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As a professional unapologetic fatass, I've been asked by numerous media outlets to comment on Lifetime TV's big girl empowerment dramedy Drop Dead Diva. And I have. But until last night, I hadn't actually watched anything beyond the second episode.
Tara Parker-Pope's recent post about it at the NYT's Well blog inspired me to catch up. From a Professional Unapologetic Fatass (hereafter, PUF) perspective, the post struck me in much the same way the first two episodes of the show did: Close, but not quite. (More on that in a moment.) My first impression was: Much better than a weight-loss competition or Fat Chicks Crying, but still a bit too stereotypey for my tastes.
If you're not familiar with the show's premise, it's this: A vapid aspiring model, Deb, dies and is returned to earth in the size-16 body of a brainy, workaholic lawyer, Jane. New Jane has Deb's memories — which include the calorie counts of everything, like the half-grapefruit and Splenda she used to eat for breakfast — combined with Old Jane's intelligence and legal expertise. (Yeah, don't ask; if that's too great a challenge to your willing suspension of disbelief, this isn't your show.)
The odd marriage of a chronic dieter's memories and an apparently resigned, if not unapologetic, fat girl's brain and body, says Parker-Pope, "raises an obvious question: Given Deb's success at maintaining a model-like figure, why doesn't she just put her new body on a diet and lose the weight?" Well, that's one of the first things she tries, as it turns out. But "she discovers that Jane's body craves chocolate and Cheez Whiz. When she is inside Jane's body, Deb says: 'I don't like celery. I like sandwiches.'"
Parker-Pope seems to uncritically accept that answer, which was the one thing I didn't like about the show when I first watched it. This idea that the desire to suck EZ Cheez straight from the can is somehow embedded in Jane's body, regardless of whose brain is doing the driving, only reinforces the stereotype that fat people are uncontrollably drawn to junk food. (See also: Jane/Deb losing the ability to concentrate while in the presence of doughnuts. Seriously.) If they'd played it just as Deb suddenly feeling like she had an excuse to eat, and bingeing to make up for years of calorie restriction, I might have been on board. But no, at the end of the day, Deb likes celery (and grapefruit and Splenda even in mojitos), and Jane likes sandwiches (and doughnuts and fried calamari and EZ Cheez). And I mean, that's fine — I also like many of those things, and I'm sure a lot of fat people do like all of them. But so do a lot of thin people.
I realize you can't have a fish-out-of-water comedy without extremes, but when you're explicitly claiming a fat power message — and the folks behind DDD are — implying that the only reason New Jane can't lose weight is because Old Jane's zombie fat cells demand junk food kinda misses the mark. Well, actually, that's not the only reason. We're similarly meant to believe that Jane — that's her (Brooke Elliot) in the photo up there — is so out of shape she cannot complete a single squat, much less the hours of exercise Deb would like to put her through. Again, it's fine to have a fat character who's so overworked she can't find time for the gym, just like a whole bunch of real people of all sizes, but seriously? An able-bodied, 30ish woman who's just barely over the plus-size line* can't do one effin' squat? Especially when she's played by Brooke Elliott, who's sung and danced on Broadway? I call bullshit. More specifically, I call lazy stereotype.
Or rather, I called lazy stereotype, before I caught up on more recent episodes. In episode 7, I was stunned to see a much better explanation for why Jane's body remains fat. The legal case of the week revolves around a 500-calorie-a-day commercial diet program that may have caused heart problems in a young girl who used it. And the twist (spoiler alert) is, after New Jane takes the case, we learn that Old Jane not only tried the same product but at one point endorsed it. Obviously, this throws a wrench in the case, and it prompts New Jane to visit her old doctor, where she learns more about her dieting history.
Check that shit out! In a two-minute clip, we learn:
- Old Jane was, in fact, a veteran dieter — like many, if not most, fat chicks — not merely a sedentary spray-cheese devotee who was somehow immune to cultural pressure to lose weight.
- When trying to lose weight, Old Jane would quickly plateau and then gain it back because, according to her Fairy Goddoctor (so named because damn, this is not the average fat person's doctor visit, even though it ought to be), her body just wouldn't let her keep starving. Quoth the Fairy Goddoctor: "It has nothing to do with willpower." (!!!!!!)
- Old Jane wanted gastric by-pass surgery, but Fairy Goddoctor "wouldn't even give [her] a brochure." Christ, I wish this doctor were real.
- Fairy Goddoctor believes that realistically, dieting "success" will almost always be short-lived.
- Jane's blood pressure is "a little high" because she's anxious, not because she's fat.
I can safely say I have never seen anything even a little bit like that on TV in my life. And speaking as a PUF, I have a whole new love for this show because of it. (So much so that I'll even forgive them for the bit where she lies to the doc about going to the gym. Reinforcing stereotypes of fat people as both sedentary and medically non-compliant? Yes. Fairly realistic and delivered rather adorably by Elliott? Also yes.)
Other recent episodes mostly bore out my new love for DDD, though I still have a fundamental problem with it, which is an unfortunate side effect of the premise: To wit, we are not seeing the experiences of a professional, competent, cute-as-a-bug's-ear fat woman, but the experiences of a thin woman suddenly forced to give thought one to what it's like to be fat. And that means, for instance, that we get an entire episode built around New Jane's shock and outrage upon learning that a Rodeo Drive boutique doesn't carry dresses in her size — and gasp! the salespeople are rude to fatties — which leads to an ill-advised (and realistically ill-fated) discrimination lawsuit against the company.
The lack of fashionable plus-size options — and respect for the market — is real and shitty, but an actual fat woman would A) not be all gollygeewhiz surprised by this and B) likely have bigger and better fish to fry where discrimination suits are concerned. So, although it's realistic that Deb would be both learning this for the first time and dumb enough to believe there's a lawsuit in it, the fact that she's doing it in Jane's body subtly reinforces one of my least favorite Hollywood stereotypes: The fat girl who doesn't know she's fat. The fat girl who doesn't realize she's not a 24-year-old model, and thus humiliates herself by acting entitled to all the rights and privileges pertaining to conventional attractiveness. That's a really common trope, among the rare instances when you see a fat girl on TV at all — she has no idea that other people are offended by her appearance, that the captain of the football team doesn't really want to take her to prom, that people think she eats too much, that she can't wear straight sizes, that any effort she puts into looking pretty will read as a big joke on her. It's usually based, as far as I can tell, on the assumption that fat people are ignorant not only of nutrition and exercise recommendations, but how they're perceived in society — 'cause if they knew how much people hate them, they would have lost weight already, amirite?
Here, obviously, it's based on the conceit that this particular fat girl is also a 24-year-old model. But I just don't think we've come far enough from that other version of The Fat Girl Who Doesn't Know It for the underlying premise here — as DDD creator Josh Berman told Parker-Pope, "I always liked the idea of a woman who doesn't feel on the inside like she looks on the outside" — to be 100% empowering. It leads, just a bit too often, to New Jane looking like a buffoon in all-too-familiar ways. (And that's without getting into the fact that looking like Brooke Elliott on the outside is hardly the raw deal it's made out to be.)
More disturbingly, it raises another question that should be obvious: What happened to Old Jane, anyway? And the answer is: She's dead. Literally. She died so that Deb could live. We're meant to believe Old Jane was self-loathing and lonely, so being body-snatched by someone more sexually confident is trading up, but unfortunately, that means this isn't the story of a fat woman learning to love herself as-is, but a fat woman fucking dying so a thin woman can learn a valuable lesson. I don't think I'll ever completely get past that.
But I can get past it enough to enjoy Drop Dead Diva for what it is — a fairly typical Lady Network show with a lot of atypical, unprecedented, truly body-positive twists. It's not 100% PUF-approved, but holy crap, it's a better portrayal of a fat woman than damn near anything I've seen since Roseanne, so I would really like to see this show do well. Since they already seem to have cut down on the binge-eating gags in recent episodes (THANK YOU), and they can only do so much about the premise, all I can really ask for is a little more sensitivity to the pitfalls of having Deb learn shit in Jane's body that should be obvious to any thinking person, fat or thin. Oh, and more Fred. For the love of all that's holy, do not take Fred away from us again.
*Before somebody argues that point, the line I'm referring to is 14/16W, where most plus lines begin. And as anyone who's ever had the misfortune of falling between them can tell you, there's actually quite a gulf between a "straight" 14 or 16 and a 14 or 16W.

subset: commoncrawl


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text:
Update: This interview is now in our first issue of Guru Investor Digest. Download the PDF here.
In his role, he oversees the investment of the $2 billion float of the insurance company. He achieved a 10-year cumulative return of 101.6 percent compared to the S&P's return of 16.4 percent.
Recently, he joined GuruFocus for an interview and took question from readers. His answers are below:
How did you get started with value investing?
TG: Well, I started out life as an accountant, from the University of Virginia. Then a CPA, working at PriceWaterhouseCoopers. I found as I got into accounting that I was more interested in dollars than numbers, so investing seemed to be a little more in tune with business itself and the world of finance. Now, I think accounting is a phenomenally good way to begin to be an investor because accounting is the language of business, and you need to understand the language and what accounting entries mean in economic sense. But once I had that language down, I found the craft of investing was just very attractive to me. So that was sort of my mental switch. There was a local investment firm in town called Davenport and Company of Virginia, which was a small group here in Richmond. They had an interesting practice where they were brokers, and they did research on regional companies in Virginia and North Carolina. I had the opportunity to go there and work as a stock broker, and as a research analyst covering companies in Virginia and North Carolina, to be exposed to a lot of different industries, a lot of different companies, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. One of the companies that I covered starting in 1986 when they went public was Markel. I got to meet Steve Markel, and from 1986 through 1990, I covered the company. He was doing acquisitions for Markel, then Markel did the second half of the Shand acquisition, which more than doubled the size of the company and the investment portfolio. Steve was managing things himself and decided that he would like a wingman to help him out. He mentioned something to me about coming out here, and I said, "Great," because I saw an insurance company that I liked and respected, that made underwriting profits, and was willing to invest underwriting profits for the long term. I knew that that was the formula that Buffett, at Berkshire practiced. And I got to stay right here in Richmond, Virginia. That sounded great, sign me up. That is the short story of how it happened.
