Managing Careers

There are tools and methods to help employees manage their careers that have been in use for decades.

 

Consultant J Edwards Deming taught us to keep the joy in work. There are lots of ways companies can make this happen.

 

I believe that employees’ abilities are unique and their approach to work is also unique.

 

Employees expect to be recognized for their effort and their accomplishments and these should be listed and described in their annual performance reviews.

 

At EMS, I had employees list their accomplishment and also had their supervisors list what accomplishments they had observed and thought were noteworthy.  Both lists were reviewed by Personnel Reps, who then met with the employee and the supervisor to discuss differences and placed in the Personnel File unedited along with the Personnel Rep’s observations. This process enabled employees to see what their supervisors wanted and supervisors learned what their employees valued.

 

I don’t like to use individual performance ratings because supervisors tend to give high ratings to everybody to keep them happy. These ratings have been used in discrimination cases to allow low performing employees to extort money from companies. This has prompted companies to use “layoffs” and even plant closures to dump low performers. 

 

Companies tend to use “cost of living” to determine wage and salary increases, This maintains wages and salaries and accounts for the majority of wage increase dollars.

 

I determine pay grades based on skill and ability to perform job operations. I don’t use time on the job or education.

 

I use market rates to determine pay levels. Wage and Salary surveys should report the lowest and highest pay rates and the “weighted average” wage or salary for each job.

 

Productivity increases are necessary to be able to afford to increase pay. Those companies who are proactive in their approach to this are the best.

 

I don’t like individual performance ratings tied to wage and salary increases. “Pay for performance” sounds good, but it really doesn’t work except for sales commissions. Many companies have gone to a “pass / fail” rating.

 

Performance needs to be measured using “throughput” by team and department.  Errors and failures need to be corrected immediately.

 

My approach to hiring starts with motivated abilities. Highly successful people love their jobs and consequently get good at doing these jobs.

 

Consultant Art Miller developed the System for Identifying Motivated Abilities (SIMA) to help employees discover their passions. This begins with the employee writing the accomplishments they’ve had from childhood on to identify what they do well and enjoy doing. This gives employees the insight they need to make career choices.

 

I also like the Strong-Campbell and Kuder Occupational Interest tests to give employees a start on what occupations they might prefer.

 

At Schwan Foods I gave employees a comprehensive test battery from Associated Personnel Technicians, a consulting firm in Wichita Kansas. It included reading comprehension and math along with the MMPI to determine behaviors. I also used the DISC and Meyers-Briggs to determine personality.

Everyone tested got a full report of the test, because they were the only ones who could use the information.

 

The DISC measures Dominance, Inducement, Steadiness and Compliance.  A high D score identifies leaders.  A high I score identifies sales abilities.  A high S score identifies the ability to perform work.  A high C score identifies exacting thoroughness.

 

The Meyers-Briggs measures traits.  Extrovert v Introvert, Intuiting v Sensing, Thinking v Feeling, Judging v Perceiving. My pattern was ENTJ, Extrovert, Intuiting, Thinking and Judging. Your average “snowflake” in college would be an Introvert, Sensing, Feeling and Perceiving.
 

The MMPI measures tendencies rooted in clinical psychology like paranoia, schizophrenia and asocial behavior. Applied to normal behavior, it gives measures on overdependence on others’ loyalty, daydreaming and breaking rules. It gives hints about self-limiting feeling habits.

 

Transactional Analysis was introduced in the book “I’m OK, You’re OK”. It identifies more self-limiting habits rooted in our Parent/Child experiences we carry into adulthood. We have Parent Tapes that may be holding us back. We may have feeling habits that need to be identified and dealt with. 

 

A “Try Hard” indicated debilitating perfectionism and failure. Being in so much of a hurry that you don’t take time to fill up your gasoline tank on your car and you run out of gas is a symptom.  We may collect “Brown Stamps” where feeling bad is the reward we give ourselves for screwing up. 

https://www.amazon.com/Games-People-Play-Transactional-Analysis/dp/0345410033

 

Personality styles tests help us understand how we interact and manage. A “Strong Achiever” often becomes a leader, because they have learned how to do things and know what to do. A leader who is a “friendly helper” spends more time with staff. They are a good fit in jobs that require the manager to stay on top of everything.  A “strong achiever” will need to know how to do every task in the department and spends less time with staff. The “Logical Thinker” doesn’t like to be wrong and is big in analysis. Most of us use all three styles, but this test identifies how much we use each style.

 

Staffs usually adjust to their leader’s style. Many employees don’t like to be over-supervised and need to feel trusted to perform their jobs correctly. They want their supervisors to understand each job.

