Welcome to another interesting, educational and entertaining issue of Business & Industry Connection (BIC) Magazine. As many of our regular readers already know, my partner and son-in-law, Thomas Brinsko, and I have been alternating writing the "From The Publisher" article for over a decade. We both believe a person never gets a second chance to make a great first impression, so we apply this thought to BIC Magazine's "From The Publisher," the first article that appears in each issue.
This year, along with our 35th anniversary of BIC Magazine, we celebrate Thomas' 20th year since he joined BIC Alliance's management team. In 2013, Thomas and my daughter, Dane, also became partners of BIC Alliance. Among the other BIC Alliance anniversary highlights we are celebrating this year include CFO Theresa Kennedy's 27th year at the company, Associate Publisher Heather Cavalier's 20th year and Vice President Jeremy Osterberger's 15th year. My wife, Bodi, and I are also celebrating our 52nd anniversary as life partners.
Like any other highly successful company, our amazing staff and contributors from business and industry are experienced professionals and passionate about what we do "to connect people in business and industry with one another for the betterment of all." This is achieved, in part, through our publications, marketing partners, contributors and readers, and the networking events we help to co-produce and attend.
BIC Magazine is also blessed to have many other team members who have decades of experience in the energy or media sector, and you can read their names in the masthead on this page. I am sharing this information because it has been said it takes at least 10,000 hours to become an expert, and we are blessed to have lots of experts at our BIC Alliance companies that include BIC Magazine, IVS Investment Banking, BIC Recruiting and BIC Media Solutions.
Recently, I felt humbled and blessed when my first cousin, Susan Crump, asked me to speak at my aunt's funeral in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. My short eulogy was titled "Celebrating a Life Well Lived." Like always, whether it is speaking at an event or writing an article, book or script, I always begin by praying that God will give me the words to help others find greater faith, hope, peace, happiness and success.
As I prepared to say a few words of tribute for my aunt, Miriam Crump, I thought about how many of us can say we are truly celebrating a life well lived and what others will say when our lives on earth are done. Here are a few things I said about my Aunt Miriam that hopefully all of us can use to enjoy and celebrate a "life well lived" in our personal and professional lives.
First of all, in my 77 years, I have never seen two siblings and their spouses who were as close and loving as my Aunt Miriam and Uncle Bender and my parents, Leo and Margie Heard. Through them, I learned God, family and serving others should be the main priorities in my life. I've also learned there are two events in a loved one's life a person must always attend. The first is a wedding, where we celebrate and welcome new family members into our own. The second is a funeral, where we share our grief with each other and celebrate our loved ones going to heaven to join our Heavenly Father and others who have gone before us. When it comes to a funeral, it's important to also remember that "while our song has ended, our melody lingers on."
Among the other topics I mentioned during the eulogy was that I never heard my Aunt Miriam or Uncle Bender swear, raise their voices or talk badly about another person. Also , while most folks today think our greatest assets are the things we own, people like Aunt Miriam knew it is our noncash assets like faith, love, character, experience, kindness, empathy, work ethic and memories that are among our greatest riches. These are great assets if we are also striving for maximum happiness and success in our families and workplaces.
That brings me to this issue of BIC Magazine and the many outstanding articles that can help educate us to achieve greater peace, happiness and success in our personal and professional lives. These include industry insight from Jim Stump, senior vice president of refining for HollyFrontier Corporation; John Hutcherson, plant manager of Flint Hills Resources Houston; Raymond Garrett, president of Brunel Industry Services; and Ron Unruh, vice president of sales for Macurco Gas Detection.
We also learn more about the do's and don'ts of safety walkabouts, TCC's Anonymous Inquiry Program, drones and the IoT, and bridging the workforce's generational gap with technology and empathy.
In closing, I want to give a special thanks to Ted Moon, Heather Cavalier and everyone else who has helped update our first book, "It's What We Do Together That Counts." This revised version will be out soon. We released our first edition in 2005, the same year we launched BIC Media Solutions. BIC Media Solutions helps print and produce custom books, feature films and TV shows, and we also have a speakers bureau. In this update, I have tried to share many "Earl's pearls of wisdom" and lessons I've learned through the "pits and peaks" of my life and others' lives. The lessons we learn play major parts in our personal and professional lives when it comes to peace, happiness and success.
Thanks again for your kindness and support over the years, and we hope you enjoy and share this issue and other "Media That Matters" with the important people in your personal and professional lives.
BIC MAIL
Please send emails to dylan@bicalliance.com.
Shannon,
I appreciate BIC's recent coverage of Arkema Clear Lake's Operation Control Center grand opening. Your group was professional and courteous and helped us put our best foot forward. I was also honored and humbled to be featured in one of your recent articles (June/July, pg. 11). I was pleased with the presentation of our site and my responsibilities as plant manager. I look forward to working with the BIC team on future endeavors!
John Koegel Plant Manager Arkema Clear Lake
Andrew,
I wanted to send a quick note to say how much Kathryn Clay and I enjoyed working with you on the story you wrote profiling Kathryn and ILTA (June/July, pg. 9). It was a pleasure!
Cathy Landry Senior Director of Strategic Communications ILTA