July August 2011
Where Christian faith gets down to business
Heard the one about the retired banker? Man of steel is brimming with joy Leaving your heirs more than money
Perennial passion:
B.C.’s John Schroeder grows food for the soul 1
The Marketplace July August 2011
Roadside stand
Faith and the free market — how’s the fit? What’s the fit between capitalism and Christianity? For readers of this magazine, who tend to come from the ranks of business, the answer might have its own ring of clarity. Others may feel differently. A recent article in Christian Century posed the question this way: “Are Christianity and capitalism a marriage made in heaven ... or more of a strained relationship in need of some serious counseling?” It reported on a recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with Religion News Service. Some may be surprised at the findings. It seems that more Americans (44 percent) see the free market system at odds with Christian values than those who don’t (36 percent). The findings cut across a spectrum of Christians, from white evangelicals and minority Christians to mainline Protestants and Catholics. Not surprisingly, those with good incomes felt better disposed to the free market. Nearly half (46 percent) who earned more than $100,000 were inclined to see congruence between Christianity and capitalism; not so much those (23 percent) who earned less than $30,000. Women (50 percent) were more likely than men (37 percent) to see a mismatch. When it came to specific issues, like business behavior, white evangelicals (44 percent) were more likely to think that unregulated businesses would still behave ethically. Among Americans generally, Cover photo of John Schroeder by Wally Kroeker
The Marketplace July August 2011
61 percent disagree that businesses would act ethically on their own without government regulation. Clearly, not enough people know about how Mennonites do business.
owner, Frank Buckley. He began using it in 1986, and its brutal candor vaulted the product to first place in its industry, a slot it held until the company was sold in 2002. In some commercials he’d add, “I’m dedicated to ensuring every new batch tastes as bad as the last.” Now 90, Buckley was recently inducted into Canada’s Marketing Hall of Legends. In a recent interview he said, “It really does taste bad.” (Globe & Mail)
MEDA board member Marion Good has moved to a new staff role as Regional Director, Resource Development for Ontario. She has served as a member of the executive committee of the MEDA board of directors for seven years and was previously a member of the Waterloo MEDA Chapter Marion Good board where she served a full term of nine years, four as chair. Since 1995, Good has worked as branch manager for Mennonite Savings and Credit Union; she worked at the Milverton branch until June 2009 and then transferred to the Waterloo branch until September 2010. In addition to her 15 years in the financial services industry, Good was a founding member of the organizing committee of the Waterloo Region ASSETS+ Program (WRAP). She will be based in MEDA’s Waterloo office.
Former MEDA staffer Linda Jones has been appointed manager of the Coady Institute’s new International Centre for Women’s Leadership in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. The centre will provide high-level and practical educational programs to equip women leaders around the world. While at MEDA Jones served as technical director, leading women’s economic programs as well as providing overall technical guidance for international operations. She holds a Ph.D in anthropology and a post-degree diploma in peace and conflict studies. She has published widely on women and economic development and value chain development, and is editor of the Journal of Enterprise Development and Microfinance.
Being Frank. Chalk one up for forthright advertising. Many Canadians know the unusual pitch line for Buckley’s cough syrup — “it tastes awful and it works.” For many years the epic line was delivered in TV commercials by the company’s
Late recovery. Want to make a good impression at a job interview? Be on time, says job-etiquette expert Peter Post, who is amazed by the number of applicants who show up late. “Unfortunately, when 2
you’re late, the first words out of your mouth are ‘I’m sorry...’” That’s a clumsy way to start any meeting, he says, especially one where key goals are to display personal assets and make a strong first impression. “If I had only one piece of advice to offer, it would be to be on time. When you’re on time, you start to build the relationship. When you’re late, you start by having to recover from a mistake.” (Training) Fewer tithers. The percentage of tithers in the U.S. has plummeted over the past year, according to research by the Barna Group. Last year seven percent of U.S. adults said they donated at least 10 percent of their income to churches and charities. This year only four percent did. Over the past decade the figure has hovered between five and seven percent. (World) Too devout? A strange comment came our way from a small business operator with a dozen employees. He said his biggest staff problems have been Christian employees. “The more devout, the more of a problem,” he said. “They denigrate their work as something that takes up their time and diverts them from what they see as their true ‘mission.’ They don’t see their daily work as a part of their witness.” Go figure. — WK
In this issue
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Loving the fork lift and moving chunks of steel. Page 10
Roadside stand Soul enterprise Reviews Soundbites News
Volume 41, Issue 4 July August 2011 The Marketplace (ISSN 0199-7130) is published bi-monthly by Mennonite Economic Development Associates at 532 North Oliver Road, Newton, KS 67114. Periodicals postage paid at Newton, KS 67114. Lithographed in U.S.A. Copyright 2011 by MEDA. Editor: Wally Kroeker Design: Ray Dirks
If you buy a perennial in a blue pot at an independent Canadian garden center, it comes from Valleybrook Gardens. A different kind of farmer, John Schroeder produces food for the soul.
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Retired? Yeah, right.
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A legacy beyond money
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Man of steel
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Free to forgive
Departments 2 4 19 20 22
Perennial passion
After 26 years as a banker, spunky Ruth Jacobs plunged into a new role with MEDA — equipping poor clients for basic savings and loan services the rest of us take for granted.
Many people have a Will that disposes of their earthly treasures. Real estate developer Myrl Nofziger also wants to leave a “testament” that spells out his hopes for the next generations.
He started his business at 18 and still gets a buzz manufacturing skids for the oil industry. He’s young, devout and brimming with joy — about his faith, his family and his calling to business.
It’s a nightmare for anyone working overseas in development — a highway crash that claims life. For Loren Hostetter in Ethiopia, it led to an incredible journey of forgiveness and reconciliation.
Change of address should be sent to Mennonite Economic Development Associates, 32C E Roseville Road, Lancaster, PA 17601-3681. To e-mail an address change, subscription request or anything else relating to delivery of the magazine, please contact subscription@meda.org For editorial matters contact the editor at wkroeker@meda.org or call (204) 956-6436 Subscriptions: $25/year; $45/two years.
Postmaster: Send address changes to The Marketplace 32C E Roseville Road Lancaster, PA 17601-3681
Published by Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), whose dual thrust is to encourage a Christian witness in business and to operate business-oriented programs of assistance to the poor. For more information about MEDA call 1-800-665-7026. Web site www.meda.org
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The Marketplace July August 2011
Latte for the Lord Barista Paul Johnson, 30, does more than serve a morning fix. His patrons in St. Paul, Minn., also get a smile, some warm conversation and his “latte art,”which is what he calls espresso-and-milk beverages topped with an attractive pattern. He enjoys getting to know a lot of people and being able to craft something they will savor. In an interview printed in FaithInTheWorkplace.com the lattemeister explains how his job is part of his Christian witness. “You’d be surprised how much of a relationship you can have with someone in one‑minute conversations spread out over several years.... All of my co‑workers know that I’m a Christian, and often I might be the only Christian that they have any kind of relationship with. I’ll freely talk about my faith if and when they want to hear, but I think that my role more frequently is one of dissolving stereotypes of what Christians are like. People see that I’m a Christian and not a hater, bigot, judging, stupid, ultraconservative, gun‑toting, sheltered, jerk. Those preconceptions ... can be real barriers to those looking at Christ’s body from the outside.” He also thinks it’s important to be good at his craft. “So often people think of the Christian version of something as synonymous with the lame version of whatever it is, whether that’s Christian pop music or burned percolated church coffee.... The gifts we have and the gifts given to us in creation (like the coffee plant for instance) most glorify God when their potential is appreciated and creatively and passionately explored.”