 

Hiring is critical and hiring errors should be avoided. The art of hiring involves finding the “best fit” for the job. You need to know the job you are trying to fill and what knowledge and skills are required. You will need to post the job and include what they will do and what tools they will use, screen the resumes you receive and interview applicants.

 

I use tests to confirm that applicants will be able to do the job. At FATS, Inc., I used a 10 question Software Test developed by our software engineers that measured their knowledge of C++ on a Windows platform.

 

If you have enough information about applicants, you can assess how well they will fit in the job you are trying to fill.

 

When you hire, you are sending a new employee to play in a particular sand pile hoping they will love it and do a great job.

 

When you hire an entire team, you are looking to add the capabilities the team will need. They may be quite different, but they need to understand what each one brings to the effort and leverage on the strengths in the team. Team members learn to put up with the idiosyncrasies of their co-workers.

 

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Good Companies

There are a number of things companies can do to improve.

 

Their primary responsibility is to deliver good products and good value to their customers.

 

Companies need to treat employees with respect and honesty and join employees to increase productivity. Lean Management allows employees and managers to improve processes to increase productivity.

 

Companies need to recognize the true nature of the “employment contract”. Employees are “free agents”. In Georgia, they are employed “at will” and their employment can be terminated “at will”.

 

Most employees are quick to settle for jobs they think they will like and join companies based on proximity and pay level offered. Employee retention often depends on how comfortable they are with their bosses and co-workers. Employees realize that they need to “get along” and “fit in” with their co-workers and managers.

 

Most supervisors only hire the applicants they like and base their decisions on “gut feel”. Some companies have developed recruiting sources and methods to make the hiring process more efficient.

 

Companies have “cultures” that can be defined by their owners, managers, customers, employees, work activities and experiences.

 

Schwan Foods chose Salina Kansas to expand into the frozen pizza business in the 1970s. The work was physical and the workforce was mostly female assemblers and male maintenance technicians, loaders and semi-drivers. Ages varied and moms and daughters were co-workers. Rock music was piped in to the plant. When I joined Schwan’s in 1975, we had 1400 employees and we were the largest employer in Salina. We had a “work hard / play hard” culture developed by the founder as he was building his “Driver-Salesman” business to deliver gourmet frozen food to the farmwives. The employees were very smart. Many had grown up as “farm kids” who grew up with chores and insistence on high grades. They were disciplined and most were high school graduates. We gave employees blue wind-breaker jackets with a Tony’s Pizza patch on the back. We looked like a motorcycle gang.

 

I joined them as their Personnel Manager where they already had team building and employee development underway. Schwan’s already had a “no layoff” policy, a generous benefit list and a generous 10 year vest profit sharing plan.

 

I spent a lot of time in the plant and wrote their job descriptions and then created a wage survey to establish market rates. I designed a performance appraisal employees liked and established a promotion from within process. I automated security and payroll by adding computers and lowered the trash bill by selling the cardboard, empty drum containers and sold floor waste meat, cheese and crust to the hog farmers. I joined the effort to move the plant from manual production to full automation to increase productivity

 

Schwan’s gave lavish Christmas dinner-dances and Summer picnics with carnival rides for all employees. They never wavered in appreciating employees and it made them very successful. Schwan’s grew from $150 million to $650 million during my tenure and grew later to $50 billion.

 

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Unions

I first became familiar with unions reading the newspaper in the 1950s and 1960s. Reading about a Union President’s assassination when I was 10 years old and learning that the Mafia was controlling the unions inspired my decision to become a Personnel Director and fix it.

I also saw lots of labor strikes in the newspaper. I heard and read a lot of information that led me to believe unions were corrupt.

I was pre-disposed to prefer self-reliance and individual achievement, but didn’t see these values operating in the labor unions. They were rioters demanding more power and money.

I read the American Communist Party goals published in 1920 and concluded that the union movement was a collectivist group aligned with the Communist goals.

I learned about the Communist takeover of Russia from stories told by Russian immigrants fleeing from Russia and landing in New York.

Our labor is a commodity and should be subject to the law of supply and demand to control the price. In the real world, wages are based on market rate. Unions push for above market rate wages and benefits and eventually companies with unions can either overcharge their customers or close the plants and move. Unions also attempt to ruin the relationship between management and labor. 

Although my view of US labor unions was negative, I did like the old Guild System and like the idea of apprentices learning from master craftsmen. This idea was often employed in family businesses and I liked the idea of family businesses.

I like certification training and licensing for skilled trades like construction, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, roofing and driveways.