So you made it all the way up to the Chief Investment Officer and President. But, we know that accounting is different from value investing, right. Over the process, were there any persons or books that influenced you?
TG: Yes, there are two levels of reading that I would suggest to people. The first would be the traditional stuff that most people are probably aware of, and that starts with Graham and Dodd, Security Analysis, and The Intelligent Investor. I also always thought John Train was a great financial writer, I'm looking in my bookcases here, I like Peter Lynch's book, Beating the Street, A Hundred to One on the Stock Market that was recommended to me by Chuck Akre, so a lot of financial books that a lot of people have already read. The next tier of books are much broader and they're not really financial books, but I would call them human nature books. What makes people tick? Why do people do the things they do? My favorite author is Mark Twain, and I tell people that if you've already studied accounting, and if you've already read the first set of financial books, then the next thing you should read is a lot of Mark Twain kind of stuff. And you should read it with the sense that Mark Twain was broke and rich, and broke and rich, several times in his life, so there's sort of a subtext of money, and finance, and investing, and behavior that underlies much of Mark Twain's work. And if you read and study Mark Twain, I think you get a good sense of the qualitative factors that affect investing as opposed to just the pure numbers. And then the last thing after that is that I like reading a lot of biographies, people of accomplishment, military figures, leaders, athletes, and coaches. Reading how these people did what they did is worth studying.
So these books basically help you to understand much better in life, and business, probably.
TG: That's correct.
How about Warren Buffett?
TG: Well, he is the leading example of our day, of someone who thinks comprehensively, and intelligently, and flexibly. He is a role model for how you should make investment decisions, and business decisions.
You have been in the insurance business for many years, can you tell us how to evaluate an insurance company, how to judge if this insurance company is a good company, or if it's a good company, if it's a good investment?
TG: Sure. Okay, let's take the first statement about whether it's a good company, because you can have a good company that is priced so high that it may not be a good investment, so that may be different things. However, you can have a bad company that can be priced so cheaply that if you can buy it at the right price and get a hold of it which is what Markel has done in several insurance acquisitions, then you can turn a bad company into a very good investment. So in terms of being a good company, one of the markers to me would be the reserve development triangles that are published every year in the annual report, because with an insurance company, like any other financial institution, the financial statements are a wrestling match between the income statement and the balance sheet. So anything that goes in the income statement as net income, was sort of paid out from the balance sheet. If you are a balance sheet oriented company, and that's what you're culture emphasizes, in the short run, you're penalizing the reported income in the income statement. So how can you tell? Well, look at the reserve development triangle, where in any given year they show what they estimate for losses. That is the biggest liability that an insurance company typically has. Then you look at how that develops year after year after year. If those losses come down, then the company was protecting its balance sheet, it was balance sheet oriented, and it was inherently conservative in the way it set reserves. And that's the number one marker for a company that really is caring about the right thing, and in my opinion probably a good insurance company. Second thing is the proxy statement. I look at the way people are paid. Does the pay make sense? Is it logical, is it reasonable, and is it multi-year? In most forms of insurance the claims pay out over multiple years so I like to see incentives for compensation be measured over multiple years as opposed to any one year. That prevents the people from gaming the system and trying to make any one year look better. Those are the two primary things that I'm going to look at.
Okay, so basically as investors we need to look at the reserves compared with liabilities that they have, is that how it goes over the years?
TG: Yes, how the reserves develop over time.
Okay. How about combined ratios?
TG: The combined ratios are very important, and obviously we'd like them to be below 100. You need to look at how things, the components of the combined ratio hold over time. In any given year, combined ratios can look better than they really are. You see that play out over time. If, in contrast, you're conservative in your reserving process, you're going to see that the company reported something like a 98 combined year in the calendar year that they reported it in. But as time goes by, and you see how well the reserves develop, you can look back and see that in the accident year maybe that ended up being 94 or 95. That was really better than originally reported. And that trend is incredibly important. When the ultimate development is better than what is initially reported, that is a mark of all sorts of good things.
Insurance industry itself is cyclical. And what should investors pay attention to the cycle of the business?
TG: Well, there's not a whole lot one can do about cycles. If you have a trader's mentality, you may try to time things. When the cycle gets better they think that they are going to get in, and when the cycle gets worse, they'll get out. I don't know how to do that myself very well, in general. I try to focus more on the inherent quality of the company and my comfort with the management team. In the good years they're picking up a lot of ground when the cycles are favorable. And when the cycles are against you maybe you go sideways or struggle a bit. But if you have the right company and the right management team, I think you'll do fine over the course of time, and probably you'll end up doing better than if you tried to trade in and out depending on what you thought the cycle was going to be.
Okay. Now back to the second part of the question: What makes a good insurance company a good investment, or a bad insurance company, the price part.
TG: Right, when you find good companies that you like at a reasonable price and you have a quality management team that continues to compound the value over time, that's when you really do well as an investor. Making sure that you have the right management team that's making the decisions every day that causes the value to compound over time is the most important thing to me.
So the management is the most important part for insurance businesses?
TG: That's my opinion, yes.
Okay. How about valuation? If we have good management and a good business, what's the best price for the buying, or shouldn't we pay much attention to the price?
TG: Well, it is not you shouldn't pay attention to the price, but here are the things that you should think about: One, I mean obviously the book value of a pure financial company is a reasonable starting point to think about a rough approximation of the value. And if you look at what the change in the book value is over a period of years, you get a good sense of sort of at what rate the management is creating underlying intrinsic value of the company. If somebody is compounding it at 12% over a ten year period and somebody else is compounding at 8% over a ten year period, clearly the people doing the 12% job are better, more skilled, and they are worth more and a higher premium than those that are compounding at 8%. That's one component. The other thing is that if you look at a Markel, or a Berkshire, or a Loews, those companies that have a lot of non-insurance operations in them, those are more of what I would call an income statement business rather than a pure balance sheet business. They should be judged on income statement measures such as earnings, cash flow, EBITDA, and things of that nature, to come up with a comprehensive picture of how well the company is doing and what it's worth. But the mistake to avoid is to not think that you can distill things to any one or two or three measures and say that is the answer.
Okay, just like Berkshire Hathaway. They have different businesses and we should evaluate them differently.
TG: That is correct.
Okay. Then how about different kinds of insurance companies? There are P&C insurance, reinsurance, title insurance. How should they be studied or researched differently, analyzed differently?
TG: Yes, and that's where being knowledgeable about accounting is very helpful. For example, think about the differences between life and P&C, if you're a large life insurance company and you're selling life insurance, the dispersion of possible outcomes is pretty tight. Large numbers of people, suddenly dying at 69, when they were dying at 74, just doesn't happen. Whereas in a property casualty company, you might have a series of things, just like in 2011. You had the Japanese Tsunami, Thai Flood, and earthquakes. Those are big catastrophic events that happen in the P&C world that don't really happen in the life world. That gives us a sense of what the possible outcomes for businesses might be. One of the things that you should be also knowledgeable about when you're looking at life or P&C companies is DAC, or deferred acquisition cost. P&C companies are going to have certain methodologies and certain ways of putting DAC costs on their balance sheets. A life company is going to have a very different way of doing that, and usually a much higher amount of DAC than what a P&C company does. That introduces some components of uncertainty that you just need to be thoughtful in thinking about.
So they are quite different. As you said, life insurance is more predictable and others maybe not as predictable, and probably we should look at a longer cycle of the business. Now let's go to a different topic. Our readers are asking how do you manage cash in your investment portfolio, how do you decide how much cash position you have in your portfolio relative to in stocks or bonds or others.
TG: Right. Well, there are multiple parts to it. Part of it is this is not purely just an investment operation. This is an investment operation that's connected to operating businesses in both the insurance and non-insurance world. So cash needs to be managed in the context of the needs of the business itself. Cash is not a great asset to own; but it's something that you always want to have more than enough of. When you need cash that you don't have, bad things happen. So, that is the first rule. The second rule is when you have more cash than what makes sense for the business, you look around and you see what investment opportunities are out there. If there are good investment opportunities that make sense, then we buy them. But if we can't find anything to buy, then our cash balances might indeed grow. That's a residual of the fact that we can't find enough investment ideas; rather than a theory about how much cash you should have.
Okay. So it Markel's portfolio hedged in any way?
TG: No.
So what's your opinion on hedging itself?
TG: It's not something that we try to do. We are naturally hedged in the sense that when we write an insurance policy and we did that in dollars or pounds, or euros, or Australian dollars we identify a similar amount of investments in those currencies to make sure that we are hedged in those currencies. We don't try to speculate on what the exchange rates are going to do, we just try to have a natural hedge in the portfolio so that we own about as much as in fixed income assets in a particular currency as we would have liability in any one currency. Beyond that, the costs of hedging are substantial, so we try not to incur those. We don't assume that we have a more accurate view of the future than others. So in general we try to avoid incurring those costs, which helps the returns.
