Dear friends, welcome to our November 2015 Thanksgiving edition of BIC Magazine — your Business & Industry Connection. Since we are celebrating Thanksgiving this month, we want to begin by thanking our readers and marketing partners for making BIC Magazine the largest and most read multi-industry, multidepartmental energy magazine in North America.
As a special Thanksgiving gift to our readers, marketing partners and everyone in the energy sector globally, we want to announce a short video titled “Energy Marketing 101.” Energy Marketing 101 is a co-production between our media partners at Launch Media and BIC Media Solutions, our custom publishing and media investment company that has expanded into funding, co-producing and marketing inspirational and faith-friendly films and educational videos.
Before producing this video, we reached out across the entire energy sector to everyone from top management and energy associations to the foremen and training managers and even the new recruits and trainees for their input. This video is the result of a joint effort and should help make every energy-related orientation, operation, maintenance and sales training program easier. It explains in a simple video how the upstream, midstream, downstream and power generation sectors are connected, plus includes information about the primary events and organizations associated with each sector. You and others around the world can watch and share Energy Marketing 101 by watching the short available at BICMagazine.com and www.bicmediasolutions.com. We can also help our readers, marketing partners and those in energy-related associations link your website to ours so you too can share the video with your employees, suppliers, members and community.
Abraham Lincoln once said, “It is important that we listen to everyone we meet, even if it is to learn what not to do!” My wife Bodi and I saw “The Intern” starring Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway about a young entrepreneur whose firm hires seniors as interns. What I liked most about the message was about how seniors with tact and experience and young folks with creative ideas and new technology can join forces to make a stronger company than one that has primary old school or new wave ways of thinking, tactics and techniques.
As I watched the movie, I recalled the days when I thought I knew it all and learned quickly, and sometimes painfully, how much easier and more profitable it is to have someone who is the voice of experience as a mentor and friend. I also thought about our own company and many of the companies that are our marketing partners, and which ones have the wisdom to have a balance of both seasoned veterans and youth. Whether it is a large company where I was an operations and training manager, or BIC Alliance where I am the founder and CEO, there are a few tips that are universal if we want to achieve maximum peace, happiness, success and profitability.
One of the “Earl’s Pearls” I have learned is the importance of balance in the types of people we hire and promote. We believe when we hire good people with character, they are the ones who will make the best teammates. Also, we think and treat everyone on our team as partners, and this goes for our BIC Alliance marketing partners and readers who we think of as communication partners. We believe in balancing experience and youth, and we stress continuous training, sharing lessons learned and not only learning our job and our industry but even more importantly the culture of the company and the personalities of our co-workers.
While we believe in having time for solitude and reflection, we also have learned from experience there is no substitute for working with others in our company and going into the field for on-the-job training with our co-workers, marketing partners and those in the facilities we write about. Experience is a great learning tool, and we stress drawing upon the experience of those we work with and those we meet. We also know the two things that motivate people to make the most dramatic change in their lives are desperation and inspiration, and that is why we believe investing the time to give a helping hand or a kind word can help change someone’s life forever.
Now let’s take a look at some of the interesting and helpful articles and interviews in this issue. We include insight from Matthew Tobin, Kinder Morgan Terminals vice president of crude oil business development; Rhoman Hardy, Shell Chemical Geismar Plant general manager; Russell Mapes, vice president of MarCo Specialty Steel; Chuck Mobley, president of Mobley Industrial Services; Bill Munro, CEO of Munro’s Safety Apparel; and Johnnie Eichor, operations manager and owner of Prime Demolition.
We also learn about Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s Ohmsett facility, Energy Crime Stoppers, ExxonMobil’s “Be An Engineer,” National Safety Council’s Journey to Safety Excellence and more.
In closing, we’d like to remind everyone to join us in being especially thankful to others during Thanksgiving and the Christmas season. Something as simple as a smile, a pat on the back, a kind email or a word of thanks can help someone have a better day. We also hope you will watch and share our latest video, Energy Marketing 101. Be on the lookout early next year for our next project, “Rock Bottom and Back,” which will include a book and TV pilot. We are still soliciting nominations of folks who have gone to rock bottom and back and from desperation to inspiration. You can learn more about making a nomination in our article on page 131 or at www.bicmediasolutions.com.
We are also excited to share our Houston team has moved into our new office building at 311 Columbia Memorial Parkway in League City, Texas. The 7,500-square-foot facility was built by Wycoff Development & Construction and houses BIC Alliance companies including BIC Magazine, BIC Recruiting and IVS Investment Banking. It also includes a larger meeting and media room. We will host an open house in the coming months. In the meantime, we hope our industry friends will stop by to say hello and take a tour!
Happy Thanksgiving and our blessing for a happy holiday season.