I also liked professional association groups. I was active in ASPA (American Society for Personnel Administration) in St. Louis and started an ASPA chapter in Salina to get an annual wage survey and was a National Officer for Kansas.  I also started the MAHTPA (Metro Atlanta High Tech Personnel Association) group in Atlanta to get an annual wage survey. I also encouraged the start of a CAD (Computer Assisted Design) group in Atlanta. 

I spent most of my growing up time in St. Louis. This is a well-run blue collar city with a lot of good leaders and good people, but the unions were everywhere because Missouri isn’t a “right to work” state.

My brother was hired by McDonnell Aircraft and they put him through the apprenticeship program to become an Electrician.  He ended up on the IBEW bargaining committee, but his goal was to negotiate to improve productivity and job content. His wife worked for Southwestern Bell Telephone and they were all union. I saw some of the union propaganda sent to their house and it was awful.

One of my college summer jobs was at Granit City Steel and it was union. Working one night I saw someone walk into the plant, climb in the crane and crash stacks of steel plate all over the plant. The foreman told me that the union steward had done it, because there were rumors that the plant would have layoffs and they wanted to create work. I predicted that this company would fail and later they did go bankrupt.

I was a musician during my high school and college days and when our Blues Band became the house group for the Livingroom on Gaslight Square a union rep came to the club and told us to sign up and join the musicians union. We did sign up and it didn’t cost much, but we didn’t want the owners to have problems because of us.

My first Personnel job was at Kearney National, an electrical utility hardware provider. It was 1967. We had Teamsters who had organized with the excuse that their founder, James R Kearney was too rich.  The Teamsters controlled who got hired in the plant.  They would just send cronies to the Plant Manager to put on the payroll.  I learned that we had a “bookie” working in receiving. I was asked to serve on a 3 man team to create a report on our current business. The head of the group was the Corporate Treasurer for our owner Dyson Kissner, The second guy in the group was the Chief Financial officer of the Kearney Division. I was the financial analyst who pulled the numbers together.  It was clear we needed to close the plant and move the operation, so that’s what we recommended.  They did close the plant and bought a similar company in Tucker Georgia to merge into.

In the 1960s, the Kennedy’s went after the Mafia and sent a lot of them to jail, but they just transferred control of the unions back to the Communists.

My next Personnel job was at Monsanto Headquarters handling compensation for the Textile Division. It was 1968.We had large non-union plants in the Southeast making nylon and acrylic man-made fibers. Part of my job was to make sure our compensation was competitive to avoid unionization. The Oil and Chemical Employee’s Union conducted annual organizing drives but never succeeded. I became well versed in union prevention from ensuring that our managers were not jerks, to keeping our compensation competitive. We made unions unnecessary. Monsanto offered me promotions to the locations including one with a 30% pay increase. I turned it down. My dad had married his job and lost his marriage and I wasn’t going to do that. I also had things I wanted to do that I couldn’t really do quickly at Monsanto.  I converted the Textile Division jobs to the Monsanto Corporate system and left.  I loved Monsanto. Our VP was the founder of ASPA and the staff was the best in the world.

My next Personnel job was at Washington University, to set up regulatory compliance, install the Personnel function at the Medical Campus and automate everything I could. It was 1971. I was interviewed by Bill Danforth, the Chancellor and was hired. I move to Washington University, because I wanted to personally win a campaign to prevent a union from organizing a company.  I knew they would try to organize Washington U.  Sure enough, within 6 months I had a petition from the SEU. I secured an LM-2 report of SEU financials and got a copy of one of their contracts. I met with the Chancellor and Vice Chancellors and the law firm. I showed them what I had and told them what came next. The Vice Chancellor for the Medical School asked me what I thought the employees should do.  I told them that the employees should not join the union, annually. The lawyers smiled and the Chancellor told me to take charge of the project. I met with the 90 black housekeeping employees and told them what was happening and what they were going to be asked to vote on and gave them a short class on economics. I didn’t blame them for this. They liked me. In our third meeting, one of the employees told me he didn’t feel respected. I knew who he was talking about and I told him I would try to help. I met with his supervisor and the Housekeeping manager and told the supervisor that this was all about him and he needed to be more respectful to his employees. When I met with the employees the next week they were all smiles. The supervisor had done a 180 degree turn from being a straw-boss to being a leader. To cement the deal, I asked the Medical School Business Manager to have a few meetings with them.  He was sure to be on the bargaining team for management and they needed to get to know him.  He worked with them to find ways to make their jobs easier and get more done. He did great and loved it. We won that election with 80% of the vote. After the election, two of the housekeeping employees came to see me.  They asked me who benefitted from this trauma.  I said: “We all did”.  They then told me that they were checking the undercarriage of my car every afternoon to make sure Guido and Vinny, the union organizer hadn’t put a bomb under it.