Okay. One of the shareholders is asking, what's your opinion on Markel's intrinsic value?
TG: I would not put a specific number on it, but the mentality that I would have in thinking about it is, I would think about a our insurance businesses with a normalized amount of premium volume, and a normalized amount of underlying profitability. That gives a normalized amount of operating earnings from the insurance company. Then I would look at our net investments per share, which was total investments minus all the debt. I would then think to myself, well, if this insurance company continues to operate at an underwriting profit, and at least stays the same size, then all of the net investments per share are actually working for the shareholder, so that value should be added. Then the third thing I would think about is the Markel ventures set of companies and what the operating cash flows and operating earnings are on a normalized basis and assign a multiple of that. I would divide that by the number of shares outstanding, and get a sense of what Markel each share is worth.
Okay. You don't have to answer, but currently do you think Markel is close to fair value, or undervalued.
TG: I'm going to let everybody else do their homework on that.
What's your estimate of the growth of the insurance part of the business?
TG: Over one period of time, the roughly 20 years I've been here, the book value has compounded in the high teens, which is directionally a pretty good description of how the value and the growth has compounded, since 1990. Going forward, I'd say that that's an aggressive goal, but we'll certainly do the best we can; and I would hope that would end up being a double digit return to our shareholders from doing so.
Let's look at the world; in 2008 we had a financial crisis and now we are having another one. One question was, in 2008, what was the best investment that Markel did?
TG: Well, the best thing we probably had in 2008 were government bonds.
Yeah, but did you make any new investments in 2008 that turned out to do very well today?
TG: Fortunately, one of the great weapons that I have is that Markel investments are tied to the operating business in the insurance and non-insurance side, which produces cash flows. As a result, we did buy some equities in the normal course of business like we normally do. Obviously things we bought in the middle of the financial crisis are doing great, but I don't describe that as any particular genius on my part.
Okay. I think that the context is, for example, in 2008 Warren Buffett made a new investment in GE, in Goldman Sachs, those worked very well.
TG: That's why he is Warren Buffett, and I'm not.
Did you buy a lot more stocks in 2008 or 2009?
TG: We bought some, but it was within the steady and normal flow, not looking to do market timing calls.
How about Fairfax? What are your views on Fairfax? That's one of your largest holdings.
TG: Well obviously we're shareholders, so in the sense that actions speak louder than words, we have a lot of respect for what they're doing and how they've compounded value over the years.
Okay. What's your view on Prem Watsa?
TG: A very talented and honest businessman.
We know that, of course, Fairfax had a history that was from Markel, part of Markel. When did you start to buy Fairfax?
TG: We owned bits and pieces of Fairfax for decades. A couple of years ago, when they were raising capital, we bought some more and that turned out be an attractive purchase. But we have long been familiar with and long been a shareholder of the company.
You also owned Berkshire Hathaway, of course, for many years. What's your view on the current Berkshire Hathaway situation, especially on the new managers that Warren Buffett has hired for the investments portfolio?
TG: Well, for 20 years I've thought that Buffett has done a marvelous job at all of the tasks that he has faced, and I don't see a reason to change that opinion now. I think he's made good decisions to hire those two managers. I met Todd Combs and I don't know Ted Weschler. I have a high degree of confidence that they are skilled, thoughtful, high integrity people. I'm very happy that Berkshire is our largest position.
One question that I wanted to ask: We know that Warren Buffett, other than Berkshire Hathaway, also runs a personal portfolio which invests in different stocks than Berkshire Hathaway's equity portfolio because the sizes of the portfolios are different. Do you do similar things?
TG: A little bit, and also largely because of size. There are some things that are too small for Markel, but for 90% or something like that, things that I do for myself I also do for Markel.
What percentage of your investable net worth is in MKL shares?
TG: About two-thirds.
Okay. One question was asking what were your largest investment mistakes during your tenure at Markel?
TG: Owning the financial companies going in to the 2008 crisis. I had not fully appreciated how badly leverage hurts when things are going the wrong way. Fortunately we sold the positions and got out of the way before the worst of the storms but we really ripped off a few chunks of flesh along the way, and that was the most bitter and painful experience, but a great learning experience going forward.
Is that why you don't own lots of financials or banks right now?
TG: Banks in particular, I do not have much of a position in. The only banks that we own are Union First Market Bankshares (UBSH), which is the legacy of a private investment that we did here with a family here in Richmond, a privately owned bank which merged into a public bank. It is the largest community bank in Virginia. It is a good; solid operation. We also own some Bank of New York and State Street Bank, which are service businesses as much as they are banks.
Will you talk about the results of your investment into First Market Bank and how MKL made out following the merger with Union Bank? I've never seen detail results for what was initially a private investment.
TG: We do not break out the results of any single investment. As you can see in our filings, we retain our interest in Union First Market and we are optimistic about their prospects. They, like every other bank, face challenges, but they are well capitalized and plowing ahead.
We know that the large bank stocks are going down every day almost, do you see opportunities there?
TG: There might well be, but I have decided that they're beyond my circle of competence to invest in them.
Could you please shed some light on your thoughts about US Banking Industry as an investment? Would be great if you could talk about Bank Of America and Citigroup?
TG: Unfortunately, this continues to be a difficult area. We do not own either of these 2 companies and I don't know how to make a value judgment about them. A few weeks ago, Tom Friedman wrote a piece in the NYT discussing banks. He suggested 4 steps to improve the current situation. In essence I agree with his four points which were one, that banks that were too big to fail were just too big and should be broken up into smaller entities, two, that we should reinstate Glass Steagall, three, that derivatives should be exchange traded and transparent and that, four, we need to figure out a way to reduce the interplay of big business and big government.
His language was more eloquent than mine but I agree with the essence of his thoughts.
How about Europe? Europeans are going through the crisis and we know that Prem Watsa invested in Bank of Ireland (IRE). Do you see opportunities there?
TG: He has different skills than me, so I would not be making those investments. I don't know how to do it the way he does. By contrast one of our largest holdings is Nestle. It is a European company but sells around the world. Another company we own is Diageo (NYSE:DEO), it is a UK based company but it also sells products around the world. That is the kind of company that we see as a solution to invest in Europe. If you look at Nestle and Diageo whether Europe goes up, down, sideways, whether they solve the problem in one month, or one year, or ten years, the economics of those companies are likely to do pretty darn well. Being shareholders and owning through the whole period of time, we think we will do pretty well.
Because they are high quality companies. Lots of other investors we track also love those companies, such as Tom Russo. He loves those companies too. And he loves the family-operated businesses too, their long term history. Are there any other reasons that you own those companies?
TG: Well, part of the reasons that he likes families is because families often times tend to have a longer time horizons than the next quarter or what their next bonus payment is going to be. It's their legacy. There's a cultural, mental ownership that's different than just pure financial ownership, and you don't have to be a family member to feel that way. Using Markel as an example, I'm not a member of the Markel family, a lot of my peers and colleagues here are not members of the Markel family, but we feel as if we are. I think that makes our business better.
Okay. I guess your experience in Markel probably helps you understand the family part of business very well.
TG: That is correct.
How about Japan?
TG: The stocks have been cheap for a long time. I don't have any particular expertise in that market.
How about China?
TG: That is highly controversial. There are very intelligent, skilled people who talk about the ongoing growth of China. There are other highly intelligent skilled thoughtful people who point out a potential real estate bubble and think that China is going to pop. I don't really know. But I do believe that people are getting connected to other people around the world through trade, through communication, through travel. All of those forces are just unstoppable. Everybody is going to benefit from this.
Okay. One of the questions is about Carmax (NYSE:KMX). It's one of your largest holdings and what are your thoughts on the business, the future growth, the valuation, the management?
TG: I think that is a business that will continue to grow. They only had eight or ten dealerships when we first started buying it. But those days they thought they could have 100. I don't see any reason why you can't have a Carmax in a lot of towns way beyond what they're talking about right now. I think being the number one dealer, and having the number one market share in used car arena gives you great information on what transaction prices are. Then you work on the process to be as quick and as cost efficient in fixing the car and getting it sold, and have the confidence from customers when you offer warranties on the products. Those factors create a virtuous cycle. The more you do, the more you can do, the better the pricing is, the more the customers like you, the more your brand matters. The company will be around for a good long time. The management has done a very good job of creating the system and executing it.
How about the current valuation? The stock has gone up a lot.
TG: Well that happens when you have a good company doing the right thing.
That makes sense. That's actually the kind of company that value investors should buy and hold forever. If you had to choose one investment other than Markel, with a long term holding period now, which one would you recommend?
TG: Well, I don't have a specific name that I want to suggest for that, because if you only choose one, you would make that choice differently than if you could choose ten or twenty. I need to allow something to go wrong, which is what diversification allows you to do. Charlie Munger is correct when he said that diversification is, "protection against ignorance". You may minimize ignorance as much as possible, but I think it is arrogant to say that you can completely eliminate it. Maybe someone else can, but I can't. I don't know how to do that. So I always want to allow myself some room to be wrong, to be ignorant, to find out that things didn't play out the way I expected. Therefore having a portfolio having more than one position makes a lot of sense, and it's the way I view things. What I would say, is that a lot of people are just very negative about stocks, and owning businesses. I still want to own businesses with global growth prospects, as opposed to earning fixed income levels of interest rates that they're paying. So I'm pretty positive about the equity markets in general. The global companies we talked about are the core of my portfolio.
Okay. So basically, mostly high quality large cap companies.
