The U.K. has decided to leave the European Union. In a forum last week, I wrote that I wasn’t sure that a decision of such import should be left to the citizenry via a referendum.. And, while my position may have been utopian, I had hoped that a decision might Read more…
Muhammad Ali was an enigma. When I first encountered him back in the 1960’s, I thought he was egotistical and full of braggadocio. But, as Ali said: “It’s not bragging if you can back it up.” And, back it up he did. His battle with Parkinson’s disease for over 3 Read more…
We hear a lot about Memorial Day Weekend being “the unofficial start of summer.” It’s a time for family outings, outdoor barbeques, retail sale extravaganzas, etc. This misses the point. Memorial Day, which falls on the last Monday in May each year, is to honor those who made the ultimate Read more…
Yesterday was a day of celebration in the Gardner family: my father’s 90th birthday party. We had the whole family in, people from his church choir, a couple of guys that he had worked with at Panasonic just prior to retirement, his 93-year old sister and her 2 daughters, my Read more…
When I was a teenager, I worked at a private country club. There was a men’s only room where cards were played, copious amounts of alcohol was consumed, and off-color jokes and stories dominated the conversation. As I look back on this, it was good that this area was off-limits Read more…
I don’t live in constant fear of being impacted by terrorist actions such as occurred in Paris this past Friday. I’m not suggesting that such acts can’t or won’t occur in the U.S. It’s unacceptable that terror attacks occur anywhere. Despite our best efforts, terror attacks may occur on U.S. Read more…