The Marketplace July August 2011
A tool to plant seeds Former MEDA intern Tom Affleck (above) sent us a report on the impact of his work with MEDA and the ripple effect of serving-with-soul. He is now head of SchoolBOX, which promotes education in Nicaragua by providing education packages, building classrooms and organizing sporting events for children. I was fortunate enough to work with MEDA for a couple of years in both Peru and Nicaragua. I am a believer in MEDA’s work. I thought you might be interested in a MEDA success story. Ronald Chavarria Arauz worked with MEDA (particularly COFAM) in Nicaragua. When he started working for MEDA I believe he was living in a church, sleeping on the pews. MEDA staff saw promise in Ronald, however, and eventually gave him a good position and paid for a significant part of his university education. When MEDA’s involvement in COFAM came to an end Ronald continued to run the program. He and his partner eventually were able to turn COFAM into a profitable organization. Ronald is now a silent partner but does receive an annual share of profits. Ronald now devotes his time and energy to SchoolBOX (schoolbox.ca). We are a Canadian charity that helps to Make Education Possible. I founded SchoolBOX in 2006 and Ronald joined in 2007. We had met while I was working with MEDA on the PRODUMER project. At that time I was working with Agromonitor, the software system which we worked to develop in PERU. While you are tallying up the successes of MEDA in Nicaragua I think that in some small way you should include SchoolBOX as one of them. I would never have been in Nicaragua if it was not for MEDA. God has wonderful ways and I am very glad that he used MEDA as a tool to plant the seeds which would later become SchoolBOX. I would like to add, Nicaragua is the country where I truly became a Christian. Steve Rannekleiv, PRODUMER’s former director, played a significant role in my coming to Christ.
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Pastors in business Peter Dueck (left) sees a strong link between pastoring and being in business. He is co-president of Vidir Machine Inc. in Manitoba’s Interlake district. The company specializes in storage and handling solutions for big box stores (display and storage mechanisms for carpets, vinyl flooring, tires, bicycles, etc.). It sells widely to the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile and Australia. Having earlier been a pastor of two churches in Alberta, he sees a great deal of skills transference between church ministry and business. “Seminary prepares you to be an ethical, moral businessman,” he says, “and business teaches you how to behave, act and interact with people, which you need in the church. I think that every pastor should first be in business, and every businessman should first be a pastor.”
Golden Rule prize “How can a lawyer, businessperson, construction worker, doctor, educator, clergyperson, dog walker, police officer, traffic warden, nurse, shop assistant, caregiver, librarian, chef, cab driver, receptionist, author, secretary, cleaner, or banker observe the Golden Rule in the course of his or her work? What would be the realistic criteria of a compassionate company? If your profession made a serious attempt to become more compassionate, what impact would this have on your immediate environment and the global community? To whom in your profession and your own place of work would you give a Golden Rule prize?” — Karen Armstrong in Twelve Steps to A Compassionate Life
From a defense lawyer Alicia and four other lawyers and four staff are on the edge most of the day. Each of them works hard to achieve results that are, many times, unattainable. Each client wants a miracle. Pressure is the nature of criminal defense. For Alicia, these are the times her faith steps in to dictate her day. Alicia is proud that she never yells, rarely raises her voice, and seeks to avoid any rash behavior. For her, these traits are due solely to her faith in Christ. Recently, her assistant said, “You are my all-time favorite boss. You never yell at me when I make a mistake.” Alicia comments: “Over the years, I have learned patience does not develop for anybody overnight. God’s continuous help is required for the development of patience.” — Member Mission Network
“The quickest way to double your money is Overheard: to fold it and put it back into your pocket.” — Will Rogers 5
The Marketplace July August 2011
Perennial passion A different kind of farmer, John Schroeder produces food for the soul
“T
he best perennials,” quips John Schroeder, “come out of the blue.” That’s a bit of an in-gag at his company, Valleybrook Gardens, whose line of herbaceous perennial plants come in little blue pots that by some miracle of branding Schroeder managed to trademark. If you buy a perennial in a blue pot at an independent Canadian garden center, it comes from Valleybrook. There’s a hint of mischief as he tells the story. He’s a witty guy who moves easily between playful and serious — playful when he talks up his branded products like Jeepers Creepers (groundcover) and Happily Ever Appster (daylilies); more philosophical when he explores the relationship between seed and sower. He clearly enjoys his calling, feels comfortable in his own corporate skin, and holds lively views about the interaction of soil, faith and business. Behind it all is a sharp entrepreneurial mind that has built his passion for perennials into a premier North The Marketplace July August 2011
American wholesale producer. Based in British Columbia’s fecund Fraser Valley, Valleybrook Gardens produces 2,000 varieties of containerized perennials, herbs, creepers, groundcovers, ferns and ornamental grasses. Its main customer base is independent garden centers throughout Canada and in many U.S. states, from New England to the Pacific Northwest. It also sells to landscape contractors, municipalities and public gardens. As with much Mennonite entrepreneurship, Schroeder’s enterprise has roots on the family farm. His father immigrated to Canada in 1949, worked hard to pay off his travel debt, and in the mid-1950s bought land in the Fraser Valley. John grew up on a mixed farm with cows, pigs and chickens, and learned his work ethic by picking raspberries, gathering eggs and pulling weeds. With a start like that, further agriculture studies was not a big leap. It was at University of British Columbia where his entrepreneurial instincts flourished in the late 1970s. 6
“In summertime I was lucky enough to get a job with the provincial department of agriculture extension office, where I saw a lot of different facets of agriculture,” he says. “One of the things I learned is that the horticultural industry (ornamentals) had a couple of characteristics that really made it very attractive from a business perspective. One, it is a high-value crop, so you could make a living on “I love to see five acres which is the land I had available to rent from my opportunity, father. Two, it wasn’t a very well organized industry from a get something market point of view. I noticed too many points on the distristarted, get in bution channel. There was a grower and a final customer but there were a lot of brokers there and be and middlemen in between. It seemed to me there was hands-on.” opportunity to cut out a lot of the intermediate steps and develop a business. And that’s what got me started. “So in my third year at university I majored in the ornamental industry. One class had a propagation assignment — we had to put roots on something. I ended up getting some cuttings of heather, an ornamental plant, and ran my experiment in the university greenhouse. I took home a few thousand cuttings and together with
John Schroeder: A feeling of awe as life emerges anew.
a partner put some roots on them in a little greenhouse we built in the back yard. I put them into pots and we successfully grew them to maturity. Then we sold them, and I was absolutely hooked. Because all you had to do was take an existing plant, and there were plenty of them growing locally, snip off a little piece for no cost, stick it into a little bit of soil, grow roots, pay a nickel for a pot and some soil, and six months later you could sell it for 60 or 70 cents, multiple times the direct costs. It seemed to me this was an easy way to get rich quick. That sucked me in.” He chuckles with seasoned hindsight. As he knows now, “it’s not easy to get rich, and it certainly isn’t quick. But it has turned out to be a good industry to be in.”