Part of my activities included installing affirmative action to satisfy HEW. I had joined one of our Med School Faculty Chairs and we applied for and received an NIH basic improvement grant of $20,000 to buy cage washers for our 90 black Animal Caretakers and set up AALAS certification classed to become Certified Animal Lab Technicians. I was told I had been elected Education Chair for AALAS and had to deliver a paper at their convention. I gave my “how I did it” paper. I was the only non-vetrinarian in the room.

After this victory I got a visit from the Affirmative Action Officer from the Main Campus. He told me that the Main Campus Personnel Director was leaving to go back to industry and Chancellor Danforth wanted to know if I would take the job.  I told him that I would prefer that Mary Weiss, the current Assistant Director be given the job, because she knew all the policies like the back of her hand.  I told him that if Danforth agreed, I would come to the main campus as Assistant Director and would take charge of union negotiations and continue to handle the automation projects and develop more effective management tools. Danforth agreed. Mary Weiss was set to retire in 4 years, so I tried not to act like the Prince of Wales when I moved to the Main Campus.

I finished the automation and personnel records went paperless. I got one of the unions on campus to decertify and I learned that the other union food service operation was going to be contracted out.

I wanted to install the Monsanto Compensation System at Washington U. as an upgrade. I wrote all the job descriptions with progression ladders based on skill and selected the compensation survey matches to go to a true market-based system.

When it came time for Mary Weiss to retire, I suggested that Danforth talk to Gloria White, the black Affirmative Action Officer who had been with the University for 20 years and had just earned her law degree. I had my fun and I was ready to return to industry. Danforth agreed. I had been hired back to industry.  During my final week, everybody came by to thank me for working with them.

My next Personnel job was at Schwan Foods in Salina Kansas. It was 1975. We had 1400 employees including 200 semi-drivers. We made Tony’s frozen pizza, sandwiches, corn tortillas and Schwan;s ice cream  They had a large sales force operating throughout the US. The Schwan’s trucks would deliver cases of frozen food to customer’s homes. They were at $150 million in sales in 1975 and we took that to $650 million in sales by 1979.

They hired me to help keep them union-free. But I went there to automate their production facilities. I did install lots of processes aimed at making unions unnecessary, but I also automated the plant and the general administration group I managed. Again, Marvin Schwan wanted me to move to Marshall MN to take the Personnel Director job there, but my wife didn’t want to go anywhere that cold to live, so once again I turned down a promotion. I recruited a guy from Minnesota to take that job.

I worked with Marshal IT to add a computer to the office in Salina and recruited the Systems Administrator to run it. I took out the timeclocks and replaced them with magnetic strip cards to computerize payroll. I got the plant to sell waste cheese, meat and crust to the farmers and sell the tomato paste drums to a local company. I replaced security clock rounds with a computerized security system with one guard in a room with cameras and sensors and another one in a car outside with a secure band radio. I replaced keys with magnetic strip cards to log activity. I had sensors placed to monitor our ammonia refrigeration units and lowered our insurance costs. I got to gather a lot of low hanging fruit. I expanded employee development to include testing, coaching and counseling. We promoted from within and the workforce was very smart. I felt like I had done everything I wanted to do. Then I got a call from the company up the street and they wanted to talk.

My next Personnel job was at Rickel Manufacturing in Salina. They had the UAW for the past 12 years and it was killing them. It was 1979. I had lived next door to their CFO and knew the problems. I also knew their Personnel guy. I liked the management team. I didn’t mention decertifying the UAW when I was hired until the Operations guy asked me what I wanted to do with the union. I told him they needed to go. He got excited and joined me to make it happen. In our first meeting with the union guys I told them that they would no longer have the run of the plant. Grievances were not to be done on working time. They would not be coming to the plant.  We would hold contract negotiations off-sire. They went nuts and filed 100 nuisance grievances and called OSHA. I found out where their other units were. They covered a 4 state area. I started calling chambers of commerce offices to find out where they were.  I published a book called the “710 Club” and sent it to all the companies. I got a call from Hesse Truck in Kansas City. That guy wanted to coordinate sending the union president to meetings to maximize his travel.  Negotiations stalled. A new company opened in Salina advertising to hire the same kind metal fab, welding and painting we did and they were paying more.  I matched their rates and published new rates for our employees.  The union had a fit.  One of the UAW shop stewards got a decertification petition from NLRB and walked it through the plant. The union was notified and they filed a disclaimer that in effect removed the UAW from our Company. Rickel was a privately owned company. The owner didn’t know the Japanese were coming to the US with their own agricultural equipment and a plan to take over. We did know this. We called a broker and with the owner’s agreement, got a deal to sell Rickel to AgChem, our main competitor. AgChem didn’t know the Japanese were coming either. They bought the company. We suggested they keep the Operations guy and the rest of us would resign.

