March April 2017
Where Christian faith gets down to business
Fuel for the journey:
She sets the bar high
Man of metal — ahead of the curve Leadership lessons: from soy to seniors Era ends; MEDA sells foreign currency dept. 1
The Marketplace March April 2017
Roadside stand
Luther’s business legacy This year marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s launch of the Protestant Reformation. The fiery German monk “set in motion a split in Christianity that would forever change not just Germany, but the world,” says The Economist, noting that his impact extended into the realm of business and economics. Thanks to him, work was redefined as a spiritual calling, not just a means to amass wealth. He also had a huge impact on the publishing industry as he urged people to read the Bible he had translated and “ultimately all Germans became bookish.” Today Germany boasts the world’s second-largest book market (after America’s). Luther had little use for ostentation or the visual ornament of the Catholicism he left behind. “The traces of this severity live on in Germany’s early 20th century Bauhaus architecture,” the magazine says, “and even in the furniture styles at IKEA (from Lutheran Sweden). They can be seen in the modest dress, office decor and eating habits of Angela Merkel, the daughter of a Lutheran pastor....”
Taking risks. Germany, which has led the west in opening its doors to refugees, is finding that the newcomers are giving a big boost to the country’s rate of business start-ups, according to The Economist. In 2015, people with foreign passports were responsible for starting 44 percent of new companies in Germany, up from 13 percent a dozen years earlier. Part of the reason is that they have little choice, since a foreign name can make it harder to get a job interview. Another reason, the magazine says, is that immigrants tend to be risk-takers. “For the many who have fled civil war, crossed the Mediterranean and walked across much of Europe, dealing with German bureaucracy and obtaining a line of credit hardly seem daunting.” CEO pay. We’re used to hearing the U.S. and Europe blasted for excessive CEO pay, but if the gauge is ratios the prize goes to South Africa. A
Ever been fired? It may not be as bad as it seems and might even be good for you, according to a new “worker’s manual” titled The Thing About Work: Showing Up and Other Important Matters. Author Richard Moran, who is president of Menlo College in California, admits he has been fired twice and, with hindsight, recommends the experience to others. “Maybe you’re fooling yourself about how good the job is or maybe you need a new career. We can get lazy on a job,” he says. (Globe & Mail)
Cover photo of GORP bar producer Colleen Dyck by Wally Kroeker
The Marketplace March April 2017
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Bloomberg report says that country’s CEOs earn more than 500 times the average South African, making it one of the most unequal societies in the world. Its CEO paychecks ranked seventh among the world’s 25 largest economies, but it sprang to the top when compared to average income. By that reckoning, the average CEO (at $7.14 million) made 541 times more than regular workers. Second most unequal was India, whose CEOs (at $3.1 million) made 483 times more than the average worker. The U.S. and Britain were also high in disparity but their ratio was around half that of South Africa’s. (See also “British study examines bosses’ pay packets,” page 23). Donor doggerel. Received with a February donation check — “MEDA you are doing fine/Will you be my valentine?/The things you do are really sweet/And not just for a tax receipt.” — WK
In this issue
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She sets the bar high
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Man of metal; ahead of the curve
Abe Fehr’s employees travel the world to install high-tech metal fabrications. He also owns a minor league hockey team — a labor of love and a way to give back to his community. By Mike Strathdee
Uni-Fab’s Abe Fehr: Fabricating the future. Page 9
14 Departments 22 24 13 21 22
Editor: Wally Kroeker Design: Ray Dirks
Eldercare lessons from Ghana
Who would have thought a visit to a MEDA project helping soybean farmers in Africa could yield transferable benefits to a network of seniors’ homes across the globe. By Linda Whitmore
Roadside stand Soul enterprise Reviews Soundbites News
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Passing the bucks
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EMU alumni build ASSETS
Volume 47, Issue 2 March April 2017 The Marketplace (ISSN 321-330) 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 2017 by MEDA.
When Colleen Dyck was in triathlon training she needed a better way to replenish energy fast. The clean energy bar she started making became an instant hit — and a company was born.
Change of address should be sent to Mennonite Economic Development Associates, 1891 Santa Barbara Dr., Ste. 201, Lancaster, PA 17601-4106. To e-mail an address change, subscription request or anything else relating to delivery of the magazine, please contact subscription@meda.org
For many years MEDA Trade Co. was a leader in helping non-profit agencies convert currencies for use on the field. But with today’s complex regulatory climate the time has come to sell.
A bakery in Lancaster churns out 6,000 tasty cinnamon treats a week. Its six employees are all refugees who are finding economic hope in MEDA’s early ASSETS model. By Andrew Jenner
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 1891 Santa Barbara Dr., Ste. 201 Lancaster, PA 17601-4106
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
Visit our new online home at www.marketplacemagazine.org, where you can download past issues, read articles and discuss topics with others, all from your desktop or mobile device.
