Dear friends, welcome to our April 2016 edition of BIC Magazine — your Business & Industry Connection. It is 4:30 a.m. here in beautiful Honolulu, and I’m preparing for another 14- to 16-hour day, most of which will be invested in my beautiful and loving wife, Bodi, as we spend time with the hardworking patients who are going through hell at the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific, their loved ones and the hospital’s amazing staff.
Normally we are steadfast when it comes to using any word that might be offensive, but in this case, as I ready myself for our ninth day since Bodi fell and broke her hip while preparing to return to Louisiana from vacation, I believe the word “hell” is appropriate. I got the idea to use this word from Bodi, who used it to explain to first responders the agony she was going through following her fall.
I share our experience with you to once again stress the importance of continuous learning and safety awareness on and off the job, as well as kindness and empathy toward one another. Sadly, even though we continue to stress these things, some of us still continue to fall short of our goals and capabilities. Folks still continue to get hurt and killed on and off the job.
Early in my career, I learned there are basically two ways to learn: through our own experiences and through the experiences of others. My managers also taught me to lead with empathy, compassion and understanding. We must envision ourselves as the other person and treat him or her the same way we would like to be treated. I am reminded of these things each day as I support Bodi in her recovery and as we encounter and encourage the other patients in physical therapy and their loved ones.
I would also like to take a moment to look back over the past 32 years since our first BIC Magazine came off the press on April 1, April Fool’s Day, 1984. As we walk down memory lane together, many of you will remember during the early ’80s the oil and gas industry was facing challenging times, and many of us were at rock bottom in our business or in our personal lives. One of the reasons I chose April Fool’s Day to introduce BIC Magazine is about half of my friends told me I was a fool to start a marketing and publishing company when our industry and I, personally, were at rock bottom, and the other half told me I was a fool not to.
Over the past 32 years, we have covered many exciting events and disasters in BIC Magazine. We have also done thousands of interviews with everyone from entrepreneurs and top executives in business and industry to politicians, regulators and the best management, operations, maintenance, engineering and safety folks in the world.
We remain committed to bringing you the “best of” in industry. In this issue of BIC, we include insight from Construction Industry Institute Director Stephen Mulva, Chevron Phillips Chemical Pasadena Plastics Complex Plant Manager Michael Gilbert, Bo-Mac Contractors Vice President Dan Brown, DeHumidification Technologies LP Co-Owner Ken Armstrong and Senior Vice President of Industrial Sales for the Treatment Solutions division of SUEZ in North America Oliver Wiese.
We also include a variety of articles on topics including workforce, leadership, safety, maintenance, regulatory compliance and sector forecasts.
As part of our emphasis on continuous learning and overcoming adversity, we will soon have our “Rock Bottom and Back” book and film project some of our business, industry and media friends have been working on for the past year ready to share with you. I am a firm believer even things like going through hell on Earth or going to rock bottom in our spiritual, business or personal lives can be a wake-up call from God to get our attention and to help us create a better life for ourselves and others. In our book, we interview 12 of the most amazing folks about whom we have ever written articles. Six of them are included in a short film we are co-producing with Mission Media Productions in New Orleans. I hope you will invest the time to read the book and watch the film when it comes out in a few months.
In closing, I want to thank you for your support over the years, and we look forward to continued friendships and partnerships throughout industry. Having spent almost three weeks in Hawaii, Bodi and I have watched the kindness and hospitality of the Hawaiian people, plus an outpouring of love and support from our loved ones and friends from far and wide that tells us faith, love and compassion are still alive and well across America and beyond. We hope each of you will join us in sharing love and support for others who are going through adversity and challenges in their lives.
We hope you enjoy this issue, and we hope to see you at our industry appreciation event in Houston April 7 and/or at upcoming industry events, including the Oilfield Christian Fellowship Breakfast at the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston or our hospitality event held in conjunction with the AFPM Reliability & Maintenance Conference and Exhibition in San Antonio. May God bless you, your family and your endeavors.