TG: Right now, because I think that's where the value is. It changes over time. 15 years ago I owned a lot of micro cap, small cap companies, and REITS because that's where the values were in my opinion. I didn't own of the any of the large cap companies. Today it's sort of the reverse. The vast majority of my portfolio is in the large cap global companies. It goes through a normal cycle.
Okay. That's why you own WalMart, Exxon Mobil, UPS, Disney?
TG: Yes. I love all of those companies, I think that they're marvelous companies at great prices right now.
Okay. Do you have any opinion on a very hot stock, Apple?
TG: I don't. It's something I wish I had, but I don't know how to make any money on that one.
You've talked a lot about why you buy a stock, can you discuss your sell strategy?
TG: In general, we hope to be able to buy a stock and never sell it. That would mean that we own a successful business that is continuing to grow and compound value. As such, the main reason we sell is that we recognize we made a mistake when we bought something i.e. it is not as good a business as we hoped, or we reach the conclusion that the business will not grow and compound value going forward.
I think that if you limit your buying to things you will be able to own for a long time, you will put more thought into whether to buy it or not and that leads to better long term decisions. We are not traders or looking to buy and sell quickly, so our sell strategy largely reflects mistakes and disappointments. Unfortunately, we've got our share of those and likely will continue to have them as well!
Also, sometimes, meaningful amounts of over or under valuation occur in certain areas of the market. For instance the global, dominant, franchise companies that we own now are good values in my opinion and we've been buying them for the last several years. 12-15 years ago, they were global, dominant, franchise companies but we didn't own any of them because the prices were too high. I would suspect that over the course of the next decade, they will return to favor and sell at very high prices again and we will gradually shift away from them towards more attractively priced securities.
I don't know when and I don't know what we will be buying but that is why I come to work every day and I will try to just thoughtfully steer the portfolio by judicious selling and buying to make sure I own the best portfolio I can construct and do so in a tax efficient manner without too many short term trades.
It seems all Brookfield affiliates (BAM, BIP, BPO) are run by excellent management with focus on high quality assets. With respect to various Brookfield affiliates, what would recommend individual investor with small capital to invest in? Does it make more sense to go with smaller caps like BIP or BPO as opposed to BAM.[/b]
TG: I have a high regard for Brookfield and its management. As our filings show, we are long term holders of the company. I usually find myself with a bias towards owning parent or general partner type interests as opposed to subsidiary or limited partnership investments but every situation is unique. The "daughter" companies at Brookfield give investors the opportunity to be very specific about what sorts of assets they like and as such serve a good purpose.
[b]From my understanding MKL only invests shareholder equity into stocks while BRK invests its float and shareholder equity into stocks. Could you discuss this difference (or tell me that I'm totally incorrect)? TG: Berkshire has a much bigger balance sheet than Markel and a much bigger base of equity compared to its insurance liabilities than we do. As such, they can allocate more of the investment portfolio towards equities. Over time, if we continue to grow and build up our equity capital we should be able to move in the same direction as Berkshire.
Other than a fair and non-turbulent exit strategy for owners, what does Markel Ventures offer its newly acquired businesses?
TG: I think that one of the underappreciated features for a business when it becomes part of Markel Ventures is the idea of operating a business for the best long term outcomes with low leverage and a long time horizon. We don't focus on quarters. We're not trying to dress something up for sale. We don't do financial engineering and load things up with leverage and we stay focused on serving customers and building the value of the business. I think that sort of time horizon and discipline helps keep a business focused on the basics and really creates the best business over time.
We've seen the advantage of increased customer loyalty and value of this mentality already at Markel Ventures and I think that this will prove to be a durable competitive advantage that will grow over time.
Can you discuss your share repurchase strategy?
TG: Our first priority is to make sure that we have more than enough capital to run our insurance business. Then we look at public and private investment opportunities to search for opportunities to deploy capital. As we are doing so, we compare the investment prospects for those investments to that represented by Markel stock and we'll pursue whatever makes the most sense for the shareholders.
As you know, we take the share count seriously here at Markel and we don't have massive grants or compensation programs which cause a leakage in the shares outstanding. Over the last severals years, we've gradually reduced the share count through repurchases and we will always look for the opportunity to keep doing that when it makes sense.
You became Good Haven's first managed account after you helped fund the company. Do you see outsourcing capital management as a bigger part of MKL's future? Or was this a PR type of investment? How much was invested with Good Haven?
TG: I've known Larry Pitkowsky and Keith Trauner for decades and I was delighted to be able to participate in the formation of their new firm. I invested in Goodhaven because I thought it would be a good investment for Markel. I'm confident that the firm will serve its clients well over the years and that we will benefit from being associated with them.
Keith and Larry are smart and honest guys. I like seeing what they are doing with capital and talking about investment ideas with them. We are all long term investors and just looking for the best ways to steward capital so it is good to be on the same team with them in my opinion.
We enjoy a good reputation among many of our long term investors and I'm always open minded about figuring out ways that we can be mutually successful and help one another over time.
Would you ever consider buying an insurance business purely for runoff purposes or would this go against building Markel's franchise value?
TG: Yes we are interested in run off opportunities in the insurance world. In fact, some of our insurance acquisitions involved a blend of both ongoing and run off opportunities. That has worked well for us in the past and we'd be interested in pursuing similar opportunities in the future.
Can you discuss the different mental models of buying into a private business versus funding a newly formed private business?
TG: In general, we are interested in existing rather than start up businesses. The only exceptions are where we have such confidence in the prospects of a start up AND in the skills and experiences of the managers that we can invest modest capital to help build a big business over time. We are not venture capitalists in the traditional sense.
Do you have any plans for greater disclosure of Markel Venture's financials? For example an annual supplemental release?
TG: The revenues and expenses of the Markel Ventures companies are included in the other revenues and expenses lines of our financial statements. Additionally, we provide a reconciliation of EBITDA to net income each quarter which I think provides insight into the performance of the companies. As we regularly report those items, and as investors get used to seeing them, I think folks will feel comfortable with that reporting structure.


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In this episode I talk about some concepts that can help you achieve a pain-free workout.
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Stop relying on willpower, motivational tricks, and pump-up strategies and learn how to top into your inner fitness fire with Chris' 60-minute audio book: Ignite Your Fitness Passion (published 2015)
Relieve your back pain with this easy-to-follow video program designed to get to the root cause of your pain: muscle imbalance. Check out the Back Pain Module.
Learn the basic principles that make a successful fitness program with Chris' 60-page book, Functional Strength: The Key To Pain-Free Movement (published 2008)


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ECO:nomics: Next Big Thing: Opower
Alex Laskey, president of Opower, talks about his company's efforts to provide energy usage data to consumers.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
I ... the if you check your e mail ... and ... you're checking it right now ... yes I haven't finances anybody check that date credit card investing account this week ... how about your household energy use ... a paycheck that today ... last week ... last week ... a few energy peak spread throughout its good to see you guys ... but the rest of us this is a room filled with people who come to a conference in beautiful Santa Barbara to sit inside to hear about energy and environment ... and even we aren't paying attention to the energy is driving climate change ... the average American home waste twenty percent of the electricity consumed Sany's aways I don't mean that people have been efficient light bulbs where they watched bad TV they made and they definitely do ... but what I say ways I mean that we leave the lights on in our unoccupied rooms of TV air conditioning on when nobody's home ... not only is this an environmental catastrophe but it's an economical ... forty billion dollars the year are wasted in the U S alone on energy that does not contribute to our wellbeing but does contribute to climate change ... so ... inspired by this opportunity my friend Deanne Yitai story the company now although power six years ago ... energy is boring is inexpensive and we realize if we were going to get people to change their behavior we needed to partner with utilities to have the scale they have the data ... not only do they have the opportunity but ... because of regulation they have the obligation ... to serve all of their customers ... and for the last five years we've been running the largest behavioral science experiment in the world ... and it's working ... ordinary homeowners and renters have saved more than two hundred and fifty million dollars on their energy bills the consequences of better information or provide ... broaden the best people scientists the world we've hired Big Data folks from Yahoo Amazon who will ... and her ... riffic designers ... we are now three hundred and fifty people ... were working with eighty six utilities in seven countries ... and this year will invest another forty million dollars in R and D ... as we roll out ... new ways of communicating with customers new ways of taking advantage of the massive amounts of data that utilities are you know ... I ... to spend two hours and fifty million dollars over the last ... six years ... this year alone will generate two Carillon hours in energy savings ... what's to tear one hours the Energy geeks may know but for the rest of us ... to tear a lot hours ... it's enough electricity to power ... a city of five hundred thousand homes ... for year ... to terror what ours is roughly half of what the entire U S solar industry produced last year ... and were jittery to tear on ours ... without any infrastructure with any hardware without any material science but simply through the application of the heavens it's ... so ... good to be here thank you very much


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Planets survived birth in harsh, stormy star cluster, study says
Astronomers peering at stellar data from the Kepler space telescope have discovered a surprising find: two planets smaller than Neptune that appear to have formed even in the harsh, unwelcoming environment of a star cluster. The discovery, published in the journal Nature, may show that planetary systems are more robust – and far more common – than previously thought.
Such a planetary find has long been thought extremely unlikely because star clusters are thought to be very hostile places for a planet to survive. Only four planets have ever been found, and they were all Jupiter-sized or larger, William Welsh, an astronomer at San Diego State University who was not involved in the study, wrote in a commentary.
But scientists studying Kepler data from the open star cluster called NGC 6811, which sits thousands of light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, discovered two planets just two and three times the size of Earth. That's after sampling just 377 stars in clusters, which is pretty good odds in such an environment, Welsh said.