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The Marketplace March April 2017
Blowing a wish Can you remember your seventh birthday? As you blew out the candles on the cake, was your next wish related to the gifts you were about to open? When Hilina Friesen Meeks turned seven late last year, she wished for something bigger than just a present. She wanted to give the gift of opportunity. Hilina was born in Ethiopia and adopted Hilina and grandfather Tom Friesen (former MEDA staffer in South by parents Kristine Friesen and Trevor Meeks. America) celebrating the seven-year milestone. Though she’s spent most of her young life near Denver, Hilina often talks and thinks about her birthplace. After exchanging stories with her mother and grandfather (former MEDA employee Tom Friesen) about MEDA’s work in Ethiopia, she set out to do something. Rather than expecting birthday presents from her closest friends and family for her seventh birthday, Hilina wanted to make a difference in the lives of her fellow Ethiopians. She asked folks to support MEDA’s EMERTA project in Ethiopia. “Emerta,” which means “to leap to great heights” in the Amharic language, seeks to help families leap ahead by getting new information, skills, access to tools and connections to places to sell what they make. Hilina raised $420 for the EMERTA project, and in the process, started a new relationship with the MEDA Ethiopia team. After receiving the news of her gift, the team in Addis Ababa sent Hilina a photo with the Amharic word for “Thank you.” — Ethan Eshbach, MEDA engagement initiatives officer
Ethiopia’s EMERTA team gathered to send its thanks. The hand-held sign says “Thank you” in Amharic. The Marketplace March April 2017
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Photo by narvikk, iStock
T-shirts prove it; Mom knew best
One way to get creative
Bert and John Jacobs were the youngest of six children in a lower middle-class Boston family. A serious car accident injured their parents and threatened to toxify the home atmosphere. But their mother, Joan, wouldn’t let it. Despite problems and lingering injuries, she was convinced that life is good. At the dinner table she’d urge her kids to share something positive from the day. That always “changed the energy in the room,” the brothers say. Instead of reciting gripes or offences, the children would soon be laughing about this or that, they write in their new book, Life Is Good. “That optimism was something that our family always had, even when we had little else.” Their mom taught them that being happy didn’t depend on circumstances but was a courageous choice made every day, even under adversity. With her influence, the brothers went on to establish the Life Is Good T-shirt company, now a $100 million enterprise whose mission is to spread the power of optimism. Its tagline: “Life is not perfect. Life is not easy. Life is good.” Now, Bert and John ask their employees, “Tell me something good.” That, says John, “leads to ideas, which lead to progress, which leads to building on successes, instead of dwelling on challenges.” — Business Insider
How much of your daily work is routine, as in habitual, rote and unimaginative? When you drive to work, are you oblivious to your surroundings (other than traffic)? That’s what Dan King realized one day. “I could tell you everything that I thought about along the way, but I couldn’t tell you anything about the drive. I had gone into autopilot,” he writes in The High Calling (where he is social media editor). Then he thought about other parts of life he performs with no particular awareness. “My whole morning routine, from getting out of bed after two snooze-button slaps, to brushing my teeth, to shaving, to showering, to getting dressed. All autopilot.” Research shows many people live up to 95% of their life on autopilot, King writes. That’s not all bad. “After all, it’s what makes us efficient and consistent. My whole morning routine gets me out of the door on time every day because nothing varies in it. It’s the same routine, and it always takes the same amount of time.” But autopilot can squelch creativity. “When we don’t have to think about what we’re doing, the creative juices aren’t required to flow.” He quotes an article by Michele Serro in FastCompany.com — “3 Rules Every Entrepreneur Should Live By.” One rule is to disable autopilot and “forever question whether you are still on the best path.” In other words, we should avoid getting stuck in routines that prevent finding a better way to do things. How to wean from autopilot? Start small, says King. “Something as simple as changing your morning routine can boost your creativity.” For him that might mean taking a different route to work, rearrange office furniture, maybe go for a walk during lunch break. His prayer: “Lord, help me see things in new ways. “There is something fundamentally wrong Help me see new things. with treating the earth as if it were a busiGive me the creativity to Overheard: reinvent how I approach my ness in liquidation.” — Economist Herman work, my family, my minisE. Daly in Steady-State Economics try.” ◆ 5
The Marketplace March April 2017
She sets the bar high Popular adventure product has a dual mission — furnish clean energy and get people out into God’s creation
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olleen Dyck got a call one day from a retailer: “Did you just pay three people to come into our store and urge us to sell your bars?” It’s a business owner’s dream — to have customers help with marketing. That’s what has happened in the four years since Dyck started manufacturing GORP Clean Energy Bars. “Our customers spread the word for us,” she says. “The way we’ve been able to get into major chains is because of our customers. They get us into everything. It’s been such a blessing, and even sort of surreal.” People have sent her photos of themselves consuming GORP bars on mountaintops or out in canoes with their kids. “Having passionate customers is good, because I’m a really bad salesperson,” she says. “I’d rather be at home creating.” Or maybe running.
If Dyck hadn’t been an athlete, GORP bars might not exist. In 2005 she was doing triathlon training (swim, bike, run). She’d put the kids in daycare then go to the pool three days a week. On the way back to her rural home, 40 minutes away, she’d often hit the drive-thru. “I realized, this is so ridiculous,” she recalls. “But you’re hungry after training, and getting sustenance helps you recover faster.” She switched to eating energy bars but wasn’t completely happy with what was available. Most contained corn syrup and other ingrediThe Marketplace March April 2017
ents she didn’t want to eat or feed to her family. She decided to create her own source of clean calories. “I started researching and came up with this recipe, just for myself. I’d bring my homemade product to run and swim practices and pretty soon my fellow training mates, my friends and family, started demanding that I make some for them.” The logical next step was to start a business. That wasn’t a huge stretch as she was no stranger to the world of com6
merce. She and her husband, Grant, operate a large grain and oilseeds farm (corn, beans, soybeans, sunflowers, flax, canola) near Niverville, Manitoba. She’d grown up in a business home: her father was a wholesale Christian book distributor, and she had studied entrepreneurship at Red River Community College in Winnipeg. Business ran in her genes. “I’d always been wired that way. I always knew I would start a business of some kind someday, but I had no idea it would be in food,” she says. “I had no experience in culinary science. I had no background in anything but eating.” She embarked on a new learning curve of research and development. Dyck consulted with the Canadian government Food Development Centre in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, as she refined her recipe and tested shelf-life. “It’s a lot harder than it looks,” she says. “I had to learn all about
water activity and mold count. We didn’t want to add preservatives, so we had to reformulate a couple of times to get the perfect ratio that would last.”
She began producing bars
in three flavors: Cocoa, hemp & almond; Peanut butter & apple; and Peanut butter & raspberry. She chose a name familiar to outdoorsy folk — GORP (an acronym for Good Old Raisins and Peanuts). The bars are produced in a fullyequipped commercial kitchen in the basement of the Dycks’ farm home. Employees prepare the mixture and roll it out with old-fashioned rolling pins. It’s an arduous process, but ensures the texture Dyck wants. They run two production days a week, making between 2,800 and 5,000 bars. Dyck employs a staff of 10, not all full-time. Some on the production crew work on an as-needed basis, depending on orders. A self-described “health nut and tree hugger,” Dyck sources her ingredients locally, using Manitoba-grown oats, sunflower seeds, pea fibre, hemp and flax. The honey comes from bees that pollinate the canola fields around their farm. Some ingredients, like sprouted brown rice protein, cocoa and nuts, are sourced elsewhere. No artificial sugars, preservatives or colors are used. Early encouragement was strong. In 2009, even before she was formally under way, Dyck’s product won top prize at the Great Manitoba Food Fight, a business development forum. That gave her the confidence to keep going. Then in 2015 she was shocked to be chosen “company of the year” by the Manitoba Food Processors Association. “When I got the e-mail, I had to read it 10 times,” Dyck says. Coming from peers, the honor was “huge.” “These people are in the food industry in Manitoba, they know what it’s like, they know what the climate’s like.” Dyck knows that 90% of food
Fuel for the journey: Colleen Dyck in her basement kitchen where protein, fibre and Omega 3 are packed into tasty GORP bars.
companies fail in their first five years. “I have one more year,” she says. She’ll feel more comfortable when annual sales reach a million dollars. “We’re close. This year I’ll get there.” GORP bars are sold in 600 Canadian locations, including grocery and health food stores, gyms and gas stations. Landing a deal with Mountain Equipment Co-op, a leading Canadian outfitter, was “a really big, big, big deal for us.” Dyck’s product has been sold by 7
mail order throughout the U.S. for some time, but only this spring did she land her first retail account in the U.S.