I had secured a consulting project to install a Personnel system in Saline County government, I immediately started that project. I wanted some time to plan my next move. It was a 3 month project that included creating a salary survey for Kansas Counties and a formal Compensation system. It would take 3 months.  I got an offer to visit Atlanta. We flew there to meet the owner and Marlene looked at houses. She loved Atlanta as I knew she would.  She wanted to go to Dental Hygiene School and there was a school in Dunwoody. She asked how Hayes was. It was flaky, I told her. She asked “What do they need?” “Everything”, I replied. She said, “Let’s take it; you can find a real company here later”.

My next Personnel job was at Hayes Microcomputer Products. It was 1983. Again, they wanted me to keep unions out, I said ok.  The real problem was that they were facing a very steep ramp-up curve. Hayes made the modems every PC needed. They had 150 employees doing $35 million a year and needed to begin to triple their throughput immediately.

We did have the CWA try to organize us in 1984, but we killed it with a 25 cent across the board increase. A few months later I installed a real compensation plan with market rates and everybody got another raise.  I had to start the Metro Atlanta High Tech Personnel Association to set up a survey that would yield real market data. I cancelled our health insurance and established a Medical Plan Trust to self-insure. I had nurses doing case management as patient advocates. I enlisted the entire staff to review the policy manual and revise it. They did a great job. We finished the ramp up in 1986 with 1200 employees and $200 million in sales, but component manufacturers were having problems developing the powerful microprocessors we needed. It was clear to me that I could go. I was exhausted but happy with what we had accomplished. I got a tip that there was another job nearby I might like.

My next Personnel job was at Electromagnetic Sciences, Inc. (EMS) It was 1986 and the Reagan military build-up was kicking in. EMS had 350 employees doing $35 million a year and were looking at multiple defense projects that involved both design and assembly. We grew to 1200 employees doing $120 million a year by 1993. I joined the Board of the American Electronics Association as the HR Chair in 1987 and served with a dozen Atlanta electronics company owners and executives for years. They approached me at a board meeting in 1993 and said” “Go on your own and we’ll keep you busy” I laughed and they pulled out project lists. I looked at the lists and realized it amounted to a 3 year backlog. I was always planning to go on my own and this looked like the time. My final project at EMS was to terminate the regulation burdened toxic pension plan and establish an Age-Weighted defined contribution plan to replace it.

My final Personnel job was to start NTL Human Resources Management Consulting, a private consulting practice. I launched this in my basement. It was 1993. I started with 6 companies and grew it to 45 companies by 2009. All the work came in via “word of mouth”. I would get a call from a company who had been referred to me by someone they knew. I would go “on-site” for meetings. I could do most of my work at home. It was perfect. My projects included handling emergencies, managing start-ups, acquisition work, regulatory compliance, compensation, recruiting and general management consulting. I was always the physics-loving Personnel guy and did a lot of engineering recruiting. This was a big part of my practice. I knew what they did. They knew that I knew and they appreciated that.

I was a union buster, but I was also a turn-around manager and change agent. I would take a job to accomplish specific objectives and when I was satisfied, I would move on to the next company to do whatever they needed to accomplish at the time. I was driven by curiosity and wanted to learn how to do everything.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Divided Country Hoax

Just before President Trump gave his State of the Union speech on 12/30/18, a Fox News commentator posed the question as to whether or not President Trump would now begin to work with Democrats, improve his poll numbers and heal our divided nation.

This is nonsense. The polls are phony. Democrats need to change before Republicans would even consider talking to them.  President Trump should only consider policies that make sense.  Nothing the Democrats want to do makes any sense.  Everything Democrats have done have been disasters.  Every Democrat legislative initiative has resulted in economic ruin and counterproductive activities.

It’s right out of a Roadrunner cartoon. Every time Democrats attempt to harm Republicans they get slaughtered. There is no divided country.  There is just an overactive Liberal media in overdrive.

The Democrat platform is a disaster. Nothing in it will help anybody.  Most of what is in it will harm everybody. Trump’s poll numbers come from the same polling companies who predicted an easy win for Hillary. How do you think these poll companies decide who to poll and who not to poll. Trump’s unpopularity is a fabricated scam designed to keep the discredited Democrat Party from dissolving completely.