After graduating in 1980 he and his wife Kelly set out to build the business in Abbotsford, B.C. He had five acres he rented from his father, and bought five more. Perennials were catching on, and Schroeder caught the wave. Back then, a plant was just something in a black pot with basic labelling; its origin was a mystery. Schroeder saw early that branding and differentiating his product would be important. “Because we focused on marketing we were able to establish a significant position in the marketplace. We really worked at de-commodifying our product and creating some pull and demand from the consumer. And we developed good logistics capabilities, which is why we are able to ship product on short notice throughout Canada and much of the U.S.” Today he has 25 acres in British Columbia, where he has captured a quarter of the independent garden center market. He has another 30 acres near Niagara-on-the-
Total staff swings from 40 in the lowest off-season to 250 at peak times. 7
The Marketplace July August 2011
Machines plunge fresh rootlets, six at a time, into tiny pots of soil.
Lake, Ontario. Each location serves 300-400 customers. He also sells successfully into the U.S., though the market there is more competitive with slimmer margins, lower prices and an exchange rate roller-coaster. In recent years Valleybrook has begun selling to mass markets. In 2002 it added Costco and in 2008 the large Canadian Loblaws chain (President’s Choice label). Big box stores get mixed reviews but Schroeder’s experience has been positive. “These two In university seem to have the best philosophy of working he took some with their vendors,” he says. “They have loyalty, cuttings, put they do not beat you down on price, they value quality and they value a roots on them, good relationship with suppliers. That’s the only stuck them into reason I’ve wanted to deal with someone of that pots and grew size.”
Indo-Canadian, and jokes with them as they stack trays or operate machines that plunge fresh rootlets, six at a time, into tiny plastic pots. Schroeder’s total staff component swings from 40 at the lowest off-season point to 250 at peak times. “Fifty percent of our sales for the year occur in five weeks — between the middle of April and the end of May. We’re potting like crazy right now,” he says.
Guru to gardeners The reach of the Internet has been artfully employed by the folks at Valleybrook Gardens (www.valleybrook.com). People who want to green their thumbs can join 14,000 regular visitors to the company’s New Perennial Club (www.perennials.com) to access design tips, resources and expert advice. Among the typical questions: “What can I grow in the shade?” or “Why is my hibiscus not growing?” Then there’s this one: “What in the world is Bloody Dock?” (It’s a relative of garden spinach and rhubarb, lest you thought it was a British expletive.) ◆
them to maturity. We stroll through his B.C. operation in late “I was absolutely spring, the busiest season. hooked.” The Marketplace July August 2011
He chats comfortably with staff, who are largely 8
He reduced the
Surrounded as he is by thousands of plants, the question comes up — what points on the are his own favorites? “That’s easy,” he laughs. “My perdistribution sonal favorites are the plants that I’ve got and nobody else channel, then does, that are easy to grow and I can sell for lots of profit. focused on I’m a very shallow individual, obviously.” More seriously, the plant branding and market can be like fashions differentiating — in today, out tomorrow, he says. Some years junipers are in, and people plant lots his product. of them. “For years we had a plant called black snake root. We were the only ones that carried it, and it sold really well. Very attractive, great plant for a decade.”
amazing how many cacti are hardy in Canada. All provinces from British Columbia to Ontario have species of native cactus and many more are hardy here. You can create wonderful gardens that survive the cold climate and have fabulous flowers. Who knew?”
Schroeder remembers a wall plaque with
a quote from Dorothy Frances Gurney — “One is nearer God’s heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth.” While he’s cautious to not romanticize entrepreneurship, he does appreciate the spiritual connections of his work. “It’s almost like a creation kind of a thing,” he says, “because you’re taking something that doesn’t exist and you’re making anew, whether it’s a seed or taking a cutting or even building a garden. I think it’s very appropriate that the Bible starts in a garden and ends with a garden, with the trees beside the river of life. “I think I’m in the best kind of business you can be in.” ◆
Schroeder now faces the inevitable what-next question of succession planning and exit strategy. “I’m 54, been doing it for 31 years,” he says. “My exit strategy always has been to build a business that was attractive and salable. “I love to see opportunity, get something started, get in there and be hands-on. At this point I’ve become more of an overseer, a manager. My goal was to create a market-leading nursery and I feel that I’ve accomplished that. I don’t have any future big goals to take this further. There are other things I’d like to do.” Shifting career gears could also allow other interests to, well, blossom. An avid photographer, his library contains 30,000 photos, many of them, not surprisingly, of plants. He also loves to travel, which he describes as “one of my greatest sources of joy.” Every second year he puts together a horticultural tour designed for business owners in his industry. The last one was to Japan; the next is to India this fall. Could other plant-related ventures beckon? Schroeder says he and Kelly might consider relocating to BC’s Okanagan Valley, Canada’s version of a desert. It’s a very dry area where water is a growing concern. “I’d like to develop a business that grows droughttolerant plants, particularly cactus. I’d like to be the cactus king of Canada,” he says, grinning. “More seriously, it’s
Food for the soul “I really do like plants,” says John Schroeder. “Right from a child one of the things I remember is that feeling of awe and joy in the spring when all the plants that had disappeared the year before would start pushing their way out of the ground and you’d see the little tiger lilies and trilliums come up. That remains a source of joy and a wonderful reminder of resurrection and new life. It’s very appropriate that Easter comes at our busiest time of the year. “Somebody once asked me why I considered this to be farming, since we’re not producing food. I said No, we’re not producing food to eat, but flowers are food for the soul. The world we live in was created to be enjoyed because there is a lot of stuff in it that is there for no other reason than to look beautiful. That’s something I really enjoy, to be a part of that.”◆
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The Marketplace July August 2011
Retired? Yeah, right. Spunk and a well-tailored assignment gave second life to a career in banking
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he calls herself “just an old banker,” but Ruth Jacobs has plenty of tread left on the tires, and she’s using it to gain traction for the poor in developing countries. At a stage in life when many folk would contemplate leisure, Jacobs joined MEDA’s financial services team and went out on a worldwide journey to promote “mobilization of deposits” among people who may never before have walked into a bank. Deposit mobilization, also called financial inclusion, is the latest rung on the ladder of financial services for the poor, two billion of whom are “unbanked.” A simple thing like savings, which North Americans take for granted, remains out of reach for many in the developing world. Jacobs and her MEDA team are out to change that. No matter how poor clients may be, they still want some of the same basic financial services enjoyed by more affluent westerners, Jacobs points out. “They all want the same thing. They want respect; they want a safe place to put their money; they want knowledgeable people to serve them, and they want to know they can get their money when they need it. “That may seem pretty straightforward, but in some developing countries it’s not the norm, especially for women. They are pushed aside; bankers ignore them. Yet access to savings and services empowers them to maximize economic opportunities, invest in their families and become an economic benefit to their communities. This is the way they can build the next generation of financially literate customers.”