She acknowledges lurches
and challenges along the way, such as learning to be a leader and dealing with things like handling disagreements. Maintaining a positive culture while meeting production targets is “a natural part of running a business but takes way more time than I thought.” As all business owners know, erratic markets can be a challenge. The Marketplace March April 2017
“Sometimes you get amazing sales in a year, then you don’t. You’re prepped for growth and it didn’t happen, and you have to figure out how to cash-flow your way out of it.” But there are also serendipitous “Aha” moments, like an unsolicited testimonial from NHL hockey player Zach Bogosian. Dyck had donated GORP bars to a local marathon for mental health and because of this the bars got passed along into the hands of the Winnipeg Jets and they have been buying them ever since. Bogosian, now with the Buffalo Sabres, gave the following testimonial: “I eat GORP bars before and during games to help fuel my body. They taste great, are all-natural, and don’t leave me with a typical energy bar aftertaste.” Then the Toronto Maple Leafs began to order GORP bars. “Those are some really nice accounts that give you street cred,” Dyck says. “The athletes kept saying how well the bars sat in their stomachs. At first I laughed it off, but then I was told not to discount that feature. If they can eat it and then go out and play and not cramp up, it’s a huge deal for them. They put out a lot of calories when they’re on the ice and if they can’t replenish them carefully, it affects their game.” Dyck explains that the bars’ highquality sprouted brown rice protein doesn’t produce bloating or gas upsets, as can be the case with cheaper ingredients. “Of course, that makes the bars more expensive,” she says. “But I’m glad I stuck to my guns when people told me to make it cheaper. ‘It’s too expensive,’ they said. ‘Nobody will buy it’.” Cutting corners is not Dyck’s style. “We don’t just sprinkle in the flax and hemp,” she says. “You’re getting functional amounts of the good ingredients, a full teaspoon of ground flax, two teaspoons of raw hemp, 11 grams of protein, 6 grams of fibre, a full gram of Omega 3. The The Marketplace March April 2017
quality is there. You can feel it when you eat it.”
Dyck wants to get out of her crowded basement to a standalone building on the farmyard, but “the numbers aren’t there yet.” She is close to bringing out a fourth energy bar flavor (ginger-apple-pecan) and plans a special “Canadian bar” (possibly with Canadian ingredients like maple and blueberry) to honor the country’s 150th birthday this year. But she also envisions a complete line of energy foods to help keep on-the-go people healthy. One emerging product is a makeit-yourself bar mix. “So many moms tell me ‘I love your bars, but they are expensive. I hide them from my kids because they gobble them up’,” says Dyck. “I get how that adds up. I wondered, ‘How can I make this more affordable for people but still have all the good ingredients?’ I came up with an energy bar mix.” It will contain sprouted brown rice proteins, fibre, peanut flour — all the things that may be hard to come by in regular stores. “We can tell busy moms, ‘We’ve done all the work for you.’ “All they need to do is add peanut butter and honey, roll into a traditional cooking pan and load them into the fridge. I provide the
She brought her homemade bars to athletic practices and soon her fellow training mates wanted them, too.
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packaging. They get 30 bars, for a buck each, ready to drop into lunchkits or hockey duffel bags.”
Dyck’s triathlon days are over, at least for now. With running a business and hauling her kids (ages 13, 11, 9 and 6) to their sporting events, “I’m full on kid-time now. It’s a lot of work.” Her Christian faith undergirds her business philosophy. “This is God’s company. He’s my business partner,” she asserts, noting that GORP can also stand for “God’s Out Reach Project.” She sees her products as part of a holistic blend of faith, health and creation. “GORP is something you pack for an adventure, whether a day hike or a mountain-climbing expedition,” she says. “It’s about healthy living and finding adventure in your life and eating clean.” She sees her products as an answer to a society that is stressedout by food, technology and frantic activity. “People experience a lot of food stress. What should I eat? What shouldn’t I eat? There’s a lot of fear-mongering going on around food. And there’s a lot of money to be made with fear. We decided we weren’t ever going to use fear as a marketing move.” She believes too many people are chained to their desks, overwhelmed by mortgages and finances. “A lot of stress and mental health issues could be avoided and helped if people would remember to get outside and interact with nature,” Dyck says. “With technology today it gets easier and easier not to do that. There’s no replacement for face-toface and foot-to-earth. “Our whole aim is to inspire people to get outside, have adventures, connect with their community, connect with nature, and realize that the best things in life are free — community, the people around you, and creation — this beautiful planet God created for us to play in.” ◆
Man of metal keeps ahead of the curve Uni-Fab employees, many with rural roots and limited formal education, travel the world with high-tech installations by Mike Strathdee
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be Fehr has seen profound change during his three decades in the metal fabrication business. There is a lot more computer programming than metal bashing at Uni-Fab, his Leamington, Ontario, metal fabrication firm. “Compared to what it was back then, where everything was laid out in soapstone and the cutting would be done with an oxy acetylene torch with a sheet metal tip, now we are cutting with lasers and it is all CNC (Computer Numeric Control) programming ahead of time,” he says. “The repeatability of what we can do now is so much greater. We’re doing much more complex work than we did back then.” Many of the firm’s 125 employees do not have much formal education. Yet people who completed only Grade six are doing computer programming. “The product they are building, their understanding of the work that they need to do and the
machines they are running is pretty fabulous, if I look at it,” says Fehr. One of Ontario’s largest metal fabricators, Uni-Fab specializes in products for the automotive, aerospace and machine tool industries, such as machine enclosures, working platforms, mezzanines and ladders. In the aerospace industry, Uni-Fab produced 40-foot high moving platforms to accommodate the Airbus A320 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft. Uni-Fab ships 85% of its production to the United States, from where its enclosures are sent around the world. Occasionally, his staff have to go to India, France, Brazil and China to do installations. Globetrotting is a major cultural shift for people who grew up in Mexico and live in a small rural community. “Maybe there’s an extra job gets added on; once they are done in France, a job gets added on in Romania. They have to book flights, make sure their toolboxes 9
get shipped along and all that,” Fehr says.