Stars can grow in clusters – they begin to condense out of giant clouds of gas and dust in space, forming groups of bright young stars surrounded by the gassy molecular haze that birthed them. Dusty debris begins to form a disc around the star — just as it did around our sun, eventually coalescing to form the eight planets we know today.
But scientists have thought that a star living in such a dense knot of others stars would have trouble holding onto its delicate protoplanetary discs. After all, the gravity from neighboring stars in the cluster would wreak havoc on the ring of matter, possibly ripping it apart; and stellar winds and ultraviolet radiation from other hot, young stars nearby would blow much of the dusty debris away. As if that weren't enough, much of a rising star's protoplanetary entourage could get wiped out by supernovae, or the explosions of dying stars, in the cluster.
A star's ring of dust – and the planets it could birth – would surely only survive if it were out of harm's way, far enough from other stars to be affected by its siblings, scientists thought.
More than 95% of such clusters tend to dissipate in about 100 million years, the study authors pointed out – just a fraction of a typical star's lifetime – blown out in part by the same forces that would have removed clustered stars' planetary debris.
But now researchers have found two planets in a once-dense cluster, catching the dips in starlight from Kepler data. Kepler 66b and 67b are just 2.8 and 2.9 times the Earth's size, and they have very short orbital periods, circling their stars in about 18 and 16 days, respectively.
What's more, NGC 6811 is small but old, about a billion years old – meaning it must have been massive enough early in its history for its gravity to keep it together, preventing the cluster from dissipating entirely. This once-massive, dense cluster, which the authors say may have contained at least 6,000 stars, was probably particularly unfavorable for a young planet to survive in.
Perhaps planetary systems around stars of all kinds are far more common than thought, scientists say.
"Planet formation is robust — nature likes to create planetary systems, and many survive the birthing process," Welsh wrote.
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Literary agent Simon Trewin shares eleven of his favourite sites with the Hub
The dos and don'ts of formatting - for those about to take the giant step of sending out that precious manuscript.
The founder of The Literary Platform - first stop for anyone examining the interaction between literature and new technology - gives us a look at some items from her favourites menu.
Toby Litt shares 10 of his faves with the Hub.
Novelist and proponent of digital writing, Kate Pullinger, selects eleven links from her favourites menu.
Novelist and blogger Monique Roffey shares eleven links from her bookmarks folder with The Hub.
Arianna Huffington talks books, blogs and publishing at the Tools of Change for Publishing Conference.
For up-to-date information about current jobs and opportunities in the world of literature all around the UK visit the Literature Training website. You can also sign up for a fortnightly newsletter.
Journalist, writer and Birbeck alumnus Hilary Wilce questions prize-winning authors Hilary Mantel and Rachel Cusk about the trend for universities to employ high-profile writers.
ROTH, VONNEGUT, MORRISON, UPDIKE, EGGERS... Listen online to feature-length interviews with the greatest American writers from 1939 to the present. Available permanently on the BBC website.
Ellah Allfrey discusses the joys and pain of editing debut authors.
In the first of a regular feature we get authors, agents and publishers to pick the 11 internet sites they find the most useful or inspiring. Julia Bell counts down her current eleven.


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During the 1971 Indo-Pak war, the IAF airstrip at Bhuj was destroyed in combat. Subsequently, 300 local women led by IAF squadron leader Vijay Karnik heroically toiled day in and day out to reconstruct the airbase. This act of resilience was a pivotal moment which not only boosted the morale of the country, but also helped us win the war.
The film is a tribute to the unparalleled bravado displayed not only by IAF, but the civilians as well.
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What is PWM
PWM works by turning the circuit on and off very rapidly. By adjusting the ratio of the time on and the time off, it is possible to adjust the brightness of the LED. This ratio is called the Duty-Cycle and is the percentage of time the output is high with respect to the time of one cycle (when the output goes high then low then back to high). If the Duty-Cycle is 100% then the output is high all the time and thus the LED would be a full brightness. If the Duty-Cycle is 0%, the output is off all the time, so the LED would just be off. Now if the Duty-Cycle is set to 50%, the output is on 50% of the time and off the other 50%. In this setup, the LED would appear be at 50% of its full brightness, an thus appears to be dimmed. This works by basically averaging the time on with the time off.
PWM as a signal
Since PWM have set periods, it is possible to change the Duty-Cycle to transmit data. This is a common practice for controlling servo motors. By setting the Duty-Cycle to some value between an expected range of values, it is possible to map the value of the Duty-Cycle in the range, to another range of values that you will actually use. For instance with servos, the PWM signal is between 1.0ms and 2.0ms, but the servo maps these values to between -100% and 100%.
PWM on a Microcontroller
Due to the high frequency that PWM operates at, to get an accurate signal using code would basically prevent you from doing anything else with the chip. To eliminate this problem, chip manufacturers included hardware to generate the PWM signal. However not every I/O pin supports PWM output. For the Arduino UNO, only digital pins 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11, support it. Luckily, ROBOTC has a tab in the Motors and Sensors Setup window that lists the pins that can be used. ROBOTC also handles all of the complex options that need to be set for the hardware PWM to work.


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WASHINGTON - John Kerry offered scant indication Thursday about his position on TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline, saying simply that he hopes to make "appropriate judgments" about the fate of the project should he officially become secretary of state.
The Massachusetts senator, appearing at his confirmation hearings, faced few questions on either climate change or the Keystone pipeline during almost four hours before the Senate foreign relations committee, of which he's currently the chairman.
"There is a statutory process with regards to the review and that is currently ongoing," Kerry said. "It will not be long before that comes across my desk, and I will make the appropriate judgments about it."
The State Department is ultimately deciding Keystone's fate because it crosses an international border. Kerry, meantime, is widely expected to win swift confirmation as secretary of state, replacing Hillary Clinton.
State is "responsible for the environmental review, and there are specific standards that have to be met with respect to that review," Kerry told the hearing.
"I am going to review those standards and make sure they are complete."
He added he hoped the Keystone XL review would be done by the end of March, but made no promises. A State Department spokesman suggested earlier this week that there would be no decision until after March 31.
"It is happening in the appropriate due course of business. We will try and get it done as soon as we can," the senator said.
Kerry's longtime devotion to climate issues — he unsuccessfully tried to push greenhouse gas legislation through Congress three years ago — has American environmentalists hopeful that he might nix the controversial $7 billion project.
Keystone XL would transport bitumen extracted from Alberta's carbon-intensive oilsands to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. The project has become a flashpoint for U.S. environmentalists who view the oilsands as "dirty oil" and a symbol of climate change at large.
Keystone proponents, meantime, argue that the pipeline will create jobs and help provide the U.S. with energy independence from often hostile OPEC regimes.
During his hearing on Thursday, Kerry said that American foreign policy is "defined by leadership on life-threatening issues like climate change."
He added he will be a "passionate advocate" at the State Department on environmental issues. The U.S. is currently taking part in a United Nations-led effort to come up with a new, worldwide emissions agreement.
At least one congressional climate hawk seems to be preparing for the possibility that Keystone XL is a done deal.
Henry Waxman, the Democratic head of the House of Representatives' energy and commerce committee, said Thursday that the Obama administration's decision on Keystone would represent merely a "small" piece of the pie in efforts to combat climate change.
"This is only a small issue compared to the overall objective that the president and we want to achieve," Waxman told a news conference.
Obama and the White House will have to weigh issues other than just climate change as it makes a decision on Keystone, he added.
"I know there are a lot of different factors, including our relationship with Canada, that's on his mind."
Keystone is back on the hot seat in the U.S. capital this week, in part because Obama spoke out Monday during his second inaugural address about the need to confront climate change.
The president's forceful repudiation of climate-change skeptics has prompted the U.S. environmental movement to urge Obama to back up his rhetoric by putting the brakes to Keystone XL.
Fifty-three senators, however — more than half in the upper chamber — sent the president a letter this week beseeching him to approve the project.
Kerry and his wife, meantime, have agreed to divest holdings in a Canadian oil company, as well as dozens of other investments, in an effort to avoid conflicts of interest should he become secretary of state.
Kerry has as much as US$750,000 invested in Suncor, a Calgary-based oil company whose CEO has urged the Obama administration to green-light the pipeline.
Federal ethics officials have determined the Suncor (TSX:SU) stock poses no conflict of interest threats. But Kerry has agreed to divest of as much as $31,000 in Cenovus Energy — another Calgary firm that has pushed for Keystone XL approval — within 90 days if he's confirmed secretary of state.
Kerry's office says many of his investments are in family trusts managed by an independent trustee, and that the senator is unaware of the contents. The senator is one of the wealthiest lawmakers on Capitol Hill with an estimated net worth of $193 million.


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Using Reporting Tools to Turn CRM Around
Apr 28, 2014 5:00 AM PT
Whenever the term "business intelligence" is bandied about, thoughts immediately turn to the customer. BI, it is thought, should allow you to learn things about the customer by correlation, inference and comparison.
However, BI is a two-way street. In the course of using CRM -- which becomes the repository of data that BI then analyzes -- you also record data about the way your business uses CRM. In fact, while complex BI tools for analyzing customer behaviors are somewhat recent and continue to develop, the tools for examining CRM usage have been a part of most CRM applications for a while.
So -- does anyone use them?
Not really. If you talk to CRM integrators, you'll discover that internal reporting is a great "forgotten feature" -- something CRM users already pay for, already have access to, and could provide exceptionally useful benefits, but which few actually put to use.