While microcredit has gotten plenty of attention, the behind-the-scenes issues of deposit readiness and regulation aren’t headline-grabbers. MEDA was a pioneer in the microcredit industry but strategically went deeper and The Marketplace July August 2011
has worked at these issues for some time in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and the Philippines. MEDA’s contribution has been on the formal side, including introducing savings products to newly-regulated microfinance institutions (MFIs) and helping existing banks position themselves to serve this previously ignored sector. Jacobs’ excitement builds as she describes the opportunities to make a difference in the lives of the poor, especially with advances in technology. “Just think — in the U.S., automatic teller machines took 20 years to gain acceptance; mobile banking took seven years. Internet banking took only six months to catch on. This is a great time to be out there with savings.”
How she came to MEDA involves a circuitous route where her considerable talents emerged layer by layer. A former school and music teacher, she was giving private piano lessons to the president of a New Hampshire bank back in 1980. “We’d done middle C I don’t know how many times. One day I blurted out, ‘Why don’t you give me a job.’ And he did!” She started out in customer service, and three weeks later became a teller. When the bank needed new software systems Jacobs was given a coding sheet to put into the system. “I’m thinking, what the heck do I do with this? But I figured it out,” she recalls. Her instinctive aptitude shone through and she was sent to programming school. She became a computer programmer in charge of converting manual systems to in-house automated systems, and then was put in charge of coordinating training and writing manuals. She spent 26 years as a banker, ending up as chief operations officer. She heard about MEDA from her friend Joyce Lehman, who at the time operated her own accounting firm in Keene, N.H., and served on the MEDA board. Lehman eventually jumped from the board to staff, and worked extensively in MEDA’s financial services program in Afghanistan before joining the Bill & Ruth Jacobs: “We raise up the hood, look Melinda Gates Foundation. at the engine, and try to fix it.” 10
your board requirements change, and how do you navigate this shift. We also look at risk-management: what are the risks of putting a product out there, and how do you manage it.” Existing banks need help, too. Many of them made the poor feel unwelcome, if not by direct exclusion at least by lack of services that they needed. And many have seen the error of their ways, recognizing that there’s a big untapped market they hadn’t seen before. Jacobs gets great satisfaction seeing the practical impact in the teller lines. “People are opening up new deposit and loan accounts,” she says. “They’re actually going into banks where they’ve never been allowed in before.”
“Joyce would talk to me about her move through the MEDA learning curve and every so often would say to me, ‘You ought to be doing this too’.”
In 2004 that suggestion became a formal invita-
tion. “One day Joyce mentioned that MEDA really needed help in Afghanistan. And out of my mouth came the words, ‘Oh, okay.’ I went home and told my husband, ‘Joyce has asked me to go to Afghanistan’.” Now she had to clear it with her bank. “I told the board I really wanted to do this, and they gave me permission to go for a few weeks.” It was Jacobs’ first real experience with traveling. She’d never even been to Europe, and now she was going to Kabul to help document processes at MEDA’s partner agency, Women for Women International. Her skills were precisely what was needed. No sooner had she returned to her bank after the short assignment when she got a call from Julie Redfern, MEDA’s vicepresident of financial “I went home and services, asking her to go back to Afghanistan for months to fill a told my husband, several spot at the same partner agency. ‘Joyce has asked Jacobs retired from the bank at the end of me to go to 2005 and within weeks was on her way back to Afghanistan’.” Kabul. Task completed, she went on to Lahore, Pakistan, to work with another MEDA partner, and began working in deposit mobilization. Her assignment kept evolving with MEDA’s deepening involvement in financial services. Now she is MEDA’s in-house expert on deposit mobilization and risk-management methodology, though she describes it more simply as a mechanic tending to a broken-down car. “We raise up the hood, look at the engine, and try to fix it,” she says.
Her work demands understanding from her family,
as she can be gone for months at a time with only the odd week back home in Keene, N.H. “My husband Carl — he’s pretty cool — has been very supportive,” she says. “My son and daughter especially love what I’m doing, as does my mother, who is 90.” What do her old banking friends think about her reinvented career? “First of all they think I’m crazy,” she laughs. “But they’re very interested in the level of regulatory involvement. I tell them that all of the same issues we faced 15-20 years ago in the bank are now coming across the ocean to developing countries. The things I implemented back then are now being done overseas for the first or second time. I’m hoping that all the lessons I learned back at the bank will make a difference in how I approach it there.” Jacobs also loves meeting people. “There was nothing more exhilarating than sitting out on the mud floor outside of Kabul with the women and watching the children peek out, sort of look at me like, What is this? And the communication — how do we communicate? Fun for me, too, is walking in some of the dust and earth that is so ancient, and realizing that I’m walking in the footsteps of ancient wisdom. It’s not only fun, it’s incredibly humbling, it’s been there so long.” She also delights in seeing transformation take place as women move out of their cultural straight-jackets and become economically empowered and confident. Like when she introduced a banking concept that everyone said was too difficult for this sector to grasp. “Suddenly someone said, ‘Wow, this is great.’ And you instantly realize you’ve crossed over and given them a tool. Everyone said it was going to be too complicated. No it’s not. They’re capable of this.” Jacobs sees it in other small gestures that are freighted with local significance. “The women will shake a hand with a man, something they wouldn’t do before,” she says. “They’ll ride in a car in Kabul, they’ll speak to a man.” She also sees ventilation among males. “When I left Pakistan,” she says, “two young men we worked with gave me a big hug, which doesn’t happen in that culture. They called me Mom!” ◆
Jacobs works with financial institutions who
want to change who they are in order to expand their services to a segment of society they haven’t worked with before. This includes working with the human capacity and infrastructure, doing a lot of mentoring and coaching. “I try to help them to be a bank,” she explains. “How do you keep your customers in focus and how do you not lose your mission? I lay out for them what they need to be a real bank, to comply with regulations.” Regulatory transformation can be a bugaboo to a fledgling institution, she says. “How do you work with regulators, who expect certain areas of compliance in internal controls and corporate governance? Any institution that wants to transform needs to know what this means. Also, when you become a regulated institution, 11
The Marketplace July August 2011
Dear children... Leaving a legacy beyond money
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hat do you plan to leave your heirs? Myrl Nofziger wants it to be more than money. Most people have a Will which disposes of their earthly treasures, he says. But how about also writing a “testament” that spells out hopes and expectations for the next generations. “That document may be even more important than our Will,” he says. Nofziger and his wife Phyllis live In Goshen, Indiana, where he has spent 43 years as a developer of residential, commercial and industrial real estate. They have sought to practice generosity, both with money and talents. “We are here on earth to faithfully maximize the gifts God has given us,” says Nofziger. Diligent work and stewardship were modeled by his parents as he was growing up on a farm near Archbold, Ohio. From early on he drove tractor, fed chickens, caught geese by hand for slaughter, and cleaned out barn manure. He grew up in a home where support for the church was paramount. “My parents always practiced tithing-plus,” he says. “Missions was always a part of their vocabulary. If a missionary returned from a foreign assignment we went to hear them speak. So mission work just plain got into my blood. “I have always spent one third of my work week in charitable or community activities. This I learned from my father.” Myrl and Phyllis have been active in mission work in Zimbabwe. Myrl has worked with Rotary polio eradication programs in India and Nigeria, and serves on the board of LCC International University in Lithuania. “For us, philanthropy is a major part of our everyday lives,” he says. “Whether it is a Rotary grant for school equipment in an orphanage in Zimbabwe, or giving polio drops in a foreign country, it is a passion.” They hope their values and passion will also get into the blood of their children and six grandchildren. To this end, he has written them a “post-mortem” letter (condensed version shown on facing page), which he amends periodically. “We all want to pass on to our families a wholesome lifestyle and a Christian worldview,” he says. “Though we cannot force it upon our children, we can aspire to be good role models and pass on Godly wisdom.” ◆
Myrl Nofziger: “Mission work just plain got into my blood.”