The sum total of the Democrat strategy revolves around pandering to special interest and protected groups. This is just another form of the protection racket right out of the Mafia playbook. It’s similar to the labor union scam. Democrats use the politics of personal destruction like the Mafia used breaking legs.

Adding to the scam. Liberals fund an endless supply of Demo-bots to protest everything we are doing to clean up the country. Add to that the Liberals who monopolize all the media space on television, on cable news, in movies and in newspapers. The US media, like the university faculty and administrators are in the tank for Liberals. 

This extreme left wing group occupies less than 20% of the population, but makes 90% of the noise. The reasons for their noise level are many.  I believe that over 50% of American voters are on Trump’s side.  I also believe that 30% of Democrat voters are cult victims. Like many crazy people, Liberals are relentlessly active. But more importantly, the 20% who are dedicated Communists will never give up as long as they can get air time. The media is keeping these zombies alive.  

In answer to their relentless questions crafted to get President Trump to lower his guard and give them something, they are showing their fear that Trump will rip out every rotten law and policy and pocket of saboteurs from their government offices. 

Liberals are more afraid of Trump than they have ever been afraid of any President ever. He is the first President we have ever had who will root out the corruption that has debilitated our government and our economy for decades. He is likely to restore the Constitution fully and challenge Congress to either send Amendments to allow for more “enumerated powers” to be added to the Constitution or close all federal agencies who have been involved in illegal, unconstitutional activities.

Trump is likely to return all federal land to the states.  He is likely to eliminate all government activities not authorized by the Constitution (as written). He is likely to send overpriced healthcare and education to the free market to rehabilitate these industries. He is likely to defund destructive Liberal special interest groups.

The Democrats want to return to visiting their plagues on the American people. They want to discard the US Constitution and the rule of law. They want open borders to repopulate the US with third-world immigrants who will elect Democrats. They want Liberal judges to legislate from the bench as they have done for decades. Liberals want to replace our Republic with a one-party dictatorship run by unelected officials who are not accountable to the voters.

Their subsidies corrupt prices and subvert the laws of economics. Despite the failure of socialism in other countries these Liberals are demanding policies that will turn America into Venezuela.

If Democrats ever begin to return to supporting policies that will actually help the citizens, we can think about working with them. I see no signs of that happening. That means we have to call out their pleadings as a scam and ignore them until they start to make some sense. Republicans need to stop playing “Lucy and the football” with Democrats.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Purchasing

Companies send “request for quote” messages to vendors and receive quotes from vendors and pick the best price, value and delivery. If they have a good relationship with their vendors and the vendors know these companies don’t want to see price increases, they will sell the material for the same price they charged with the last order. They will do this if they value the volume of business the customer offers.

Customers don’t like errors, reject material or late delivery. They try to order their material to arrive “just in time”. Having components manufactured overseas has its problems.

The best CAD systems use “schematic capture” of the “bill of materials” for each product iteration. This allows for the automatic entry of component part numbers into the Material Requirements Planning MRP systems

The best MRP systems read new sales orders and finished sales orders and subtract component inventory by part number when orders are built. This ques up an order list and turns it into “request for quotes” going to vendors.

Purchasing is a critical component in manufacturing and successful companies have automated the process with “just-in-time” ordering. This helps companies manage cash and creates the efficiency companies need to succeed and grow.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Manufacturing

I expect manufacturing companies to reopen their US operations in 2018. Site selection criteria are well known.

Costs

As we bring manufacturing back to the US, I believe companies will return a lot of their manufacturing plants back to rural counties where they were before we sent them overseas. Costs are lower in rural areas and employees are often well suited to fill most jobs. Rural areas suffered when these plants left, so they are going to ensure that companies get a good deal to locate to their counties.

Proximity

Businesses like to put their manufacturing operations near customers or near resources. They factor in transportation costs to deliver raw materials to be processed and delivered to their plants. Steel plants like to be near iron ore quarries. Automobile plants like to be near their customers. 

Labor Force

Businesses also look at the labor force that would be available to fill their needs. If they require engineers, they may look at suburbs of larger cities that have a “critical mass” of engineers already. If they require assembly, they may set up training through local community colleges to offer custom certification programs.

Transportation

Headquarters groups will require proximity to air travel and are likely to put their offices in suburbs of larger cities. They will locate near good schools and subdivisions. They will avoid locating where traffic gridlock ensures that their employees will have a tough commute. Heavy manufacturing may need to locate near freight railroad lines. If they use trucks to move material in products out, they will want easy access to roads and highways.

Atlanta

Atlanta was not a manufacturing town before the 1980s. We were a Coke and Delta town with an airport and lots of Banking, Government and other office oriented operations. We did have good weather and lots of trees and people liked living here.