Data vs. Anecdotes
If internal reporting were put to use, it would provide a window into how CRM is used within your company -- how widely, how often, and by whom. All of these things are extremely useful in understanding the effect CRM is having on your business's success.
For example, you may think a particular sales division or region or office isn't entering sales data into the CRM system, and that it's hurting that group's ability to close deals -- but do you know?
Internal reporting can tell you the frequency of CRM use; if a division is lagging in performance, and you can see through internal reporting that that division isn't using CRM, you can deal with the issue in a data-driven way instead of making a guess.
Internal reporting also can provide evidence of individual use patterns, allowing you to coach your personnel to improve their use of the application. Or it can allow you to spot leadership issues. If you can demonstrate that the people a sales leader manages are missing out on maximizing their productivity because of a failure to fully adopt CRM, then you have an opportunity to address a leadership buy-in issue armed with facts and not just feelings.
If you're in the first stages of a staged CRM rollout, internal reporting is even more important. Companies that ignore internal reporting evaluate CRM success or failure usage based not on how the system is used but on anecdotal evidence -- the experience of a manager, or of the most vocal salesperson -- instead of on actual usage data.
Reporting Reality Check
That's dangerous -- but even more dangerous is the use of that anecdotal evidence in building out the next phase of the CRM deployment. IT often doesn't get a chance to do what Sonoma Partners' principal Mike Snyder once called "a ride-along" to discover what's really needed in updating CRM, so it implements features and functionality, or even customizations, that the loudest users of the system advocate.
The result is one or two happy loud people, a much larger number of unhappy people, and fingers being pointed at IT and the CRM administrator.
Getting a reality check is as simple as learning the reporting capabilities of your CRM application. Next, put someone in charge of monitoring usage -- ideally, someone who understands both IT and the business needs of your company, and who can help translate internal reporting results into actions that make real differences in how effective your CRM becomes. This monitor should examine usage metrics monthly -- or quarterly, at the very least.
There's a lot that CRM can teach you about your own business, even as you use it to better understand your customers -- and you already own the tools to learn about your own CRM usage. Are you open to learning those lessons?


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CFO Moves this week include:
|Uber Technologies Inc.
|Hertz Global Holdings, Inc.
|United Airlines
|Frontier Communications
|Lowe's Companies, Inc.
|99 Cents Only Stores LLC
|Omnitracs, LLC
|MEDNAX, Inc.
|The Providence Service Corporation
|Fusion Risk Management, Inc.
|ORBCOMM Inc.
|CellTrak Technologies
|Varo Money, Inc.
|Coty Inc.
|Lantheus Holdings, Inc.
|RigNet, Inc.
|Lightbridge Corporation
|CIRCOR International, Inc.
|Rosa Foods
|Interlink Electronics, Inc.
|Harvard Bioscience, Inc.
|Paytronix Systems, Inc.
|Xtant Medical Holdings, Inc.
|Athenex, Inc.
|American Well
|Streamline Health Solutions, Inc.
|Traditions Health, LLC
|Pinnacle Climate Technologies
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NOTE: CFO Search Report available monthly to CFOs only. Read more here.
CFO Moves is published by Samuel Dergel (Executive Search Consultant and CFO & Financial Executive Search Specialist with Dergel Executive Search). Samuel can be reached by email at firstname.lastname@example.com or by phone at +1 (415) 738-2070.
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Uber Technologies Inc. [San Francisco, California] announced the appointment of Nelson Chai as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Nelson joins Uber from Warranty Group where he was CEO. Previously, he spent more than five years at CIT Group, where he most recently served as President. Before that, he was Chief Financial Officer of Merrill Lynch & Co.; NYSE Euronext, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange; and Archipelago Holdings. Nelson serves on the boards of Thermo Fisher Scientific.
Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. [ESTERO, Fla.] (NYSE: HTZ) announced that Thomas (Tom) C. Kennedy, Hertz's Chief Financial Officer ("CFO"), has resigned to pursue the next chapter of his career. Hertz also announced that effective on September 10, 2018, Jamere Jackson will join the Company as Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Jackson served as Chief Financial Officer of Nielsen Holdings plc from March 2014 to August 2018. Prior to joining Nielsen Holdings, Mr. Jackson was the Vice President & Chief Financial Officer of GE Oil & Gas – Drilling & Surface. He joined GE in 2004 and held a variety of leadership roles in GE Global Business Services, GE Corporate and GE Aviation before joining GE Oil & Gas. Prior to joining GE, Mr. Jackson held several roles in finance, mergers and acquisitions and strategic planning at The Procter & Gamble Company, Yum! Brands, Inc., First Data Corporation and Total System Services. In the interim period prior to Mr. Jackson formally joining Hertz, Robin Kramer, currently Hertz's Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer, will assume the additional role of Acting CFO. Ms. Kramer joined Hertz in May 2014 as part of the financial leadership team.
United Airlines [CHICAGO] (NYSE: UAL) announced Gerry Laderman, a 30-year United veteran, has been named executive vice president and chief financial officer. Laderman had been serving as acting chief financial officer since May. Previously, Laderman served as senior vice president of finance, procurement and treasurer and as a member of the senior executive leadership team. Laderman previously served as senior vice president of finance and treasurer for Continental Airlines from 2001 to 2010 and joined Continental in 1988.
Frontier Communications Corporation [Norwalk, Connecticut] announced the appointment of Sheldon Bruha, currently Frontier's Treasurer, to serve as Interim Chief Financial Officer upon the departure of Perley McBride. Bruha joined Frontier in February 2018 as Senior Vice President and Treasurer. Prior to joining Frontier, Mr. Bruha served as Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Capital Planning at CDI Corp., from March 2015 to February 2018. Mr. Bruha served in several capacities at Cable & Wireless Communications PLC from April 2004 to February 2015, most recently as Head, Corporate Finance, Treasury and Tax.
Lowe's Companies, Inc. [MOORESVILLE, N.C.] (NYSE : LOW) announced the appointment of David M. Denton as executive vice president, chief financial officer. Denton currently serves as executive vice president and CFO of CVS Health and previously served as senior vice president and controller/chief accounting officer. Prior to that, Denton served as CFO and controller for PharmaCare, CVS Health's legacy pharmacy benefits manager subsidiary. Additionally, he has held positions in corporate treasury, financial planning and analysis and corporate finance. Denton will join Lowe's shortly after the closing of the CVS acquisition of Aetna, which is expected in the second half of 2018. Denton is currently a director of Tapestry, Inc. and is chairman of the company's audit committee. Denton succeeds Marshall A. Croom, whose retirement was previously announced.
99 Cents Only Stores LLC [LOS ANGELES] announced that Ashok (Ash) Walia has been appointed Chief Financial Officer. Walia will succeed Felicia Thornton, who will continue in her position as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of Number Holdings, Inc., the Company's direct parent. Most recently, Walia served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance at Starbucks Corporation. Prior to that, he was Starbucks' Senior Vice President of Global Integrated Logistics/Supply Chain Business Operations. Prior to his roles at Starbucks, Mr. Walia held positions of increasing responsibility at the Kellogg Company culminating as Global Vice President, Finance.
Omnitracs, LLC [DALLAS] announced the hiring of John Hofmann as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Prior to joining Omnitracs, Hofmann was the CFO of Infogroup. Prior to Infogroup, he held leadership roles at known private equity firms Silver Lake Sumeru and GTCR. Hofmann began his career as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.
Udemy [SAN FRANCISCO] announced the appointment of David Oppenheimer as the company's Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Oppenheimer joins Udemy from Planet Labs, where he served as CFO. Prior to Planet, Oppenheimer was CFO at several companies including Ebates, ServiceSource, and Digital Impact.
MEDNAX, Inc. [FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.] (NYSE: MD) announced the appointment of Stephen D. Farber as Executive Vice President. The Company anticipates that Mr. Farber will assume the additional role of Chief Financial Officer in November 2018 to succeed Vivian Lopez-Blanco, who recently announced her planned retirement from the Company. Farber most recently was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Kindred Healthcare, Inc. Earlier in his career, Mr. Farber served as Chief Financial Officer of Tenet Healthcare Corporation. Farber has been involved in various private equity efforts, including as a healthcare executive-in-residence with Warburg Pincus LLC. Farber began his career as an investment banker with J.P. Morgan and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette.
Accruit [DENVER] announced the addition of Pat Frawley as the company's Chief Financial Officer. Frawley, a veteran of the United States Air Force, spent nine years with Liberty Global where he progressed from senior director of consolidations and reporting to vice president of accounting and finance operations with Unitymedia.
The Providence Service Corporation [STAMFORD, Conn.] (NASDAQ: PRSC) announced that it has appointed Kevin Dotts to serve as Chief Financial Officer ("CFO") of both Providence and its largest subsidiary, LogistiCare Solutions, LLC. Mr. Dotts will be based out of LogistiCare's headquarters in Atlanta, GA. Dotts recently served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Birch Communications, Inc. and its successor, FusionConnect. He has spent 14 of those years as a Chief Financial Officer including roles at Internap, Culligan International and EarthLink. Mr. Dotts began his career at General Electric Company ("GE") and served in increasingly senior financial roles during his 15 years of tenure at GE. Dotts will succeed William Severance, previously Interim Chief Financial Officer of the Company, who has been appointed as Executive Vice President Finance, Office of the Providence CEO.
Fusion Risk Management, Inc. [CHICAGO] announced that it has named Jim Stewart as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Stewart most recently spent three years as CFO at Edmentum.