Nofziger administering polio drops in Africa. The Marketplace July August 2011
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Our testament and legacy
oved have m u o y e r e sibility h years w ken the respon s. e s o h t , edule ave ta well as children avel sch nt’s hyllis h ars, as d r P e t n y d d a d n r n o a a g o d pare childh eased] bilities dren an l at job! A and to be of your f 25 years, dec ional responsi i e t r h r g c a a p r e a a De ment e don being profess [wife o and hav aptist) environ importance e ry much w that Ardith ties, due to my l e b v a l d i e a b y v a or njo onsibili s been a Christian (An hrist is of maj d. I kno p y n gs. s o a I have e e y r w e l b g a n and dru and ave fa enti in C o h o r d c h o a k y c t o r e i p a o h a h b t f d w o l T t e n t ersons use of pe tha e fram into adu the domestic a n many ways. ation, p goes excess, ithin th . 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The more y festyle urage e ential. B i n t o i l o c e n p d e n m d o a d ach n c i a to be home an watching, etc.) ur children. Te you rece e your efforts d e e r s o a m b e o s z aximi ts to y give th s with eligiou rts, TV es.” ies, spo ditures and gif our discussion mily lways m its his activiti hem a r t v a o e , s d m i y ( v a t o Alw xpen t in y ny fa inmen en, pr re, lim money e It is importan Provide for ma rs failu ou have childr in their enterta n i ether. l a g . u t who fea s.) tays tog . em e fr te i en y d s s h r B h t r a o . e w r s w w h o e t d i t f n t e o n i s a g l n ey o If a uideline old responsibi sset, do speak louder th s and plays t h journ g t a i t a s e f u S o r . i u s c h y itie t pra st pre house tions rn in o capabil your mo ou preach. (Ac n. A family tha ve much to lea them in s e i v l e o m v i n T a y al is e tions. I e what e the go r childr We still had/h gement. c r i u a e t o c n h y a a w r o t m p w e le s. so ot kno e loves them tim en that you al her. Be availab good example ple do n ins and that h o e r t g p e d n l g i y i e o n h t b hers. your c r our s ations iled in r it. Ma ip” to ot and vac ere we have fa head fo t Christ died fo start to die. h s s d r e e i n t d a i a v l i e act s wh w tha h a goa orn we rvant l orgive u han “se game. Establis now it. We kno inute we are b t t f i g Please f r k te m ll no grea ike a ba not even ilgrimage. The There is mary, life is l ross it and do p a rc Life is In sum t of it, o r forgiveness. r o h s l l n fa od fo and ofte ily and ask G well! a d do us. Pray ood cheer and Be of g Love,
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The Marketplace July August 2011
Man of steel He’s young, devout and brimming with joy
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arl Pauls is one happy guy. Perpetually cheerful, energized by his work, he seems to bounce along on some inner trampoline. Why is he so happy? For starters, he dotes on his faith, and of course his family, which includes wife Jenilee and two preschoolers (James and Aaron) with a third on the way. Then, too, he loves his work as a welder and steel fabricator. He owns and operates EP Industries Ltd. in Chilliwack, British Columbia, a company he founded while still in his teens. You can feel his effervescence above the din and sparks in his shop. Welders in Darth Vadar-like masks hunch over their work as music blares above the sizzle and steel. The music — today, aptly, it’s heavy metal — may not be his choice, but he gives in once in a while. It’s what they like and Pauls won’t stand in their way. He wants them to enjoy their work.
dred-dollar mailboxes and now I had a chance for a larger project. I started building them and absolutely loved every second of it.” Someone from the Rotary Club saw his work and wanted a train for a parade. So Pauls made a train. “It kept going and going by word of mouth, and it never stopped,” he says. “Soon there was an entire machine shed on my father’s farm filled with my equipment.” He moved to his own location and widened his product line to include metal bridge work and various kinds of metal brackets and steel frames for industrial applications.
Pauls, now 30, got his
first taste of welding on his family’s chicken farm. “My Dad had an old welder in his shop that I liked to play with,” he recalls. After high school he worked in a cabinet shop but when he realized that the top guy was earning $18 an hour he decided Only 30, and with 12 years under his belt, Earl Pauls still loves his work. he would aim higher. He had always been interested in owning his own business; why not with welding? For the last three years his market niche has been Pauls began making heavy duty mailboxes. When his manufacturing modular building skids that the booming father needed a new bucket for his Bobcat, he let Earl try Alberta oil industry uses as a base for mobile houses and his hand. kitchens. The skids amount to three long parallel I beams, “I just loved it,” Pauls says. “I thought it was the cool55-65 feet long and eight feet wide, with pipe spreaders est thing ever.” in between. He kept refining his skills and worked his way up to Pauls devised the manufacturing process himself, Canadian Welding Bureau certification which allows him visualizing it in his mind, then used a computer to come to do structural welding. up with the precise measurements. “Over a period of six “A friend needed some tractor trailers and asked me months I kept contemplating better and better ways to do if I could make them,” he says. “‘How many?’ I asked. it,” he says. “Then I set up an assembly line with jigs and ‘Seven,’ he said. I was ecstatic. Here I was making hunstructures to hold the steel in place for greater efficiency The Marketplace July August 2011
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so I could actually gain a competitive edge. To the average guy looking at it there’s not a lot of money in it.” Output averages three skids a day, and the market looks robust. The more drilling sites come into play, the greater demand for modular skids. “I try not to smile too much when the price of oil goes up,” says Pauls, who deals with most of the major players in modular building in western Canada. With a laugh he describes his company’s modest involvement in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Whistler, B.C. His skids were used as a base for the Games’ anti-doping units. Washrooms with mirrors on three sides were built for athletes to provide their test samples under supervision. Pauls also makes bridge rails and posts, general structural steel, and some farm equipment. He takes pride in quality, precision and “on time, every time.”