Fehr, the oldest of nine sib-
lings, grew up in a family that moved several times during his formative years. Born in Tillsonburg, a small community in the heart of Ontario’s tobacco belt, Fehr was uprooted several times during his teens. “I’m sure that had a lot to do with shaping my worldview.” When he was 13, his family moved to Leamington. Two years later, they relocated to Rio Verde, Paraguay, in South America. “I wanted to come back (to Canada) the whole three years we were there,” he recalls. When his father finally suggested the family would move back, in 1982, Fehr was ecstatic. Returning to Leamington meant working with the commodity the community is closely associated with, tomatoes. The tomatoes weren’t the only fruit of Fehr’s job. Introduced to his The Marketplace March April 2017
Modern, repeatable and complex: Uni-Fab owner Abe Fehr stands next to a state-of-the-art laser cutter.
wife Lisa by her brother, they were married a year later. Raised and baptized in the Low German speaking Old Colony Mennonite Church, Fehr served a number of leadership roles. As their three children grew, the Fehrs realized their family was unlikely to continue worshipping together in a language they didn’t know well. “We knew that once our children were in their teens, they would not want to go to that church any longer, because they didn’t speak German very well, and the sermons were still in German,” Fehr says. They moved to Leamington United Mennonite (known by locals as Oak Street), where Fehr has also served in a variety of roles. “It was one of the more serious decisions I had to make,” he says. Entrepreneurship came early to Fehr. Even in his younger days he had lemonade stands and was always thinking of how something could be sold. “I think my grandfather on my The Marketplace March April 2017
People who didn’t get past Grade six are able to master sophisticated computer programming. mother’s side had a pretty good influence, even though I didn’t get to know him that well.... He found a way of doing business, or commerce, wherever he went. It’s almost a genetic thing for me.”
Uni-Fab does a lot of automotive work, mostly selling machine enclosures to machine tool companies, the firms that sell machines to the auto parts makers. They also build metal balconies or platforms for robotic welding lines as well as 10
hydraulic tanks. The company works out of an 81,000-square-foot facility. Uni-Fab is preparing to put up a second, 32,000-square-foot building to accommodate a new machine. The new equipment is a $1.4 million Toshiba bridge mill that will machine a part 10 feet wide by 20 feet long by five feet high. The machine will do milling, drilling or boring on five sides of these enormous parts. Toshiba is a Uni-Fab customer as well. The new machine will allow Uni-Fab to stop outsourcing large jobs, some of which have had to be sent to competitors, costing them control of workflow. “It’ll probably help us be more competitive in some larger projects, and also to control our own destiny in terms of when the product gets done.” Fehr got his start in the business in 1983, working for a custom fabricating firm. Eight years later, he was in Michigan working to set up a plant. In discussions with three of his co-workers, they decided to
start their own business. Last summer, Fehr bought out a remaining shareholder to become Uni-Fab’s sole owner.
Fehr’s first introduction to
MEDA came in 2005, when Leamington entrepreneurs Roger and Laura Tiessen invited Abe and Lisa to accompany them on a trip to Egypt. “I loved what I saw, what they did there,” says Fehr. “It’s probably still one of my most inspiring visits, when we saw how happy the owner and the kids were that they got this new oven, that it made it safer for them to work. Even the owner seemed to be very excited that the kids could go to school for half a day and only work half the day.” After that trip, Fehr began attending MEDA conventions. “At the AGMs, you start to learn so much
Entrepreneurship came early, starting with lemonade stands and selling things. “It’s almost a genetic thing for me.” more about MEDA,” he says. Soon he was asked to join the MEDA board. There he learned about internships, and encouraged daughter Mary to pursue one with MEDA. She went to Tanzania three years ago to work with MEDA’s mosquito net project, something that “really fit her well.” “They really allowed her to grow
in her position there, and as a whole for her career, it helped her along quite a bit that way.” Abe and Lisa visited Tanzania when Mary was there. They all went to Ghana with a MEDA team last November, making a side trip to Tanzania. “It’s pretty easy to be part of an organization like MEDA, because when you see what they do for the poorest (people) of the world, it’s hard not to get behind it. Especially when you see a field trip, the projects that they do, it’s easy to get behind it after that.” MEDA got into daughter Mary’s heart as well. Along with Sarah French (a former MEDA intern who now works for MEDA in donor relations), she biked across Canada in the summer of 2015, raising $321,000 for women soybean farmers in Ghana. Mary currently works in
Abe and Lisa Fehr flank daughter Mary in St. John’s, Newfoundland — the end of a cross-Canada Bike to Grow tour she and Sarah French organized in 2015 to raise money for women soybean farmers in Ghana. 11
The Marketplace March April 2017
For Abe Fehr, owning a minor league hockey team is more than a labor of love. It’s a way to give back to the community.
marketing for JMX Brands in Sarasota, Florida.
Volunteering is an important
part of Fehr’s life. He served nine years on the board with MSCU, an Ontario Mennonite credit union (now known as Kindred), five years on the MEDA board, several leadership roles in his home congregation and nine years on the Abundance Canada board (formerly Mennonite Foundation of Canada). He still finds time to engage some of his other passions, taking in the occasional NHL professional hockey game, particularly his beloved Toronto Maple Leafs. More often, he is watching a team he owns, the Junior B Leamington Flyers. Fehr purchased the team in 2010 with two other partners, and is now the sole owner.
The Marketplace March April 2017
Getting on a bus for a hockey road trip with a gang of young players — “it’s just a lot of fun.” “It does consume a lot of time, just because I want it to,” he says. Fehr could delegate a lot of the tasks associated with the team, but chooses to be regularly involved with the 17-20 year-old players. “For me to jump on a bus and go on a road trip with a gang of guys, it’s just a lot of fun. “Every game… guys just thank me for this or for that.” Owning a minor league hockey 12
team is a labor of love, something Fehr describes as an expensive hobby and a way of giving back to the community. “Sometimes I say – I could do so many other things, too. I have other interests, but there’s still time for that.” One of those other dreams is to own a working cattle ranch that others would operate and he could visit. He has taken a working vacation on a ranch in Nebraska each of the past two years. That dream will wait for a few years yet. “Maybe retirement sometime,” he says. ◆ Mike Strathdee, CFP, is a gift planning consultant with Abundance Canada (formerly Mennonite Foundation of Canada), based in Kitchener, Ontario. Earlier he had a 15-year journalism career, most of it as a business writer for The Record.
Reviews
The burdens of strife Getting Along at Work. By Caleb Crider (Carlisle, 2016, 149 pp. $12.99 U.S.)