ORBCOMM Inc. [ROCHELLE PARK, N.J.] (NASDAQ: ORBC) announced the addition of Michael (Mike) W. Ford as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, effective September 4, 2018. Ford most recently served as Executive Vice President of Commercial Lending for Emigrant Savings Bank. Prior to that, he spent 13 years with Tyco International where he held several executive management positions at its various subsidiaries, including Vice President of Operations for Tyco Fire Products; Global Chief Financial Officer for ADT Security; President of Tyco Integrated Services for Europe, Middle East and Africa; Chief Financial Officer for Tyco SimplexGrinnell as well as Chief Financial Officer for Tyco Integrated Fire and Security based in Sydney, Australia. In addition, Mr. Ford spent 13 years at Ryder System, Inc. and held several financial management positions, including European Finance Director based in Dusseldorf, Germany. Dean Milcos, who has served as ORBCOMM's Interim Chief Financial Officer since May 2018, will continue in his position as Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer, reporting to Mr. Ford.
CellTrak Technologies [Schaumburg, IL] announced the addition of Dan Wacker as Chief Financial Officer. Previously, he was Chief Financial Officer at companies in the media, entertainment, and technology space – most recently ClubReady, LLC and the Coolfire family of companies. Dan currently sits on the board of MedAware Solutions, Inc. and serves as a mentor for Stadia Ventures in their technology accelerator program.
Varo Money, Inc. [SAN FRANCISCO] announced the hire of Thibault Fulconis as Chief Financial Officer. Fulconis joins Varo from the executive team of Bank of the West and its holding company BancWest. At Bank of the West, Fulconis served as Vice Chairman, Corporate Functions and Chief Operating Officer. Prior to that role, he oversaw the Commercial Banking and National Finance business units of the bank, and the Corporate Development, and served as Vice Chairman in charge of Finance. Before his tenure at Bank of the West, he held various positions, mostly in Finance, with parent company BNP Paribas since 1989. He served as CFO and Head of Development for the International Retail and Financial Services pole of BNP Paribas and as Head of Financial Management for the BNP Paribas Group. Before joining BNP Paribas, Fulconis was a business analyst in the mergers and acquisitions practice with Booz Allen Hamilton in Paris.
Coty Inc. [NEW YORK] (NYSE: COTY) announced the resignation of Patrice de Talhouët, Executive Vice President and Global Chief Financial Officer, who is leaving Coty to pursue other opportunities. Patrice will remain CFO through mid September 2018 and assist with transition thereafter. Ayesha Zafar, Coty's Senior Vice President, Group Controller, will serve as the interim Chief Financial Officer effective September 15, 2018. Ayesha has been responsible for accounting operations and financial reporting, including as Coty's principal accounting officer for more than two years, and she brings 30 years of finance experience across several multinational consumer goods and pharmaceuticals companies, including The Hertz Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Campbell Soup Company, PepsiCo, Inc., and Colgate-Palmolive Company.
Diversified [KENILWORTH, N.J.] announced Allison Aden is joining the company as its new Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Prior to joining Diversified, Aden led finance teams across several industries including technology integration, data security, professional services, manufacturing production & distribution, and commercial real estate. Aden will succeed Bruce Herman, who has served as the company's CFO for two years. Herman will continue to be a key member of the Diversified executive team, leading several initiatives for the organization.
QuadraNet [LOS ANGELES] announced the hire of Brian Flowers who has joined the QuadraNet team as the company's appointed Chief Financial Officer. Flowers' career began in public accounting with the big four firm, KPMG LLP, before pivoting towards the private technology sector in which assumed the role of Controller and CFO in various start-up and private equity backed technology companies.
Lantheus Holdings, Inc. [NORTH BILLERICA, Mass.] (NASDAQ: LNTH) the parent company of Lantheus Medical Imaging, Inc. announced that it has appointed Robert J. Marshall, Jr. as Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, effective September 24, 2018. Mr. Marshall succeeds Jack Crowley. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Marshall spent 16 years with Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc., where he held various senior leadership roles, including Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Treasurer, and most recently as Vice President, Americas Finance, for the U.S., Canadian and Latin American commercial markets. Prior to Zimmer Biomet, Bob was employed with Brown & Williamson Tobacco, a subsidiary of British American Tobacco, p.l.c., in Louisville, Kentucky, where he held several positions of increasing responsibility.
RigNet, Inc. [HOUSTON] (NASDAQ: RNET) announced the appointment of Lee M. Ahlstrom as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Most recently, Ahlstrom served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Paragon Offshore Ltd. and as Senior Vice President of Investor Relations, Strategy, and Planning. Previously, he served in executive and leadership roles at Noble Corporation, Burlington Resources, Unocal and as a consultant with McKinsey and Company. Mr. Ahlstrom began his career at ExxonMobil where he held a variety of engineering positions. Ahlstrom succeeds Tonya M. McDermott, who served as the Interim Chief Financial Officer. McDermott will resume her duties as RigNet's Vice President of Tax and Treasury and will assist in the transition of duties to Ahlstrom.
Lightbridge Corporation [RESTON, Va.] (NASDAQ: LTBR) announced the appointment of Larry Goldman as Chief Financial Officer effective September 1, 2018. Linda Zwobota, Lightbridge's current CFO will retire on September 1, 2018. Mr. Goldman first began working in a consulting role with the Company in 2006, taking the position of interim Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer and then became the acting Chief Accounting Officer of the Company in 2008. Mr. Goldman became an employee of Lightbridge on May 1, 2018. Prior to joining Lightbridge Corporation, Mr. Goldman was an Audit Assurance Partner for Livingston Wachtell & Co., LLP, a CPA firm in NYC for over 20 years focusing on assurance, tax and advisory services.
CIRCOR International, Inc. [BURLINGTON, Mass.] (NYSE: CIR) announced that Chief Financial Officer Rajeev Bhalla will depart CIRCOR. Mr. Bhalla has agreed to remain in his current role and assist with an orderly transition until a successor has been named.
Rosa Foods [LOS ANGELES], the makers of Soylent, announced that Demir Vangelov joins the Company as Chief Financial Officer. Previously, Demir was the Chief Financial Officer of Califia Farms.
Interlink Electronics, Inc. [WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif.] (NASDAQ: LINK) announced that David S. Burnett has stepped down as Chief Financial Officer. He will remain available to the company in an advisory capacity through the end of the calendar year. Steven N. Bronson, CEO of Interlink Electronics, Inc., will assume the role of acting Chief Financial Officer.
Harvard Bioscience, Inc. [HOLLISTON, Mass.] (Nasdaq: HBIO) announced the resignation of Robert E. Gagnon, Chief Financial Officer, effective August 31, 2018.
Paytronix Systems, Inc. [NEWTON, Mass.] announced that Jerry Cressman has been named to the newly created position of Chief Financial Officer. Jerry comes to Paytronix from JPMorgan Chase & Co. Merchant Services (previously Paymentech) where he held several leadership roles in Accounting, Business Strategy and Finance, including Head of Global Finance.
Xtant Medical Holdings, Inc. [BELGRADE, MT] (NYSE American: XTNT) announced the appointment of Kathie Lenzen as chief financial officer. Most recently, Ms. Lenzen served as the senior vice president and general manager of Astora Women's Health division. Prior to being in this position, she was the vice president of finance for American Medical Systems.
Athenex, Inc. [BUFFALO, N.Y.] (NASDAQ: ATNX) announced the appointment of Randoll Sze as Chief Financial Officer of the company. Since October 2017, Mr. Sze has served as Director of Corporate Development and Investor Relations, Asia Pacific. Mr. Sze began his career with Credit Suisse in 2006, and was most recently a Director in its Investment Banking and Capital Markets Division in Hong Kong before joining Athenex.
American Well [BOSTON] announced that Keith W. Anderson has been appointed Chief Financial Officer. Anderson previously served as Managing Director and a member of the healthcare investment banking team at Piper Jaffray. Prior to this, he led the healthcare information technology efforts at investment banks in both New York and London.
Streamline Health Solutions, Inc. [ATLANTA] (NASDAQ : STRM) announced the hiring of Thomas (Tom) J. Gibson as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for the Company, effective September 10, 2018. Gibson is the former Chief Financial Officer of Citra Health Solutions and Vivex Biomedical, Inc. Prior to his service with Citra, Mr. Gibson served as the Principal Accounting Officer, Senior Vice President of Finance and Corporate Controller at R1 RCM (previously Accretive Health, Inc.). Mr. Gibson previously served with Greenway Medical Technologies as Chief Accounting Officer and with MedAssets as Senior Vice President, Finance and before that as Vice President of Revenue Cycle Management.
Traditions Health, LLC [COLLEGE STATION, Texas] announced the addition of Alan Blakeney as Chief Financial Officer. Prior to joining Traditions, Blakeney served as Chief Financial Officer of Camellia Healthcare.
Pinnacle Climate Technologies [EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn.] announced that Ryan J. Damask has been hired as the new Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Prior to joining Pinnacle Climate Technologies, Ryan was employed with Archway Marketing Inc., & Subsidiaries as the Chief Financial Officer. Prior to Archway, Ryan held various financial, operational, and information technology responsibilities within Compass Group PLC, Rio Tinto Alcan, and International Paper throughout the United States, Europe, and South America. Moreover, Ryan served in the United States Army Reserve for eight years.