ished in the dozen years he’s been in business. “I still love driving the fork lift, moving big chunks of steel,” he says. “I feel like I’ve been blessed.” One wonders, does a happy guy like Pauls ever have a bad day? “It takes a lot,” says wife Jenilee, who runs her own craft supplies company from the Pauls home. If pressed, Pauls admits to having a bad day now and then, like when employees get sick or equipment breaks down. He credits much of his sunny outlook to spending time with God before the workday begins. Most mornings begin with half an hour of devotional time, reading the Bible and praying. “I praise God. I pray for other people, and pray for safety for the guys as they operate their equipment,” he says. “Most days that go south, it’s because I haven’t had devotions.” ◆
The love of welding and fabrication has not dimin-
Earl’s ode to joy “I’m thankful
While he’s more at home in the welding shop, Earl Pauls sometimes lets his effervescence flow out in print, as shown in the following testimony: oy. I have so much of it, and I draw it out of so many things and see it in so many places. Some people see only the mundane: get home from work, help with the little ones, clean up, get ready to go somewhere, and on and on it goes. I thank God for a way to support my family. After a long day’s work, I am thankful for how much I love my job and the challenges of running a business. I am thankful for a wife who has a hot dinner waiting for me. I am thankful for the privilege of entering my home, my castle, and having our eldest son run to me with perfect trust that I will fling him up into the air, catch him, hold him and tell him I love him. Fetch something from the freezer for my wife or send her on her way with some friends to get out of the house for a change. It gives me pleasure just to change a diaper and know that I can do that to make a difference, clean a runny nose or wash dirty hands. Help my father with something he is working on. It is not just another thing I need to do to get through the day, but an opportunity — a joy — to love and spend time shouting my joy for the people so dear to me. We live in Canada! Yes the taxes can get high, there is crazy government spending, so many decisions — I know I could do better. We can sit around and whine, maybe even protest, but at the end of the day, we live! Really live. Live in the country, live in the city, live anywhere. Do what we want, go where we please. The
for how much I
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love my job and the challenges of running a business”
freedom that we have! We can get up every day, watch the sunrise, hear the birds’ choir and just worship Jesus. He had joy. If I think I have joy buckling in a two-year-old boy on our way to the park or helping a friend dig a trench, just think of the joy Jesus had when he said, “take up your mat and walk,” “you are
healed,” “you are forgiven.” We don’t have to have friends, we get to! We don’t have to get married and work through it, we get to! We don’t have to help out a friend who has experienced loss, we get to! Life and family and work have joys we never dreamed of. Sometimes we just need to recognize the ones we have and enjoy the sweetness of giving and receiving. I don’t get joy out of everything. I can’t really say I feel excited to take a shift with a teething baby at 2 a.m. I don’t really like taking out the garbage. I can get mad when things don’t go the way I expect them to on the job or when I find out after completing a job that my bid was too low and I didn’t make any money. It is disappointing when employees don’t show up or follow through. But still every night when I pray to God I thank Him for this day. Because I know that He made it and it gave Him joy to give it to me. ◆
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The Marketplace July August 2011
“We are believers — free to forgive” A shattering crash on a dark highway, two lives lost, and an awe-inspiring journey of reconciliation
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Though his vehicle was destroyed, air bags kept his injuries to a minimum. But two young men on the cart were killed. The North American practice is to stop, but in many developing countries that can be hazardous. The recommended security protocol is to head for the closest police station, as vigilante justice can often result in death to someone seen as the perpetrator.
ecurity experts say the most dangerous thing most development workers will do is get behind the wheel of a car. Loren Hostetter, MEDA’s Ethiopia project manager, discovered this firsthand when he was involved in a highway accident that claimed two lives. While he miraculously suffered only minor injuries, he has endured the greater pain of being complicit in a tragic loss of life. But he has also experienced a remarkable journey of grace and reconciliation with the families of the deceased. Hostetter joined MEDA last fall to manage its new rice and textile project in Ethiopia. Early on May 5 he was driving back from the town of Hawassa to his home in Addis Ababa. The road was good and he was driving within the posted speed limit. He passed a taxi van which left its headlights beamed bright, briefly obscuring his vision. His car struck a donkey cart in the middle of the dark road (with no lights or reflectors), flipped and landed 50 metres beyond the impact.
When Hostetter crawled out of his wrecked vehicle he could not locate his cell phone. A significant number of agitated people had gathered. He retreated from the scene and caught a ride with a passing truck headed for Addis Ababa. The passengers offered him a phone to contact the U.S. Embassy, which instructed him to go to the nearest police station and wait for assistance. Police stations in the first several towns they reached were poorly staffed and didn’t want to get involved. Finally a police station was found that would handle it. Embassy staff met Hostetter there by midmorning and advised he return to Addis. Hostetter went to his home to dress his minor wounds and then proceeded to authorities to file a complete report, which was relayed to the regional police station near the accident scene. Efforts began immediately to contact the victims’ families and arrange reparations. The community had an accepted dispute settlement mechanism with three steps: (1) meet with the community and pay immediate costs; (2) meet with elders and discuss damages, negotiated at the community level; (3) return to the community later for a reconciliation meal and ceremony. Arrangements were made to reimburse the immediate physical expenses, including replacing the donkey, cart and its ruined cargo, as well as funeral expenses. Meeting with the families went as well Loren Hostetter and Mulenesh, widow of one of the deceased. The Marketplace July August 2011
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as could be expected, under the tragic circumstances. The family members were Christians, and were pleased to learn that Hostetter also is a Christian. Local elders arranged the final reconciliation phase for May 21, two weeks after the accident. The traditional ceremony includes rituals of release of wrong, giving gifts, paying respect, bonding of the two sides, and a communal meal.
Hostetter was accompanied
to that event by fellow staff and church members. “There were about 100 people huddled in the mourning tent,” he says. “Fifteen of them were from my representative group. The impression on The presentation of gifts to each bereaved family was followed by a communal blessing and a blanket ceremony, symbolizing a family bond. Shown here, the village when our delegation entered Hostetter blanketed with widow Mulenesh and her children. the tent, when they saw the genuine to come.’ ‘Why has he come now?’ and the other elder bond of support and sincerity of my delegation, made a would answer, ‘to make peace and pay respect to the great impact…they swelled with appreciation the moment families.’ ‘Did this man commit a crime?’ ‘No, there was we entered the mourning tent. an accident and he intended no harm.’ So this went ... a “After seating, there began a ritual of two elders way of recounting for all calling and answering each other as to why this man was witnesses. coming and what happened. One would call out, ‘has this Efforts began “Then it was my turn man come before?’ and the other would answer, ‘no, but to make a statement, and he sent a delegation with gifts and expressed his desire immediately to present personal gifts of clothes and practical items to contact the and decorative items to the families. I explained that I victims’ families also had a large community gathering at my home in and arrange Virginia offering prayers for these families, and that the two communities also now reparations. share a bond. On behalf of the families, the elders pronounced the gifts accepted and I was invited to sit on the mat where the families were, and they extended a hand to me to sit with them for a photo. Then large loaves of bread were broken and large chunks passed around and eaten by everyone in the tent. Large carafes of coffee were poured and passed out ceremoniously.” The village elders and the elders Hostetter brought with him had previously decided that the proper compensation would be a heifer and bull calf for each family. Hostetter and his associates could not on short notice find heifers and bull calves of suitable quality, so they proposed giving double the money for the families to buy the animals according to their choice. “We also wanted to give an animal according to their tradition, so we offered to buy in addition, a sheep for each family,” he says. “This really moved the elders, and they teared up. An elder signs the final settlement document, also signed They embraced me, and told me that I had honored their by each of the two families. 17
The Marketplace July August 2011
They embraced him, and said he had honored them
village and their culture by trying to buy calves according to their tradition, and had shown wisdom by providing amply for the family to choose their own.”
touching, beyond any of our expectations. The by trying to buy depth of reconciliation was beyond anything calves according experienced by the seasoned Ethiopian to their tradition. leaders who went with me. I was amazed at the resiliency of the families and their outpouring of grace and gratitude.” While this traditional ceremony provides opportunity to reconcile, it doesn’t necessarily work toward true reconciliation, Hostetter says. “These two families clearly chose to forgive and reconcile. Both families also rejected a number of blood and sacrifice rituals that are required by the orthodox church, stating ‘we are believers and we are free to forgive’.”
