I’ve long wondered what makes geniuses so … ingenious. How could DaVinci possibly have envisioned his remarkable inventions so far ahead of his time? What enabled Mozart to compose such magnificent music? Where did Einstein draw his inspiration to develop his theories on relativity? For that matter, how, oh how, did Bill Watterson cram so […]
Announcements made only a week apart underscore the importance of two things: the contributions of Colorado Mesa University to Western Colorado and the person who leads CMU. According to the latest results of an analysis conducted every two years, CMU accounted for $539 million in economic effects in a 14-county region of the West Slope […]
As I reminisce about how life used to be before the pandemic, February was a pretty predictable, easygoing month. At the Business Times, advertising renewals were set. Stories covered home building and exciting new ventures because we’re blessed in the Grand Valley with great weather and people. Well-attended fund-raising galas were a sure sign spring […]
Three years ago, I joined the U.S. Small Business Administration with a mission to help small businesses succeed. Leading the SBA team in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, South Dakota and North Dakota felt like the role of a lifetime. This region is unique — it’s one of the largest and most rural in the nation […]
I keep a favorite “Pearls Before Swine” comic strip by Stephan Pastis taped to my desk as a reminder of the challenges that sometimes arise with my job. The first panel of the comic strip depicts two characters talking. “Where were you last weekend?” one asks. “I went to a writers retreat,” the other answers. […]
There’s an old saying attributed to Groucho Marx that basically says (since no one is sure of the exact wording): “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members” Oh how I wish that were true for the 546 people in Washington, D.C., who believe they — […]
If you want to become overwhelmed by an online search, type “business lessons from 2020.” The list of results is lengthy, to say the least. I combed through an assortment of entries and found four offering value: Trust. Writing in the St. Louis Business Journal, Scott Scully, chief executive officer of Abstrakt Marketing Group, cited […]
What’s a wage? A fixed, regular payment by an employer to an employee, especially to a manual or unskilled worker. The wage represents the value an employee brings to the job. What’s minimum wage? The minimum amount per hour the government requires employers to pay employees. So what’s the problem? First, government should never mandate […]
And now for something completely different … . Those familiar with “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” will recognize the line from the old British TV show. The line served as the frequent transition between one absurd situation and something not only completely different, but also more absurd. A dead parrot and murderous cars. A cross-dressing lumberjack […]
It’s amazing what a difference a few years can make in parenting situations. I’m not just talking about the fact I never — or rarely, but they escape memory — had political conversations with my parents during my formidable years. But as my daughters have grown, political topics have became more and more frequent related […]