text:
Animal Planet Turns Page in the Story of Grizzly Man Timothy Treadwell in New 'Prequel' that Documents His Tragic Love Affair with Alaskan Giants
-- Network Mines a Decade of Footage of Slain Wildlife
Filmmaker/Photographer's Life to Tell His Own Story of His Relationship
with Bears Before His Death --
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., July 10 -- Animal Planet announced
today that it will air a new eight-part series this summer that documents
the life of Timothy Treadwell in the decade before his death. It will draw
upon the hundreds of hours of archived footage, private pages from his
diaries and more than 10,000 still photographs, ultimately telling the
story he truly wanted to before his untimely death from the very creatures
he loved so deeply. The series, THE GRIZZLY MAN DIARIES, is slated to
premiere Friday, August 22 2008 at 9 PM (ET/PT), Animal Planet president
and general manager Marjorie Kaplan said from the Television Critics
Association bi-annual press tour in Beverly Hills, California.
The footage and stories within THE GRIZZLY MAN DIARIES present
astonishing revelations about grizzly behavior and survival -- all while
showcasing the personalities of the individual bears as well as Treadwell's
passion and unique connection with them. The series truly tells the story
that Treadwell hoped to share -- featuring "his" bears as genuine creatures
to be respected, admired, loved, heralded and amazed by, not as the wild,
strong and dangerous animals that killed him. THE GRIZZLY MAN DIARIES is
from the producers of both the acclaimed feature documentary GRIZZLY MAN
and Werner Herzog's new feature ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD and is
scored by musician/composer Richard Thompson, who also scored GRIZZLY MAN.
"We all know how this tragic story concludes," noted Kaplan. "But with
this new series, Animal Planet really digs deep into the glory that Timothy
saw in these magnificent creatures. These are the fascinating stories he
died to tell."
For 13 years, Treadwell spent summers photographing and filming a
highly social community of coastal, wild grizzly bears in Alaska's Katmai
National Park. GRIZZLY MAN showcased his life as fantastic retrospective on
his life, and now Animal Planet has the unprecedented opportunity to follow
on the heels of that by using never-before-seen footage to tell a marvelous
story of a man in love with beast.
Set against the backdrop of the Alaskan wilderness, his expeditions
were organized around the handful of distinct geographic areas within
Katmai that he traversed each year. Several of the locations he visited,
and certainly many of the activities he undertook, had no precedent.
Treadwell's access and relationship with these bears -- adults and cubs
alike -- shows a unique intimacy with the creatures only he seemed to have.
THE GRIZZLY MAN DIARIES draws viewers in to Treadwell's inner sanctum,
allowing a look like no other into his relationship with the bears he
THE GRIZZLY MAN DIARIES is a production of Creative Differences for
Animal Planet. Erik Nelson and Jewel Palovak are the executive producers
for Creative Differences, and Jason Carey is the executive producer for
Animal Planet.
Animal Planet Media (APM), a multi-media business unit of Discovery
Communications, is the world's only entertainment brand that immerses
viewers in the full range of life in the animal kingdom with rich, deep
content via multiple platforms and offers animal lovers and pet owners
access to a centralized online, television and mobile community for
immersive, engaging, high-quality entertainment, information and
enrichment. APM consists of the Animal Planet television network, available
in more than 93 million homes in the US; online assets
http://www.animalplanet.com, the ultimate online destination for all things
animal; the 24/7 broadband channel, Animal Planet Beyond; Petfinder.com,
the #1 pet-related Web property globally that facilitates pet adoption;
PetsIncredible, a major producer and distributor of pet-training videos and
includes web service PetVideo.com; and other media platforms including a
robust Video-on-Demand (VOD) service; mobile content; and merchandising


text:
Here are some helpful tips to install addons and mods found at YSFHQ and abroad!
Most addons are in .ZIP files, however some are .RAR. We recommend installing WinRAR for downloading both types of these files. It also serves as a great and efficient way to zip up folders for you to upload your own addons!
2. Find your root YSFlight folder
Find where YSFLIGHT is installed. This is the folder with the YSFlight executables used to launch the game. Usually, it is located at C:/Users/[username]/Documents/YSFLIGHT.COM/YSFLIGHT. If you launch the game from a shortcut, right click it and open file location.
Inside your root YSFlight folder, should be a variety of folders such as aircraft, scenery, ground, misc, etc.
3. Drag and Drop
If the creator set up the folders correctly, you should see folders such as aircraft, scenery, user, etc. in your download.
All you need to do is to drag and drop them into your root YS folder and overwrite anything it asks you - and you're set to go! Any loose .lst files should go in the appropriate folders: air*.lst in aircraft, gro*.lst in ground, and sce*.lst in scenery
If the creator did not set up the folders correctly, you will have to figure out where each one goes. Usually you can open the aircraft and go to the .LST file to see where things need to go in order for the addon to work - Refer below for more help regarding such.
Iceman written up this tutorial to show new users a relatively quick and painless way to install add ons. In this tutorial, we will cover LST files, directories and the works.
Step 0: Relative Paths
If you understand how to use Windows paths and know what a relative path is, continue at Step 1. Otherwise, please read this.
I've included this explanation of a relative path so I can make the rest of the tutorial easier to understand. A relative path is a folder or file's path RELATIVE to the parent directory. So when a program asks for a relative path, it usually means the path to follow FROM THE FOLDER IT'S CURRENTLY IN.
For example, ProgramA.exe is in C:\Program\
To access this program, you would type in:
However, say ProgramB.exe is in C:\, and it asks for a relative path to open ProgramA, you would type:
See? It's easy enough to understand.
Now let's move on.
Step 1: Open Zipped Folder
Use your favorite unzipping program to open your zip, cab, rar, etc file. I personally prefer WinRAR, as it covers the most file types.
Step 2: Identify And Copy List Files
Note: Most addons nowadays are very easy to install - just drag and drop the contents of the Zip file into your YSFlight folder, and you should be set. However, keep in mind this only works if an aircraft, ground, or scenery folder is present.
Now, look for the .LST file(s) in your mod. Once you have found your LST file, first, move it to the right subfolder:
If the LST file starts with:
air(i.e. aircraft.lst, air_zz171st.lst, air0plane.lst, etc)
- Copy the LST file into the YSFLIGHT/aircraft directory.
gro(i.e. ground.lst, gro_ysfhq.lst, groabc123.lst, etc)
- Copy the LST file into the YSFLIGHT/ground directory.
sce(i.e. scenery.lst, sce_bnipack.lst, scemap.lst, etc)
- Copy the LST file into the YSFLIGHT/scenery directory.
Step 3: Move the Mod Files
Now, open up your LST file. Find the path that the lst file refers to, and copy the rest of the mod files to that location.
For instance, if there is a folder in your zip file called "ysmodfolder", and the LST file reads:
user/ysmodfolder/xyz.dat user/ysmodolder/xyz.dnm etc etc..
You would copy the ysmodfolder into YSFLIGHT.COM\YSFLIGHT\user\
Step 4: Enjoy!
Your addons should now work in game. Still have questions? Ask in the YS Support forum!


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European Space Components Coordination
In October 2002 the Founding Act of the European Space Components Coordination (ESCC) was signed in ESA Headquarters by the Director General and senior representatives of National Space Agencies, User Industry (through Eurospace) and European component manufacturers.
This European partnership for EEE parts for space applications is organised as an Harmonisation Task and an Executive Task. The former is operated under the auspices of the Space Components Steering Board (SCSB), supported by a Policy and Standards Working Group (PSWG) and a Components Technology Board (CTB).
Major outputs of ESCC are the European Preferred Parts List (EPPL), the ESCC Specification System and the ESCC Qualified Parts List (QPL). ESA is both the Qualification Authority and the custodian of the specification system. ESA provides the core of the Executive Task which, as the ESCC Executive, conducts the day-to-day business of the ESCC System.
European Components Initiative
In early 2004 the Director General, responding to declared programme needs, launched the EEE European Components Initiative (ECI), inviting participation by the national space agencies through the forum of the ESCC.
The ECI will fill strategic gaps in the availability of European EEE components suitable for use in space. This will improve the autonomy of the European space contractors and the ability of the European public space sector to develop and deploy the space systems demanded by the Member States.
The components, evaluated under this initiative, will appear in the EPPL, and those that are fully space qualified will subsequently appear in the ESCC QPL.
The European Space Components Information Exchange System (ESCIES) is a community web resource for EEE parts data. The web site operation and considerable data are provided by ESA through the ESCC Executive. Inter alia, ESCIES contains the EPPL, the ESCC Specifications and QPL as well as a broad range of component data.
Overall, the ESCC activities, including the ECI, are publicised on the ESCC website which complements ESCIES.


text:
Gibson likes what Eaton brings to two-hole
PHILADELPHIA -- Adam Eaton has shown the qualities to be a good fit in the two-hole in D-backs manager Kirk Gibson's lineup this year. While Martin Prado has also filled the spot, the key to Eaton's success has been his ability to set the table for the rest of the lineup, and in particular Paul Goldschmidt.
Eaton, who has led off 17 times and was hitting in the two-hole for the seventh time this season in Friday's game, hit just .240 in his previous six games, but that only tells part of the story.
"He's the kind of guy that scraps," Gibson said. "He'll pull a ball in the hole, very good bunter. I try to get guys in the lineups that are disruptive ahead of the three, four and five guys. That's why I put him in that spot."
As always, the biggest factor is the lineup as a whole, and not just the spot Eaton takes up.
"It depends on who else is in our lineup," said Gibson, who had Prado hitting in the cleanup spot on Friday. "It does protect him in the lineup. He's swinging fine off of lefties, but [opponents may] burn a lefty with [Goldschmidt] behind him. Same with [Cliff Pennington ] down there [at seven], most people will throw a lefty against him, but he's better from his left side, and they'll burn a lefty for one guy."