tionships on the job.” Do you have a thin skin? In a chapter titled “Practice Not Getting Offended,” Crider reminds readers that “Our coworkers don’t usually come to work in the morning with a secret plan to hurt our feelings.” Biblical support helps, as in Proverbs 19:11 which says it is to a person’s glory to “pass over a transgression.” In a time when common civility seems to be in scarce supply, Crider invites readers to employ six principles to “respect your coworkers.” Imag-
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an’t we all just get along? Well, no; not always. Would be nice, though — especially at work, where many of us spend so many waking hours. Likely no one reading this magazine works in a place of zero strife. Caleb Crider writes from personal trench experience. He wrote this book partly because he needed it himself — “I learned that not being able to get along with people was a burden and a liability.” He decided to make a serious effort to learn how to get along with everyone he encountered in a day’s work — his boss, coworkers and customers. So here is what resulted. It’s not so much a handbook for emerging buddyhood, nor a guide to making new best friends. His goal is simply to be able to form relationships that “work smoothly.” Central to much of that is to bless others by demonstrating Christian virtues in the workplace. “We have the ability to really ruin someone’s day at work,” says Crider. Everyone knows about “customer service,” but not so many about service to coworkers. “Doing our work well and keeping our attitude pleasant while going the extra mile to make our coworkers’ work easier will help them have a much better day at work,” he says. But it works both ways. Positive relationships also make one’s own work less stressful and more fulfilling. Moreover, “getting along well with others is good for our job security and improves our job prospects in the future.” Bosses don’t like it when staff can’t get along, Crider
“Employers prefer not to hire people who notes. “Employers prefer not to hire people who have a history of creating conflict.” He covers a lot of behavioral ground: pride, quirks, critical spirits, grudges and jealousy, to name a few. Most readers will find plenty of personal resonance. Can you learn something from a coworker who rubs you the wrong way? Is he or she reflecting a blind spot that you, too, might possess? “Remembering that I probably irritate other people just as often as they irritate me helps me to be more gracious with others,” Crider writes. Sometimes, plain old professionalism can work wonders. “When you act in a respectful, professional way, those you encounter in your work are more likely to respect you,” he says. “Professional behavior doesn’t cancel out personality differences, but it smooths out some of the bumps that cause problems in rela13
have a history of creating conflict.” ine, he asks, what would happen if everyone respected themselves, their coworkers and their boss. He concludes with three case studies of people who faced special challenges in getting along with coworkers. One you’ll recognize from Sunday school — Daniel of lion’s den fame. Another is Abe Lincoln, and the third comprises 33 Chilean miners who were trapped underground for 69 days. This is a book for anyone who holds a job. If you want to get a promotion, become more employable, reach targets with distinction and bless your coworkers along the way, you’ll need to get along at work. This may be just the help you need. — Wally Kroeker The Marketplace March April 2017
Eldercare lessons from Ghana Who would have thought the soy fields of Africa could yield benefits in a seniors’ home across the globe by Linda Whitmore
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t first blush, you might wonder what a Canadian organization of seven longterm care homes could learn from women soy farmers in Ghana that they could apply back home. But learn, they did, and the experiences of a dozen peopleCare staff who visited MEDA’s Greater Rural Opportunities for Women (GROW) project in 2014 have been incorporated into its culture and practices. Forty-five years ago, peopleCare’s founders were pioneers of social entrepreneurship, imbuing their family of homes with the theme of social responsibility even before the term existed. That has carried forward to the third generation and today’s owner, Brent Gingerich. The trip to Ghana sprang from a strategic initiative called Beyond Ourselves — moving the theme from paper to action. “We have a commitment to care and to helping those who need assistance with daily living,” says Elaine Shantz, peopleCare’s president and COO. “Seniors are entrusted to us, many at a vulnerable time in their life; we have a responsibility to enhance their quality of life. “Our people — our 900 employees — are key. When we value them we know they will in turn treat our 900 residents well. We believe people need opportunities to grow — to look beyond our four walls — to experiences they can gain. The Marketplace March April 2017
Looking outward enhances life — both for the elderly and for women farmers, says president Elaine Shantz, shown with Brent Gingerich, owner of peopleCare.
“Beyond Ourselves sprang from that thinking. We encourage everyone — employees, residents, their families, the local community — to ask how we can engage and develop people. We can get entrenched in our day-to-day work, but when our team of visitors met the women farmers in a soy field in Ghana, they realized people are the same — we face the same challenges. “Our commitment to people permeates peopleCare. We ask ourselves how do we do our very best for the world around us. Our vision is to change the world of senior living. We need to do that with our people, by developing them as leaders. And part of that is by offering opportunities 14
for growth beyond our organization.” Shantz says she has found great personal support at peopleCare in her eight years with the organization. “We have the freedom to embrace opportunity and try new things for individual growth. Brent allows us to be innovative in our thinking. In a highly regulated sector, we choose to go beyond the regulations and funding restrictions, but still operate efficiently. Because our employees have opportunities to grow, residents have caregivers who are full of passion and commitment.” Four years ago when Beyond Ourselves was initiated, peopleCare invited several non-profit organizations to attend their strategic plan-
Leadership skills can be remarkably similar, whether standing in a soybean field or beside a resident in a senior home. ning sessions. As a company that employs a lot of women, they saw a natural fit with GROW, which aims to bring new economic opportunities to 20,000 women farmers. A new partnership was born, as were plans for a peopleCare trip to Ghana. The family of homes began to mobilize to meet a fundraising target of $25,000, each home organizing its own money-raising activities — barbecues, bake sales, silent auctions and even a gala evening — eventually far outstripping the original goal,
and raising $40,000 for GROW’s women farmers. Although each employee paid for their own trip, peopleCare provided time off with pay. The team of 12, including Gingerich, saw how the women in Ghana were learning to farm, to process soy into paste and milk, improving family nutrition. These women were developing leadership skills and empowering themselves to make a difference in their families and villages. They were proud to share their achievements with their visitors. “The peopleCare team saw firsthand that monumental change is possible through creating business solutions to poverty,” says Shantz. “And they realized that leadership strategies are the same whether standing in a soybean field or beside a resident in a peopleCare home.” Upon their return, the group shared seven lessons of engagement: 1. Develop relationships 2. Work toward a common goal 3. Build trust 4. Seek out and recognize leaders 5. Shared success for all 6. Sustainability 7. Beyond Ourselves PeopleCare has been recognized three times as one of Deloitte’s 50 Best Managed Companies in Canada,
Women Walking to GROW
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laine Shantz of peopleCare and Miriam Turnbull of ProResp plan to trek the Bruce Trail in July to support women entrepreneurs in Ghana. The endeavor will focus on women: • Supporting their families • Inspiring each other • GROWing their careers • Realizing their dreams Besides raising money for GROW, the effort aims to: • Develop a leadership platform, whether in a soybean field in Ghana or a health care organization in Ontario • Design a model that other businesses can embrace to look beyond their day-to-day work Others can help by donating, sponsoring and/or joining the Team 100km Challenge. Learn more at: womenwalkingtogrow.com — or call MEDA at 1-800-665-7026 ◆ Linda Whitmore is MEDA’s senior marketing and communications manager.