The reconciliation ceremony began with a
traditional meal out under the trees. “Then the elders and the leader called all to gather, and several speeches were made. The leader again read an account of all that I had done to show care and compensation to the families in the previous settlements and gifts. He then read the pronouncement of what the elders determined as appropriate payment and what I had offered as an alternative.” Hostetter then presented his payments to each family. After the gifts, there was a communal blessing and a blanket ceremony, symbolizing a family bond. “The leader stated that this had been an accident, that I had compensated beyond expectations, that my sorrow was sincere, and that I honored and respected their culture. He declared that our families were now joined, and that I blessed them. The elder then asked the gathered community if they now wished to bless, to which they all raised and waved their outstretched hands toward me and uttered blessings of
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Ethiopia has the world’s highest rate of traffic fatalities. Donkey carts are especially vulnerable, as many travel at night without lights or reflectors and often are not seen by car and truck drivers until it’s too late. “The community elders were very cooperative and understood the situation,” says Yabetse Assefa, a member of MEDA’s Ethiopia staff who attended the ceremony. “They told us that the place where the accident had occurred is very risky and had repeated accident histories even this year. They told us that 15 people had died in one accident.” The project Hostetter is leading is to increase incomes for 10,000 smallholder rice farmers and small-scale textile artisans by helping them improve quality and integrate into higher-value markets. He has extensive international experience in agricultural value chains and agri‑business development including work in South America, Eastern Europe and Africa. While working in Romania he owned and managed a start‑up produce company; growing, packing and supplying fresh and frozen vegetables to supermarkets, restaurants and open air markets. While there he also joined a MEDA and World Vision micro‑lending program (CAPA) to help agricultural clients gain access to credit.eviews ◆
The village leader pronounces the settlement is complete.
peace in unison. We then obtained a written settlement, signed by each of the two families and elders. “After the ceremony the families and elders thanked me numerous times for honoring them and paying for their losses beyond their expectation. Everyone told us that so many deaths occur on that road, but very few come back, fewer still to pay respect and compensate for the losses.” Hostetter describes the event as “memorable and The Marketplace July August 2011
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Reviews
A contrarian romp through economic history 23 Things They Don’t Tell You about Capitalism. By Ha-Joon Chang (Bloomsbury, 2010, 286 pp. $25 U.S. $31 Cdn.)
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his book is fun, but it might make you mad. That’s because it may skewer some of your favorite convictions about the free market. The author, an economist at Cambridge University, insists that “capitalism is still the best economic system that humanity has invented” but many so-called truths about it are “based on lazy assumptions and blinkered visions, if not self-serving notions.” He wants his ladder-kicking to show how the system can be improved and do a better job of alleviating poverty. He does so in 23 “mythdestroying” chapters with titles such as “The washing machine has changed the world more than the internet has,” “Free-market policies rarely make poor countries rich,” and “Africa is not destined for underdevelopment.” Each chapter lays out “What they tell you” then follows with his take on what they don’t.
Much of the received
He starts by declaring boldly that no matter what the capitalist intelligentsia may say, there is no such thing as a free market. “Every market has some rules and boundaries that restrict freedom of choice,” and we should not waste time claiming otherwise. In fact, he claims, our supposedly free market has plenty of un-free components, and we should be happy about them. Examples: rules about child labor, influence-peddling, loan default, product liability and labelling. Or safety standards for food, drugs, cars and planes. We accept these regulations because we are used to them, and probably even recognize they are good for us,
in development knows, that the poor need to be entrepreneurial just to survive. “For every loiterer in a developing country, you have two or three children shining shoes and four or five people hawking things,” he writes. “What makes the poor countries poor is not the absence of entrepreneurial energy at the personal level, but the absence of productive technologies and developed social organizations, especially modern firms.” He says the average person in a developing country is twice as likely as someone in a developed country to become an entrepreneur. What’s missing for them is the ability to channel individual entrepreneurial energy into collective entrepreneurship: “Unless we reject the myth of heroic individual entrepreneurs and help them build institutions and organizations of collective entrepreneurship, we will never see the poor countries grow out of poverty on a sustainable basis.” And so it goes as Chang seeks to debunk a host of “myths” that supposedly undergird the free market, challenging “the received economic wisdom” of the last generation. His saucy style, while eminently readable and compelling, sometimes comes off as glib and can be offputting when it happens to be your economic ox that is being gored. But as he concludes, if we are to make a real difference to the billions suffering in poverty, certain economic bromides need to be challenged. “It is time,” Chang says, “to get uncomfortable.” — Wally Kroeker
economic wisdom of the past needs to be
challenged if we want the market system to work better he says. “In other words, the free market is an illusion. If some markets look free, it is only because we so totally accept the regulations that are propping them up that they become invisible.” Hasn’t the “free market” made countries rich? “The truth is more or less the opposite,” he says. Countries like the U.S. and Britain, supposed bastions of free trade and the free market, “have become rich through the combinations of protectionism, subsidies and other policies that today they advise the developing countries not to adopt.” And so on, to maximizing shareholder wealth (“the dumbest idea in the world”), globalization (“the world was a lot more globalized a century ago”), manufacturing (“the post-industrial knowledge economy is a myth”) and even Adam Smith’s famous hand (companies wouldn’t work if everyone were really out only for themselves). For our purposes here, one of the most interesting chapters is on entrepreneurship in developing countries. Chang points out what anyone
Excerpt
Who’s entrepreneurial? “For developing-country entrepreneurs, things go wrong all the time. There are power cuts that screw up the production schedule. Customs won’t clear the spare parts needed to fix a machine.... Inputs are not delivered at the right time, as the delivery truck broke down — yet again — due to potholes on the road. And the petty local officials are bending, and even inventing, rules all the time in order to extract bribes. Coping with all these obstacles requires agile thinking and the ability to improvise. An average American businessman would not last a week in the face of these problems, if he were made to manage a small company in Maputo or Phnom Penh.” — Ha-Joon Chang
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The Marketplace July August 2011
Soundbites
Flecks of gold in heads of gray Is it the bulge of Baby Boomer readers hitting the age of 65, or is it that business editors themselves are getting longer in the tooth? In any case, more business publications are urging employers to see older workers as assets rather than liabilities. Today’s “oldies” are in much better condition than their forbears who may have been out of date and out of shape, says The Economist, adding “If Mick Jagger and Keith Richards can go on touring into their late 60s, their contemporaries can at least be trusted with a desk and a computer.” It cites Managing the Older Worker, written by business professor Peter Capelli and former AARP head Bill Novelli, to bolster its case for more
The Marketplace July August 2011
but has far too much work ahead to even ponder R&R. “I am still gagging at the pictures of leathery old sunbathers on white shores and green links,” he writes. “For 15 years, I have thrown hundreds of senior mailings in the recycle bag unopened. Not that I am opposed to saving 79 cents on lunch at Perkins. Just don’t try to sell me heaven before I get there. There is too much hell left to fight.”
gray hair in the workplace. For starters, oldsters have decades of formal and informal knowledge that the younger set don’t have, and “more often than not they are the repositories of a company’s core values.” The Economist points to data showing that in every year since 1996, U.S. workers between 55 and 64 have started more new businesses than those 20-34. “Conscientiousness also tends to rise with age: older workers have lower levels of absenteeism than younger colleagues,” it says. Elsewhere in the press, evangelical pastor and author John Piper announces in World magazine that he, too, has crossed the threshold of 65
Greening of China In clean energy, China is busy setting themselves up as a world leader. If they meet their most ambitious targets for 2020, they’ll have the most wind, the most nuclear and
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the most hydro. But China is still playing catch-up on pollution. The air quality in Beijing does not exactly feel like London or New York. — Deborah Seligsohn of the World Resources Institute, commenting on the path China is blazing towards a low-carbon economy (Guardian Weekly)
Swizzle stick I believe in traveling as a way to get to know God’s family. God made this great creation, and it’s peopled with all sorts of interesting cultures and ways of life. When you travel, you kind of carbonate your existence. It’s like a swizzle stick for life. — Travel entrepreneur Rick Steeves in U.S. Catholic
The milk of God’s providence Next time you pour milk on your cereal, remember the train of events that brought it to breakfast by Jeff Van Duzer The market is truly astonishing. Consider a simple transaction. We go to the local supermarket and pay three dollars for a gallon of milk. This is such a simple and everyday occurrence that most of us would never stop to think about the web of activities needed to make this possible. A farmer has to milk a cow. Of course, even before the cow can be milked it must be fed and the feed (or the field for grazing) must be acquired from someone. The milk needs to be processed. Plastic jugs or cardboard cartons need to be constructed and delivered to the milk processing plant. The milk needs to be transported to a central warehouse. It needs to be refrigerated. Those driving delivery trucks need to know how many gallons of milk to take from the warehouse to each retail store. (Too much milk, it will spoil. Not enough milk, the store will lose customers.) Employees need to regularly restock the shelves of the supermarket. Lights need to be kept on. Electricity bills need to be paid, either through online banking or by mail. Cash registers need to have been manufactured and delivered. Point-of-sale devices need to be installed and related computers programmed. Parking lots need to have been paved. Safes are needed to store the cash until it can be delivered to the bank, where it is credited against the supermarket’s account. And so on. All this so we can have milk in our cereal. Literally hundreds of individuals have performed some work or delivered some product in order to facilitate this otherwise very simple transaction. The marvel of the market is that all of these persons performed their services and delivered their products at the right time and in the right amounts without anyone organizing the whole project. Everything comes together without any central planning or coordination. Remarkably, it works without anyone knowing us or our lactose habits. And what’s more, it can adapt almost instantly if we (and others like us) were to stop drinking milk. Frankly, it seems beyond imagination that such an elaborate system developed by chance. Somewhere in here lurks God’s providence. ◆ Taken from Why Business Matters to God: (And What Still Needs to Be Fixed) by Jeff Van Duzer. Copyright(c) 2010 by Jeff Van Duzer. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515.www.ivpress.com.
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The Marketplace July August 2011
News
Violence seen as villain in cycle of global poverty It’s no secret that violence is hazardous to health; less documented is how much it can damage a country’s economic well-being. A new World Bank study shows violence is not only one cause of poverty but possibly the primary cause. The 2011 World Development Report says peaceful countries are managing to improve economically while poverty is becoming more concentrated in countries with civil war, ethnic strife and organized crime. Add to that the affliction of poor government and a country becomes trapped in a persistent cycle of
The Marketplace July August 2011
poverty and lawlessness, it says. Countries with much political and criminal violence have poverty rates more than 20 percentage points higher than other countries. “Children living in fragile states are twice as likely to be undernourished and three times as likely to be out of school,” says World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick. “And the effects of violence in one area can
spread to neighboring states and to other parts of the world, hurting development prospects of others and impeding economic prospects for entire regions.” The report lists strategic priorities for helping countries escape the trap of poverty. In addition to strengthening governance and civil society, it urges more attention to job creation, access to financial services to bring producers and markets to-
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gether, and women’s economic empowerment programs. The theme of youth employment comes up frequently in the report. While recognizing that organized violence has many causes (youth unemployment, ethnic/religious tensions, trafficking networks), it says citizen groups surveyed for the report cited unemployment as overwhelmingly the most important factor for recruitment into gangs and rebel movements. Of those who joined gangs, two fifths said they did so because they were unemployed. Only a tenth did so because they believed in a cause. ◆
Student entrepreneurs win “big idea” contest Four new Bluffton University graduates created an entrepreneurial venture that recently won the BIG Idea contest sponsored by the Bluffton Center for Entrepreneurs (BCE). Remark Engineering, a design and marketing venture, was launched by Carter Sprunger, Bracton Eicher and Gregg Beitler, all from Berne, Ind., and Kenneth Miller, from Millersburg, Ohio. Sprunger, Remark’s chief operating officer, said he, Eicher and Miller were inspired by entrepreneurial stories they heard at last
While the four graduates don’t foresee having enough time to keep the business going, “the important thing is that we all learned more than we could learn in any classroom,” he says. “It provided us all with some real‑world experience in every area of business, from accounting and marketing to management. “We even ended up turning a small profit,” thanks to the $540 Apple gift card they received for winning the BIG Idea contest. BCE, a nonprofit business
November’s MEDA conference in Calgary. With support from the BCE, MEDA and Bluffton business faculty, the Remark founders ran a logo design competition for J. Bankert Bookkeeping in Bluffton. “Essentially, our business plan was to crowdsource logo designs from up‑and‑coming graphic design and marketing students, allowing us to present our client with more designs and ideas than individuals could come up with on their own” Sprunger says.
incubator, targets student initiative as an important generator of new business concepts and jobs. “These are individuals who aren’t waiting for opportunity to knock on their door,” says BCE board president Brendon Matthews. “We’re very impressed with the professionalism, energy and ingenuity coming from these university students.” Sprunger, Eicher and Miller graduated from Bluffton in business, while Beitler, a partner in Remark, earned his bachelor’s degree in physics. ◆
MBA students head for great outdoors Many business courses find students and instructors meeting in stuffy classrooms, but not this one. At least, not entirely. Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Va., offers a short‑term summer course on “Stewardship, Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship” that includes field trips in the city of Staunton and in the Big Meadows area of Shenandoah National Park. The course is led by Anthony Smith, associate professor of business and economics and co‑director of EMU’s MBA program. He says the course has three objectives: develop and apply a strategic framework for stewardship design principles in organizations; increase theoretical and practical understanding of the sources and types of innovation; and develop an understanding of social entrepreneurship and how businesses and nonprofit organizations apply these strat-
egies. The course combines field trips, classroom and online discussion and case studies with a systems approach to stewardship, innovation and social entrepreneurship. “Organizations, and people who manage them, shape our world,” Smith says. “Those who understand and master innovaNaturalist ranger Mara Meisel, left, interacts with last year’s EMU MBA tion, stewardstudents at Big Meadows in Shenandoah National Park. ship and social entrepreneurship increase course.” serve how stewardship design their effectiveness as civic and The field trips enable principles operate in natural business leaders and as leadstudents to directly engage ecologies and how those same ers in their own chosen field. with entrepreneurs in the city principles also apply to human That’s the intent of this special of Staunton and to directly obecologies. ◆ 23
The Marketplace July August 2011
The Marketplace July August 2011
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