Memorial Day 2025: Remember Them...

On Memorial Day 2025 what do you think about and remember in memory of our fallen.

Those brave men and women in the USA who have defended our Flag and our Freedom for almost 250 years.

Walking through Arlington Cemetery anytime, or to a Funeral in Section 60 there, provides context on how much we value our country, our way of life and the people who call themselves true “Americans’.

“As we seek to shrink what remains of the Gap over the next several decades, we will rarely find societies adequately prepared—either intellectually or emotionally—for the travails that lie ahead. Instead, the elements most prepared will be the most willing to wage bloody resistance against this process: educated, worldly young men who are familiar with the future we offer and have already decided that it is corrupting beyond all reason. These revolutionaries and terrorists will wage wars of extreme perversity against both us and their own peoples, convinced as they are of their moral superiority in rooting out hypocrisy and heresy.”

The Pentagon’s New Map - BLUEPRINT For ACTION - A Future Worth Creating - Page 281- Thomas P.M. Barnett 2005

Over twenty years after reading this book, we are still at war. Memorial Day each year and many years ahead of us will be about our American citizens, who have served in our U.S. Military and lost their lives.

This Memorial Day weekend as you see the military ceremonies, or hear the fighter jets flying in formation over your city...now think about all those who have served behind the front lines, Visible and Invisible.

The “Quiet Professionals” in the United States who provide a spectrum of services, supplies and continuous information in support of securing our valuable freedom.

As you reread chapters of "BLUEPRINT FOR ACTION" while you watch our Flag waving in the wind, Remember Them…Never Forget, Always Be Ready!

Business Survival: Training & Simulation to Mitigate Risk...

The risk of loss from external events is a growing emphasis by many Operational Risk Officers.

Preparedness is a key strategy to mitigating hazards and minimizing the loss of property and life. Imagine for a moment that you have a complete model of your facility, building or mall. A virtual model.

One that you can use to train employees, staff and other suppliers about the idiosyncratic nature of your evacuation procedures or shelter-in-place locations.

Not only is this method of training smart, it is cost effective and allows for participant interaction directly with the model and the procedures.

Real-time training with people in one room or multiple locations it does not matter. The participants can be exercised without exposure to potential hazardous situations until they are ready for a complete and full test of the simulation with a live scenario. The other applications include your physical security teams.

The strategy for Business Survival begins with an understanding of how your corporate assets are being attacked, both online and offline. Both physical and digital.

Our corporate assets are under attack by a continuous barrage of new laws, new employees, new competitors and new exploits. Business survival in the next decade will require a more effective and robust risk strategy to deter, detect and defend against a myriad of new threats to the organization.

Modern day attackers include hackers, spies, terrorists, corporate raiders, professional criminals, vandals and voyeurs.

Simply said, these attackers use tools to exploit vulnerabilities. They create an action on a target that produces an unauthorized result. They do this to obtain their objective.

The Mission

Deter the attacker from launching a salvo of new threats to compromise your organizations assets. You first have to understand the value of your corporate assets to determine what are the most valuable in the eyes of your adversary. You must make it increasingly more difficult for these valuable assets to be attacked or you will find yourself under the constant eye of those who wish to create a significant business disruption.

These attackers are individuals who take on these quests or objectives for several key reasons. They include financial gain, political gain, damage or the simple challenge, status or thrill. It’s your job to create deterrence for each one of these objectives.

The Take Away

In order to effectively deter potential risks to your corporate assets, first you have to understand what they are and how valuable they are in the eyes of each kind of attacker. The more valuable the target, the more deterrence it requires.

Mothers Day 2025: Remembering Anne...

Reflecting upon your Mom at this time of year, is always a treasure of memories.

Here are a wonderful few that decades later, stand out in my life about Anne:

• Anne was an only child and maybe that is why she always seemed so capable and reliable all the time. We were always on time for our car pool to swim practice each week. Usually that meant picking up 4 of us from the same neighborhood after school and taking us downtown to the “Youth Building” for a few hour workout.
• Anne was a very social lady, and met Dad at a Northwestern University, Pi Phi Sorority party. The social party gal continued to have dinner parties and I remember the late night tunes in bed upstairs until 11:00PM on Fridays or Saturdays while their friends danced the night away to “Petula Clarks” “Downtown” and other mid-sixties bands.
• Anne was a gifted Artist and through her life spent countless hours in the basement “Art Studio” of our childhood homes painting large canvas oil abstracts and hundreds of others that were multimedia. They still adorn our and our kids places over fire places and in bedrooms. One of the favorites is a 48”x48” multi-Media Oil named “Dream Sleep” she painted in 1996.

Anne married Richard in 1955 and a year later was off base at Parris Island and was still at his side when she passed away in 2014.

She was devoted to him through thick and thin and especially to her four kids. As the oldest son, thinking about my Mother explains so much, about how we all learned and what was so important in life.

• Anne sent us off to Sunday School at an early age to St. Thomas Episcopal to develop our faith in Jesus and turn us towards serving others and fully understanding the Ten Commandments.
• Anne sent us off to six week “Summer Camps” that were hours away in Wisconsin and Northern Michigan were we could learn new skills such as, Sailing, Horseback Riding, Water Skiing, Riflery, Archery, Camping and Canoeing.
• Anne supported us getting out of our “Small Town” to go to college in another state. University of Colorado was a wonderful choice that helped with a real passion for Snow Ski Racing. A year later, my parents relocated to Teton Village, Wyoming. Perfect.
• Anne was also an excellent snow skier and will never forget the times we talked about life on the Rendezvous Mountain Tram and the lifts to the top of Apres Vous Mountain. She chased me down the “Blue” runs there yet they were almost Teton “Black” runs!

A Mom that loved us, looked after me, protected me, taught me, gave me the support to grow up with new Skills, Faith, Integrity and Ambition to be a Father myself and learn first hand what being a Mother is really all about. Anne was just one Mom, who does it all for her children.

Thank you to all the wonderful and couragous Moms on this day of celebration, “Mothers Day 2025”…

Innovation Leadership: In The Company of "True Professionals"...

Floating down the Potomac River looking back on the Key Bridge this week, brings back decades of memories living and working in Northern Virginia.

Before you have experience on the geographic region of the center of leadership of the USA, you might be naive.

Your perspective from a distance could be deficient in worldly wisdom or informed judgement.

Our United States is due for significant change and upgrades after years of ambivalence, it is now time for us to have laser focus.

Look around your own neighborhood. What do you see, as clear examples of lost strategy and poor planning.

After you have realized that improvement is necessary, go to work:

• Innovate.
• Accelerate.
• Repeat.

If you were in the National Capital Region (NCR) in the early 2000-2005 era, you may have some understanding of the rapid pace then, the daily sense of urgency.

Our days were long yet the enthusiasm and the ambition was tremendous. The private sector and government collaboration was continuous, inside and outside your organization.

The next generation of new companies, new ideas and innovative products will not come from AI.

They will come from “Small Teams” of very strong and bright people. "Trust Decisions" will be exponential created by colleagues with decades of knowledge and first hand experience.

Once the new wave of USA spirited organizations deliver the results of their 24/7/365 human-based initiatives, our country will see our new Courage, our Creativity and our Wealth.

In the company of fellow "True Professionals", we shall see new and promising inventions, upgrades, “Critical Infrastructure” innovation and “Decision Advantage” in our International Global Affairs.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” ― Albert Einstein