Atlanta experienced a lot of job growth in the 1980s with electronics manufacturing.  We had a population of 3 million, a road and highway system that worked if you didn’t need to go from East Metro to West Metro. We had Georgia Tech as an engineering base, active community colleges with certification training and companies needing to expand their design and manufacturing facilities. They picked Atlanta and located in the suburbs and there were over 200 companies designing and building electronics for multiple industries. After 1993, companies had developed their products and processes and began sending their manufacturing overseas and consolidating their engineering jobs back to their headquarters cities.

We did a lot of good work in Atlanta from 1980 to 2000.  We launched the PC, upgraded telephony, developed amazing military capabilities, developed high-volume automated manufacturing processes, developed computer integrated manufacturing, developed Lean Management systems, solved the US manufacturing quality problems and developed multi-functional cell phones.

Atlanta Metro now has a population of 6 million and few new roads and highways to accommodate them. We have gridlock because we forgot to grow the roads to fit the population. We’ve been throwing money at education, healthcare and attempting to build transit villages around our failing malls instead. We now have internationally famous gridlock. Companies won’t be as interested in locating in Atlanta as they were in the 1980s.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Oil Hits $65 per barrel

Oil has moved to $65 per barrel. When it hit $50 per barrel, At that price, many oil companies could recoup their fracking costs and ramped up production.

Natural gas is collected with the oil drilling process. We produce all the natural gas we need in the US and have started producing liquid natural gas that allows us to export this to other countries.

We have been importing half of our oil needs. US oil consumption is 20 million barrels per day. The US currently produces about 10 million barrels per day. Now at $65 per barrel, oil companies have no barriers to producing all of our US oil needs. This additional production should result in lower oil prices.

The US government has already approved drilling in the Midwest and recently in Anwar (Alaska) and off-shore drilling everywhere. Oil companies should be able to do this drilling without fowling the environment because they will be able to afford the best drilling equipment.

The US will need to finish pipelines and build a few new ones, but the oil companies will be able to make this investment that will allow them to transport oil and natural gas cheaper and safer.

Cutting oil imports and increasing natural gas exports will lower the US trade balance. Increasing oil production by 10 million barrels per day at $65 per barrel will generate $650 million dollars a day. That’s $4.55 billion a week. Based on 52 weeks, this could generate $236.6 billion dollars a year and would put quite a dent in our $550 billion trade deficit.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Global Trade

Global Trade is not a new thing. Trade between tribes and clans occurred in pre-history. The 5000 year old mummy found in the Alps was trading hand-made tools between clans. Global trade surged in the 1400s by sending ocean-going ships to every continent.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168583X99011969

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/07/iceman/hall-text

The global trade we did in the US in 1945 was largely exporting US manufactured products to the rest of the world if they had money. The establishment of the European Common Market in 1950 was Europe’s response to the need to grow their own economies. These countries, in the 1960s, mostly in Europe began demanding that we manufacture the US products we sold in their countries. They set up a series of laws to allow US imports with these conditions.

In 1992, UN Agenda 21 was published and disclosed the plan to form a One-world government under the UN. It was ignored by the media and our politicians. But UN Agenda 21 was hiding in plain sight. You could download it from the internet.

The “Globalism” scam began with corporations promoting “world-class manufacturing” and “diversity” in the 1990s. The American Electronics Association was abolished and replaced with a “global” electronics group. The “open borders” and “multicultural” movements were invented to promote what was to be the Muslim reinvasion of Europe and the US and all developed countries who would receive “refugees” justified with demographic data suggesting that we needed workers.

Trade between countries has historically been regional and reciprocal. Proximity is important when the products require freshness like agricultural products. It’s like “I’ll buy your wine if you buy my wheat. Businesses have worked out their own import/ export deals with neighboring countries for centuries.

Companies are generally free to buy from vendors everywhere, especially if the material they need is limited to countries capable of providing the material. Some of the wood needed to build an acoustic guitar comes from Africa. Some minerals are only found in a few countries.

We can reverse globalism’s end to democracy and restore it by re-establishing national sovereignty and we have no other good choices. The resurgence of the US economy has already increased global trade. This is not a zero-sum game.

We are all competitors. The US is now exporting liquid natural gas, competing with all the other countries who produce and can export their natural gas. We will eventually become a net exporter of oil. The new lower US corporate tax rates will allow companies to return manufacturing to the US. All of this puts pressure on those countries who produce oil and gas and will give them the incentive to improve.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

EU History

1945 - 1959

A peaceful Europe – the beginnings of cooperation

The European Union is set up with the aim of ending the frequent and bloody wars between neighbors, which culminated in the Second World War. As of 1950, the European Coal and Steel Community begins to unite European countries economically and politically in order to secure lasting peace. The six founding countries are Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The 1950s are dominated by a cold war between east and west. Protests in Hungary against the Communist regime are put down by Soviet tanks in 1956. In 1957, the Treaty of Rome creates the European Economic Community (EEC), or ‘Common Market’.