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Elaine Shantz (left) and Miriam Turnbull plan to trek Ontario’s Bruce Trail this summer to support women farmers in Ghana.
an award that honors outstanding business performance and innovative management. Shantz plans to lead a 900-km trek (550 miles) of the Bruce Trail on the edge of Ontario’s Niagara Escarpment this summer to raise $100,000 for GROW. She will be accompanied by Miriam Turnbull of ProResp, a provider of home oxygen and respiratory care. “Through the trek,” says Shantz, “as we share with other long-term care organizations, we’ll talk about our vision to change the world, our opportunity to make a difference. Personally, I’ve had lots of other people give me opportunities. I want to share that with others — that’s my passion, why this opportunity resonates with me. “Like the women in Ghana, I have had opportunities way beyond what I had expected. Milo Shantz was my first mentor at age 21 when I became manager of the Stone Crock Restaurant (St. Jacobs, Ont.). Thirteen years later, I joined the credit union (now Kindred), where I worked with Cliff Schott. Today Brent Gingerich continues to provide those opportunities. I’ve been very fortunate to have three lives, and three very different careers.” ◆ The Marketplace March April 2017
Passing the bucks An era ends as MEDA Trade sells currency division Photo by Pogonici, iStock
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fter more than two decades of global leadership, MEDA Trade Co. Inc. is getting out of the foreign currency exchange business. It announced recently that it has sold its foreign currency business to INTL FCStone, a longtime associate whose global payments division has worked closely with MEDA on projects around the world. MEDA Trade is a for-profit MEDA subsidiary that provided currency remittance services to international non-government organizations in Canada. By using bank and trading connections cultivated over many years, it offered savings on money transfers as well as innovative ways to convert U.S. and Canadian funds into local currencies in more than 125 countries. In making the announcement, Gerald Morrison, MEDA’s CFO and president of MEDA Trade, said INTL will provide the same level of service The Marketplace March April 2017
that clients have grown to expect from MEDA. “They have been excellent partners whose focus on conducting business in the most efficient and ethical manner aligns perfectly with our core principles,” he said. A Fortune 500 company with more than 30 years of experience, INTL (with staff in New York, London and Singapore) delivers local currency to 175 countries for over 500 not-for-profit, religious and government organizations. Morrison explained that the foreign exchange department, though it performed with distinction for many years, was no longer part of MEDA’s strategic direction and was not bringing in new business operations as it had in the past. “Another reason is that the regulatory environment for wire transfers and foreign exchange services has become so intricate and complex that it’s very difficult to be profitable at the scale at which we 16
were working,” he said. MEDA Trade dates back to what was called the Third World debt crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. MEDA saw a need for a service that could buy and transfer relatively small amounts of foreign currencies more nimbly and economically than major banks. In 1991 Jerry Quigley, now senior vice-president, programs, began brokering “debt swaps” for developing countries. By the time the crisis abated, MEDA Trade had built a reputation for efficient currency transactions and began offering a foreign exchange service. It was in a good position to do so because it understood developing countries and had forged relationships with reliable New York currency partners. For MEDA, the service provided two benefits. One, it helped clients (including MEDA affiliates) to maximize their funds to boost impact on the ground. Two, the modest spread
MEDA Trade charged produced revenue which was recycled back into MEDA’s programs. For Sheri Brubacher, the sale will coincide with her June retirement from MEDA. For 18 years she served as the foreign currency exchange and compliance officer for MEDA Trade. She commonly handled more than 2,000 transactions a year for some three dozen client agencies who needed funds converted to conventional currencies like euros, yen and British pounds, or “exotic” currencies like Kenyan shillings, Ethiopian birr and Nicaraguan cordobas. Clients ranged from Save the Children
The service helped clients maximize funds to boost their impact, and earned revenue to recycle back into MEDA programs. and Canadian Co-operative Association to Mennonite Central Committee and War Child Canada. Altogether the transactions often exceeded a hundred million dollars a year. Then came the rise of global terrorism, which dramatically altered the banking system and brought everything under more intense scrutiny. In Canada, anyone transferring money on a regular basis made it onto the radar of a regulatory watchdog that sought to detect money laundering, fraud and the financing of terrorist activities. To operate in the new climate meant being subject to a whole new range of reporting and monitoring procedures. Brubacher now had to spend a
lot of time studying anti-corruption reports and keeping up with external audits and compliance issues. She also had to educate clients, many of them small charities that weren’t always happy with this new intrusion into their affairs, but who nonetheless were being watched closely to make sure they weren’t a hiding place for funds. “Everything we did was under a microscope, and we had to prove it over and over again,” says Brubacher. MEDA Trade wasn’t the only way to move money. A client could simply use a bank or a “foreign exchange boutique” and pay higher fees. Many banks, if asked to send to a remote place, would just send U.S. dollars — which likely meant a second fee when the U.S. funds were converted again. Also, each conversion necessitated additional accounting steps. “When we sent, say Kenya shillings, it simplified bookkeeping for our clients,” says Brubacher. “It meant more money ended up going to the beneficiaries rather than being spent on fees and additional accounting costs.” Then too, MEDA Trade could often gain 17
a volume rate by clustering several trades. Even its small spread added up and enabled MEDA Trade to contribute sizeable sums back to MEDA. For Brubacher, that was part of the win-win. “The client got a good rate, and any profit we made went back to serving the poor again,” she says. Beyond the seemingly endless reports and number crunching, she also was always aware that even a routine wire transfer had a human face on the other end — a family getting access to good water, a sick child receiving treatment, a small farmer receiving technical aid. In each case she was helping other service agencies to amplify their work while also earning extra revenue for MEDA. ◆
The Marketplace March April 2017
Alumni help build ASSETS Refugees find economic hope through early MEDA model by Andrew Jenner
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ith holiday demand on the upswing, The Stroopie Company went to two shifts late last year, allowing them to churn out up to 6,000 Dutch stroopwafels (cinnamon-y, carmel-y goodies best enjoyed with a hot beverage) a week. All six workers running the show at the company’s small production facility in Lancaster, Penn., are refugees: three from Myanmar (Burma) and three from Syria. Once a day, they sit down with the store manager, who is also a certified ESL teacher, for a half-hour English lesson. As a certified B Corporation, The Stroopie Company measures its success by social and environmental standards in addition to the profit column — hence the language classes and $11-an-hour starting wage offered to refugees otherwise facing limited employment prospects. Alone, however, these commitments don’t solve the challenges of solvency and profitability facing any small business. To help meet them, The Stroopie Company turned to ASSETS Lancaster, a job training and business preparation program started by MEDA in 1993.* One of the organization’s new programs, says executive director Jessica King (EMU 1996), is called the Great Social Enterprise Pitch, which offers a series of business-planning workshops to 10 entrepreneurs who prioritize social and environmental well-being. After the workshops, five * ASSETS stands for A Service for Self-Employment Training & Support
The Marketplace March April 2017
Photos by Jon Styer/Eastern Mennonite University
Jessica King, executive director of ASSETS, visits with The Stroopie Company owner Jennie Groff (right, facing) and two employees, both refugees.
participants pitch their ideas to a panel of judges and compete for more than $50,000 in cash and services. In 2015, The Stroopie Company won the competition, coming away with donated legal services, a free photo session for a new product catalog, and cash that it invested in new equipment. “It gave us the confidence that we had a great idea going,” says Jennie Groff, one of the company’s owners. “We really feel like we’re poised to grow.” Lancaster is a welcoming and generous community that resettles more refugees and gives, on average, more to charity than anywhere else in Pennsylvania. By integrating this philanthropic impulse into a workable business model, King says, “impact businesses” like The Stroopie 18
Company are able to fund their own pursuit of a greater good. “[The Stroopie Company] is a means to an end. The end is about helping their neighbors have better lives,” she says. “There are a lot of ways you can do that. Making cookies is their way of doing that. “It’s amazing to see the kind of impact that [employers] can have on the lives of people around them, their neighbors and their employees, regardless of what their business is. It’s the spirit of ‘how’ they do it,” King continued. “It might not be all that bright and shiny, but it really matters to people. That’s what really gets me excited.” Through its various programs, ASSETS provides training and lending to entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups as well as the impact
businesses committed to social and environmental goals. During the most recent fiscal year, it supported the creation of 40 new businesses and more than 70 jobs, provided loans or long-term training to more than 150 entrepreneurs, and involved nearly 1,500 businesspeople and community members in other programs and events. “We believe in the power of business to transform our communities for good,” says Tina Campbell (EMU 1999), director of development. “But we are also convinced that it must be equitable transformation — that all races, ethnicities and cultures must be included for true economic development to happen in our own communities.” According to board member Kevin Ressler (EMU 2007), an important part of this vison has been ASSETS’ expanding focus over the past several years to supporting impact businesses in addition to entrepreneurs from
underrepresented groups. “This work breaks down the barriers of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and begins to see that ‘we’ is our only hope moving forward to maintain a country full of communities that don’t just co-exist but co-create and thrive together.” Since 2008, The Stroopie Company has employed 16 refugee women in its kitchen. Many have used it as both a landing and a launching pad, a welcoming place to build experience and improve their English before moving on to other things. Recently, when a TV news crew stopped by for an interview with one of the Syrian workers, Groff called in an employee who’d just left to provide some translation help. Watching from the sidelines, Groff was struck by the poise and fluency the former employee had developed, at least in part, right there in the stroopwafel kitchen. “She came here hardly wanting to say anything. To be able to see
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Jessica King, ASSETS executive director
how she’s leaving us — it just was hugely encouraging,” says Groff. “That is totally what motivates my husband and me. It is just so rewarding to see our refugee employees come in and gain confidence. You can just almost see it happening before your very eyes.” ◆ Reprinted with permission from Crossroads, published by Eastern Mennonite University
The Marketplace March April 2017
Don’t curse your own brand by David Hagenbuch
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canning a social media feed, a headline caught my attention, “It’s really f***king hard to write articles that don’t suck.” I was surprised to see a post with such thinly-veiled vulgarity, but what I noticed next really shocked me: The post’s creator was not only a person I know but someone who calls me a mentor. There was a time when no one would have considered dropping the “F word” in any form of professional communication; however, we’ve entered an era in which people from pop stars to politicians effortlessly interject obscenities. Despite the negative impact vulgarity has on a brand, it’s easy to find examples: Shelly Palmer, one of LinkedIn’s “Top Voices in Technology for 2016,” shared a list of his 10 most widely read articles for 2016, two of which alluded to obscenities: #4 “Apple MacBook Pro 2016: WTF?” and #1 “Apple iPhone 7: Are You F#$king Kidding Me?” The CheatSheet recently published an article with the title “What the Hell is Wrong with Macy’s?” Country singer Dierks Bentley has even titled his 2017 shows the “What the Hell Tour.” Others also appear comfortable invoking profanity in building their brands. At the grocery store, I noticed a woman wearing a sweatshirt from Shippensburg University with the slogan “Ship Happens.” The crude allusion was evident. Why would anyone risk associating their brand with foul language? They may want to appear edgy, thinking that such an image will differentiate them from competitors and help them stand out amid the commercial clutter. Regardless the reason, expletives are a short-sighted and shaky approach to brand-building. Yes, they grab attention, but they also communicate several very The Marketplace March April 2017
unbecoming brand qualities: 1. Unintelligent: Anyone who’s ever invoked an expletive knows it wasn’t an intellectual expression. People often say profane things when they’re frustrated, over-excited or otherwise unable to articulate an intelligent, reasoned response. Obscenities are a desperate attempt to utter something impactful without putting any thought into it. Likewise, swearing is a weak substitute for true creativity and original ideas. Those who curse seldom seem smart. 2. Angry: The most common reason people swear is anger. In
Workplace incivility has been linked with reduced productivity and lower sales. fact, the two are so often associated that when we hear someone utter an expletive, we’ll wonder or even ask “What’s the matter?” As a result, it doesn’t take many instances of hearing a person invoke obscenities for us to conclude that he/she is an angry person — or, in the case of marketing, a harsh, unwelcoming brand. Few individuals want to be around others who exude such caustic emotion, and brands need to consider that when using profanity. 20
3. Unproductive: In a country of declining civility, Porath and Peason (2013) found that incivility in the workplace is associated with reduced productivity, poorer customer service, and lower sales — all bad outcomes for a brand. Profanity grabs attention, but it’s not good at letting it go. It’s difficult for us to “unhear” obscenities, put them out of our minds and move on to productive analysis and action. Profanity limits people’s own productivity and that of others. 4. Indecent: Swear words are intentionally boorish, crude and uncouth. Yes, we appreciate individuals and brands that are genuine and real — that don’t mislead by putting on airs. However, few of us respect or want to be around others who are vulgar, coarse or crass. 5. Untrustworthy: Imagine you’re using valet parking and one attendant says “I’ll take your keys,” while another says “I’ll take your f#$king keys.” Which attendant do you want to park your car? Probably the first one whose professionalism invokes more trust. In almost any situation, we’ll trust an individual with a clean vocabulary over someone with a foul mouth. Trust is the most important thing a brand can gain. When brands lose trust, they lose everything. Centuries ago, the Persian poet Hafiz advised: “The words you speak become the house you live in.” That proverb couldn’t be more appropriate for individuals and organizations today hoping to build an inviting brand, as opposed to one that appears unintelligent, angry, unproductive, indecent and untrustworthy. No one should curse their own brand. ◆ David Hagenbuch is professor of marketing at Messiah College, Mechanicsburg, Pa., and author of Honorable Influence: A Christian’s Guide to Faithful Marketing.
Soundbites
Work – no longer a four-letter word In the Industrial Age, work became a four-letter word, saddled with the baggage of soulless tasks and exploitive industrialists. In the Modern Age, where the majority of us trade intellectual, relational, and experiential capital toward a paycheck, the very definition of work is going through a revival. We are squarely in a renaissance period in the evolution of what work means to our lives. In many ways we find ourselves in our work. We discover who we are and who we are not. We discover our strengths and weaknesses, but also at a deeper level we find affirmation of our purpose on this planet and of our potential to positively impact others. — Mitch Anthony in The New Retirementality: Planning Your Life and Living Your Dreams ... at Any Age You Want
Islands of decency What America and the West can do — and have not done nearly enough of — is to invest in and amplify the islands of decency and the engines of capacity-building in countries in, or bordering on, the World of Disorder. When we invest in the tools that enable young people to realize their full potential, we are countering the spread of humiliation, which is the single biggest motivator for people to go out and break things. — Thomas L. Friedman in Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations
In praise of wood [W]ood was second only to soil in its importance to the farm economy. Without it, houses, barns, and corncribs — not to mention churches and schools — were almost impossible to construct. Most of the tools and machinery with which farmers
worked their land were made with it in whole or in part. It supplied the wagons that allowed crops to move to market, and the fences that kept livestock from straying where they were not wanted. It heated homes, cooked meals, and supplied the energy that ran steam engines. No raft, boat, or railroad could be built without it. Lacking a ready supply of wood, no town could come into being or aspire to become a metropolis. — William Cronon in Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West
Stock tip October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May,
March, June, December, August, and February. — Mark Twain
Well, yeah No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions. He had money as well. — Late British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in a 1986 TV interview
Techno-lag Every technology is used before it is completely understood. There is always a lag between an innovation and the apprehension of its consequences. We are living in that lag, and it is the right time to keep our heads and reflect. — Leon Wieseltier in the New York Times Review of Books
JMX Brands ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT TO CEO: JMX Brands is looking for a highly organized individual who is willing to assist in a variety of clerical and administrative tasks. We’re seeking an individual who enjoys and excels in administrative support and has 3-5 years of relevant experience. It is essential that the candidate is comfortable in a fast-paced environment and good at managing many details. This position will require someone who is highly organized, efficient, detail-oriented, comfortable with ambiguity, technologically savvy, personable and highly trustworthy. Must have a positive attitude and strong work ethic. Must enjoy working with people and the challenges that come in working for a small company. Good communication skills and average quantitative abilities are required. Must have strong skills in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and moderate skills in QuickBooks and general technical troubleshooting. Must have equivalent of associate degree. BUSINESS MANAGER: JMX Brands is looking for a business manager who will be broadly responsible for business processes, accounting, financial management, budgeting, property management and human resource management at JMX Brands. The business manager will be a part of our management team and will proactively lead in financial performance, human resource development and business decisions, supervising a small team and reporting directly to the CEO. Qualifications include direct experience in managerial accounting and business management, strong analytical skills, and demonstration of leadership abilities. Demonstrated ability to think strategically and proven track record of savvy financial management is needed. We’re looking for someone with demonstrated ability to think outside the box, to carefully manage priorities for self and others in the context of a heavy workload and continuous change, and a desire to grow and drive change. Baccalaureate degree is required, graduate degree preferred. Contact: ceo@jmxbrands.com
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The Marketplace March April 2017
News
More entrepreneurship urged for foreign aid Starting businesses — not just promoting job training — needs a bigger profile in U.S. foreign aid, writes Steven R. Koltai in Harvard Business Review. Koltai, a seasoned entrepreneur and former State Department adviser, is the author of Peace through Entrepreneurship: Investing in a Startup Culture for Security and Development. He says most Americans vastly overestimate U.S. foreign aid. While they tend to think up to a quarter of the federal budget goes for this purpose, it is actually one percent ($35 billion), and only one percent of that goes toward promoting entrepreneurship. That troubles him “because entrepreneurship reliably generates jobs, and joblessness — especially among young people or failing states — is probably one of the most significant root causes of the unrest and extremism vexing American foreign policy and threatening American security today.” Yet, this “Americanas-apple-pie tool” has not been adequately leveraged in foreign policy. Koltai is among those who believe entrepreneurship can “solve big problems,” especially among startups which he and many leading economists say create the bulk of new jobs. Worldwide, youth unemployment is highest (more than 40%) in places beset by extremist ideology, he says, quoting Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto: “The West must learn a simple lesson: economic hope is the only way to win the battle for the constituencies on which terrorist groups feed.” “We know entrepreneurship creates jobs, and we also know employed people promote more stable societies,” writes Koltai in urging that entrepreneurship be “recast as a The Marketplace March April 2017
pillar of foreign policy.” He says 50% of young adults who join rebel movements do so because they can’t find work, that “the likelihood of civil war jumps dramatically with small declines in economic growth” and that Arab revolutions are “fueled by poverty, unemployment, and lack of economic opportunity.”
Among his solutions: create a government agency devoted to entrepreneurship and attract mid-career entrepreneurs for five-year stints. “Just as health programs need direction from real-life doctors,” he writes, “so too entrepreneurship programs need input from battle-tested startup founders who know what business is about.” ◆
Dutch smartphone gets an ethical makeover A nasty side of many modern gizmos is their reliance on so-called “conflict” minerals. Many tech companies, knowingly or otherwise, use tin, tantalum, tungsten and cobalt that have been mined and smelted in abusive labor conditions (often by young children) overseen by armed guards in places like Congo. Writing in fair trade magazine (“Fairphone Dials up a Fairer Future for the Tech Industry’), Will Richter calls the typical smartphone a “mystery box” of untraceable skeletons. “And the deeper you go into the supply chain, the more any sense of accountability vanishes.” The good news, he writes, is that a Dutch social enterprise is trying to remedy these ills with its Fairphone, touted to be the world’s first ethical smartphone. It claims to use conflict-free and recycled materials and its website discloses traceable supply chains for commonly used “conflict minerals and metals.” It also strives to improve factory conditions and monitor safety standards and working hours. The company takes pride in using a modular design so users can replace parts as they break. “No 22
more trashing a phone just because of a cracked screen,” writes Richter. Users can also upgrade the camera rather than buying new when improvements come along. ◆
British study probes bosses’ pay packets Some CEOs get whopping wages because they’ve led their companies to great financial heights, right? Not necessarily, the BBC reports, at least not in Britain. Median pay for chief executives at Britain’s 350 biggest companies was £1.9m ($2.5 million U.S.) in 2014, a rise of 82% in 11 years, according to a study by Lancaster University Management School. But the link between what bosses were paid and their companies’ actual financial performance was “negligible.” Performance as measured by return on capital invested was less than 1% during that period. “Too few of today’s popular ap-
proaches ... genuinely align senior executives’ pay with the economic value that they create,” said an official of the investment association that requested the study. The research followed government hints that it might require companies to justify high executive pay. One suggestion was to impose pay ratios that would show the earnings gap between top executives and employees. Shareholders also have become uneasy about rich pay packets. One recent study ranked British executive pay as the most generous in Europe, 50% more than secondplace Germany. ◆
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The Marketplace March April 2017
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