1960 - 1969

A period of economic growth

The 1960s is a good period for the economy, helped by the fact that EU countries stop charging custom duties when they trade with each other. They also agree joint control over food production, so that everybody now has enough to eat - and soon there is even surplus agricultural produce. May 1968 becomes famous for student riots in Paris, and many changes in society and behavior become associated with the so-called ‘68 generation’.

1970 - 1979

A growing Community – the first enlargement

Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom join the European Union on 1 January 1973, raising the number of Member States to nine. The short, yet brutal, Arab-Israeli war of October 1973 results in an energy crisis and economic problems in Europe. The last right-wing dictatorships in Europe come to an end with the overthrow of the Salazar regime in Portugal in 1974 and the death of General Franco of Spain in 1975. The EU regional policy starts to transfer huge sums of money to create jobs and infrastructure in poorer areas. The European Parliament increases its influence in EU affairs and in 1979 all citizens can, for the first time, elect their members directly. The fight against pollution intensifies in the 1970s. The EU adopts laws to protect the environment, introducing the notion of ‘the polluter pays’ for the first time.

1980 - 1989

The changing face of Europe - the fall of the Berlin Wall

The Polish trade union, Solidarność, and its leader Lech Walesa, become household names across Europe and the world following the Gdansk shipyard strikes in the summer of 1980. In 1981, Greece becomes the 10th member of the EU, and Spain and Portugal follow five years later. In 1986 the Single European Act is signed. This is a treaty which provides the basis for a vast six-year program aimed at sorting out the problems with the free flow of trade across EU borders and thus creates the ‘Single Market’. There is major political upheaval when, on 9 November 1989, the Berlin Wall is pulled down and the border between East and West Germany is opened for the first time in 28 years. This leads to the reunification of Germany, when both East and West Germany are united in October 1990.

1990 - 1999

A Europe without frontiers

With the collapse of communism across central and Eastern Europe, Europeans become closer neighbors. In 1993 the Single Market is completed with the 'four freedoms' of: movement of goods, services, people and money. The 1990s is also the decade of two treaties: the ‘Maastricht’ Treaty on European Union in 1993 and the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1999. People are concerned about how to protect the environment and also how Europeans can act together when it comes to security and defense matters. In 1995 the EU gains three more new members: Austria, Finland and Sweden. A small village in Luxembourg gives its name to the ‘Schengen’ agreements that gradually allow people to travel without having their passports checked at the borders. Millions of young people study in other countries with EU support. Communication is made easier as more and more people start using mobile phones and the internet.

2000 – 2009

Further expansion

The euro is now the new currency for many Europeans. During the decade more and more countries adopt the euro. 11 September 2001 becomes synonymous with the 'War on Terror' after hijacked airliners are flown into buildings in New York and Washington. EU countries begin to work much more closely together to fight crime. The political divisions between east and west Europe are finally declared healed when no fewer than 10 new countries join the EU in 2004, followed by Bulgaria and Romania in 2007. A financial crisis hits the global economy in September 2008. The Treaty of Lisbon is ratified by all EU countries before entering into force in 2009. It provides the EU with modern institutions and more efficient working methods.

2010 – today

A challenging decade

The global economic crisis strikes hard in Europe. The EU helps several countries to confront their difficulties and establishes the 'Banking Union' to ensure safer and more reliable banks. In 2012, the European Union is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Croatia becomes the 28th member of the EU in 2013. Climate change is still high on the agenda and leaders agree to reduce harmful emissions. European elections are held in 2014 and more Euro-sceptics are elected into the European Parliament. A new security policy is established in the wake of the annexation of Crimea by Russia. Religious extremism increases in the Middle East and various countries and regions around the world, leading to unrest and wars which result in many people fleeing their homes and seeking refuge in Europe. The EU is not only faced with the dilemma of how to take care of them, but also finds itself the target of several terrorist attacks.

https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/history_en

Comments

This is the same crowd that cooked up the global warming hoax to justify their goal of global government outlined in UN Agenda 21 published in 1992. They also quietly gave away their national sovereignty to the EU unelected government that makes the laws for the members of this “trade association” The EU is now the puppet of the UN and Europeans are beginning to ask why their own elected officials no longer control their laws. They need to begin to question why they keep these parliaments and begin demanding to control their own laws.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader