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Friday, April 26, 2013
Eric Schmidt Thinks Controlling Google Glass with Your Voice Is "the Weirdest Thing"
Why Delhi University's Four Year Undergraduate Programme ...
A Note Prepared at the Request of the Department of Higher Education, MHRD, Govt of India
Preamble:
Universities are meant to educate, that is, to teach students how to identify, understand and evaluate multiple points of view. Therefore, dissent, debate and argument are the core concerns of a University ? they cannot be regarded as irrelevant irritations or acts of sedition. Debate cannot continue indefinitely, and must be responsible. But what constitutes responsible and well-considered criticism is inevitably a matter of judgement ? it cannot be decided through assertion and counter-assertion. It is also inevitable that motives will be called into question. This is once again a matter of judgement, based on available evidence on who is speaking (what is their wider credibility beyond the immediate dispute?) and why (what do they stand to gain or lose by what they are saying?), and an overall sense of what is at stake in the issue. We invite such judgements.
Facts which are NOT disputed:
1. The proposed FYUP is the biggest, most far reaching change of curriculum in the recent (i.e., last 30-40 years) history of DU ? it will replace every existing undergraduate course of study in every college and every discipline (professional courses & some other low-enrolment courses may be exceptions).
2. The first time that the FYUP was placed before any statutory body of the University was at the Academic Council meeting of Monday, 24 December, 2012. This meeting ? to discuss the biggest curricular reform in several decades ? was an Extraordinary meeting, called at 3 days? notice, which was issued on Friday, 21 December, 2012 and delivered over the weekend, giving Departments no time to consider the proposal and formulate an informed response.3. The structure of the FYUP presented to the Academic Council on 24 December had not been sent to the Committees of Courses at the Faculties or Departments, or to the Staff Councils of Colleges.
4. The Academic Council meeting of 24 December approved the FYUP with 6 dissents, including a written submission by the Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, specifically requesting that the University take more time to think through this major change, and that a detailed White Paper on the FYUP be prepared and made public to enable the University community to respond to it.
5. The Executive Council meeting at which the AC approval of the FYUP was presented was held on Wednesday, 26 December, 2012, i.e. the next working day after the AC meeting of 24 December.
6. The first official communication to all Heads of Department asking them to initiate the process of syllabus formation and designing of courses for the FYUP (strictly according the structure already decided) was issued on 5 March, 2013. This letter asked that the entire exercise be completed by 20 March, 2013. The deadline was later informally extended by one month to 20th April, 2013.
7. In the past, curricular changes of any significance have usually involved open discussions by teachers of the relevant discipline at both college and university level. Proposals for changes to old courses or addition of new courses have then been presented to statutory Committees of Courses at the Department and Faculty levels. These bodies have given time for members to respond to the proposed changes, and after due discussion at meetings they have sometimes rejected the changes in the form proposed, and returned them to Departments for reconsideration and re-presentation after modifications.
8. The procedures being followed currently depart from past practice in terms of the time limit for course-making, the openness of the process, and the space and time given to statutory bodies to exercise their oversight functions.
Claims that ARE disputed:
1. The FYUP has been arrived at after adequate public discussion and debate.
a) There is no evidence of any formal public discussion of any kind on the FYUP prior to September 2012.
b) The ?Academic Congress? at which the FYUP is claimed to have been discussed makes no mention of it whatsoever in its official programme. There was no session and no individual presentation devoted to the FYUP as such. The Academic Congress was not open to the public, or even to all members of the University. Admission was strictly by invitation ? passes were issued outside the venue to a pre-decided list of invitees; only pass holders were granted entry. Several teachers of the University who tried to attend the event were denied the opportunity to attend the Academic Congress.
c) The 61-member ?Task Force? ? which is the only body that has deliberated on the FYUP and decided its entire structure ? was created through selective appointment. In other words, its members were selected as individuals by the VC and his team, without reference to any general principle like ?all Deans of Faculty?, ?all Heads of Department?, ?all Principals of Colleges? etc. Significant numbers of eminent teachers at both college and university level of proven pedagogic competence as well as commitment to issues of curriculum design, were never consulted in any way.
d) Even today there is no publicly available document detailing the rationale of the FYUP (why are 4 years better than 3?); justifying its framework (the types of courses proposed and their relative weight, the exit points, the mode of evaluation etc.); or explaining the logistical plans (procedures for admission, meeting infrastructure needs, adequacy of staffing etc.) made for its implementation. All we have are ad hoc pronouncements, with corrections and clarifications being issued piecemeal as difficulties are discovered, and even these we learn of through the media.
2. The structure of the proposed FYUP is sound and in keeping with global best practice.
a) The structure of the FYUP is fundamentally flawed because its objectives are too many and too divergent to be achieved by a single curriculum. From the students? perspective, the FYUP clubs disparate groups with very different needs and capabilities into a single homogenous mass and subjects them to the same curricular requirements, but offers them different exit points. In effect, it assumes that different phases/stages of the same curriculum can sustain vastly different pedagogical orientations. The four year course is thus a vocational course for the first two years; an applications-based disciplinary specialisation in the third year; and a research-oriented specialisation in the fourth year. These are impossible demands to make of a single curriculum. It would be more honest to offer at least two different degree courses, each with a coherent and achievable set of objectives.
b) The proposed FYUP does not match any major pattern of undergraduate education, let alone best practices. For example, both the American pattern based on the two-year community college and the four-year liberal education university or college, and the U.K. pattern of polytechnics and degree-colleges involve separate institutions with distinct curricula. While movement from the former to the latter may be permitted, it is conditional and happens at the discretion of the longer-duration institution. In the case of the DU FYUP, it would be as though the community college student and the four-year degree student were taking the same courses in the same classroom.
c) Until now, undergraduate students at DU have been differentiated in two ways ? in terms of the type of instruction (regular vs. non-formal, the latter consisting of evening class courses and distance education courses) and type of degree (the Honours and BA/BSc Programme streams). Roughly one-third of all undergraduates are in regular courses while two-thirds are in non-formal courses; and Honours students are one quarter of all undergraduates, while three-quarters are in the BA/BSc Programme. (See table below).
| Classification of DU Undergraduates (by type of degree and type of instruction) | |||
| Honours | Programme | Total | |
| Regular | 19 | 14 | 33 |
| Non-Formal | 5 | 62 | 67 |
| Total | 24 | 76 | 100 |
| Based on 2011-12 enrolment data, excluding technical/professional courses (law, medicine etc.). Figures are percentage shares rounded to nearest integer. | |||
The main feature driving the huge enrolment in the non-formal courses has been the much-advertised fact that they follow exactly the same curriculum as the regular courses within each of the Honours/Programme streams of DU. By subjecting all undergraduates to the same curriculum, the FYUP effectively proposes to impose a structure oriented to 19% of the students in the Regular-Honours category on the remaining 81%. Since much of the FYUP content (20 courses in the major discipline, 6 courses in the minor discipline, etc.) and pedagogical innovations (emphasis on class presentations, hands-on applications courses, etc.) have not been part of the Programme stream, and their applicability to the non-formal formats is doubtful, this raises important issues that need to be explicitly addressed. Are the non-formal formats going to be delinked from the regular formats? How will the interests of either the Honours-stream minority or the Programme-stream majority be served by a single curriculum?
d) While the only written document on the rationale behind the FYUP (the overview ?The Rationale for the Proposed Undergraduate Program? presented at the AC meeting of 24 December 2012) repeatedly mentions ?flexibility?, the FYUP structure offers no flexibility. Heads of Department were told to keep optionals to a minimum in Discipline 1 (there was actually no provision for any in the structure; this concession was also made after insistence), and to have none in Discipline 2 courses. This means a full set of six and only six courses can be opted for as Discipline 2. This is less choice than is available under the current BA/BSc Programme course. Similarly, if only two limited options are offered in Discipline 1, this will also be less than what is currently available in most Honours disciplines. Besides, all 11 Foundation courses are mandatory. It is thus difficult to see where flexibility comes in, other than in the ?exit? option after two years.
3. Departures from past practice are not significant, and do not violate statutory norms.
a) The most significant departure from past practice is in the procedures being followed by most departments in designing courses. Courses and sometimes even entire syllabi are being made by a few individuals in secret, without intimation of meetings and with no provision for vetting or seeking responses. Secrecy is being maintained even after courses have been made, and they are being sent to the Committee of Courses at the Faculty level without being revealed to teachers of the same discipline at the college or department levels. The claim that such flagrant violations of established practices are not significant is simply untenable.
b) The time table fixed for the making of courses ? even after the one month extension ? is still too short because it coincides with the period of maximum teaching and internal evaluation activity in colleges and departments, namely March-April. There are also the end semester examination papers to be set, moderated and translated (in the case of undergraduate degrees), much of which used to be done by the Examination Branch but has since been thrust on to departments.
c) The oversight function of the Committees of Courses will effectively be nullified by the timeline that the administration is insisting upon. This is not a change in one or two courses, something that can expect to be passed in a single CoC meeting. This is an entirely new programme, with 30 courses in each discipline. How are members of CoCs going to study these syllabi in any meaningful sense if they are expected to pass them in the same meeting in which they are proposed? This is all the more true if syllabi are being kept secret until presentation at the CoC.
d) There are a host of statutory issues on which there is utter silence. Introducing a new programme of study offering a new degree with a different course duration involves complex legal issues implicating the UGC, the Act of Parliament that established DU, and other certifying bodies. For example, the two-year teacher certification course being proposed as part of the FYUP does not have NCTE approval. The FYUP effectively converts every course into an Honours type course; in the past, permission to offer Honours courses was conditional upon the college concerned being able to meet the required norms, which were the subject of review and inspection. Is this process going to be bypassed? How will the staffing patterns be adjusted for the differences in workload across disciplines that the transition will entail? This list does not even include the many financial issues that will arise, beginning with the UGC having to bear the extra costs that the fourth year will involve, and going on to the costs that students and their families will have to bear.
4. Adequate preparations have been made to meet logistical & infrastructural needs.
a) It is well known that the enhancement of infrastructure promised during the ?OBC expansion? is yet to materialize, especially classroom space and library/laboratory additions. The predictable pressures of semesterisation have severely damaged the examination branch and brought it to the brink of collapse; its in-house functions have been thrust on to departments without warning. More than 3000 UGC-sanctioned teaching posts have remained vacant for three years. On this already overstretched infrastructure, the FYUP will inevitably impose an additional burden of nearly 33%! The University has not made public any credible, systematic plan to deal with these and related infrastructural issues.
b) Despite some adhoc media announcements, there appears to be no clear roadmap for handling admissions under the FYUP. In the past, admission to the undergraduate programme at DU has depended on three factors ? school leaving examination marks, and the applicant?s choice of college and discipline. The BA/BSc Programme accounted for 76% of all undergraduate enrolment; even if we ignore the non-formal formats, the Programme stream students account for 42% of all regular-format undergraduates. All these students will now be forced to apply to one or the other disciplines, thus significantly raising enrolment in the larger disciplines like Political Science, Physics, History or Hindi. How will the ?cut-offs? (the minimum percentages in the school leaving exams that will be required to gain admission to specific disciplines) be affected by this large addition to the candidate pool for the honours-like structure of the FYUP? How will the distribution of students across colleges and disciplines be reconciled with existing capacities and staffing patterns? Questions like this need to be addressed well in advance of the admissions process, with clear and well-publicised instructions to candidates. None of this is in place, and school principals and guidance counsellors are desperately seeking non-existent information and clarifications, while prospective applicants and their parents are left with no option but to downgrade DU in their priority lists.
5. DU is a happy and well-run institution, except for a few ?misguided colleagues?.
Among all the claims listed above, this one is unique in the sense that it is both the least credible and the hardest to refute. If all that we have said is true, why were there only 6 dissenters in an Academic Council with more than 100 members? Why are Deans and Heads of Department actively enforcing everything that we claim is harmful or wrong?
We know that we cannot answer these questions to the satisfaction of our opponents. We also admit that we cannot explain why the DU authorities are adamant on implementing the FYUP in a self-defeating manner and with an impossible timetable, when there is everything to gain and nothing to lose by hastening slowly. But we do believe that we have shown that this is in fact what is happening. We invite those who disagree to show us how and why we are wrong.
Shahid Amin (History), Apoorvanand (Hindi), Aditya Bhattacharjea(Economics),
P.K. Datta(Political Science), Satish Deshpande (Sociology), Krishna Kumar(Education),
Udaya Kumar (English) and Shobhit Mahajan(Physics)
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Thursday, April 25, 2013
Tweetbot iOS app update brings new media timeline, redesigned image viewer
Twitter client Tweetbot showed its support for Flickr and Vine in the last update to its iOS apps, and making media easier to consume is again a focal point in newly released version 2.8. Debuting with the update is the "media timeline" -- a feed option which'll only shows tweets that include pictures or video. Also, the in-app image viewer has been treated to a full redesign and among the obligatory bug fixes, issues plaguing Instagram previews have been addressed. The update isn't all about pics and clips, though, as the tweet detail view has now been amended so it shows favorite and retweet figures. If you haven't yet received the update, you know where to go. Alternatively, if you don't use the client but like the idea of putting eye-candy in the spotlight, then Tweetbot can be had for $2.99 from the App Store.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile
Source: iTunes App Store (iPhone/iPod Touch), (iPad)
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'Red line': Chemical weapons in Syria
By Maayan Lubell
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Syrian government forces have used chemical weapons - probably nerve gas - in their fight against rebels trying to force out President Bashar al-Assad, the Israeli military's top intelligence analyst said on Tuesday.
Brigadier-General Itai Brun made the comments at a Tel Aviv security conference a day after U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on a visit to Israel that U.S. intelligence agencies were still assessing whether such weapons had been employed.
"To the best of our understanding, there was use of lethal chemical weapons. Which chemical weapons? Probably sarin," Brun said in the most definitive Israeli statement on the issue to date.
Brun's comments seemed likely to deepen international concern over events in Syria. U.S. President Barack Obama has called the use of chemical weapons there a "red line" for the United States that would trigger unspecified U.S. action.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday that NATO needed to consider how practically prepared it was to "respond to protect its members from a Syrian threat, including any potential chemical weapons threat".
Brun told the annual conference of The Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University that forces loyal to Assad were behind the attacks on "armed (rebels) on a number of occasions in the past few months, including the most reported incident on March 19."
The Syrian government and rebels last month accused each other of launching a chemical attack near the northern city of Aleppo.
FOAMING AT MOUTH
Speaking with a Powerpoint presentation showing what appeared to be a wounded or dead child, Brun said that foam coming out of victims' mouths and contracted pupils and "other signs" indicated deadly gas had been used.
He gave no other details about how Israel, which has been closely monitoring events in Syria, a northern neighbor, formed its assessment.
Ralf Trapp, an independent consultant on chemical and biological weapons arms control based in Geneva, said the symptoms described by Israeli intelligence were "consistent with sarin gas," but photographic evidence alone was not conclusive.
"There is a limit to what you can extract from photograph evidence alone," he said.
"What you really need is to get information from on the ground, to gather physical evidence and to talk to witnesses as well as medical staff who treated victims."
Asked about Brun's remarks, Pentagon spokesman George Little signaled no change in the official U.S. line: "The United States continues to assess reports of chemical weapons use in Syria. The use of such weapons would be entirely unacceptable."
On Monday, Hagel said the use of chemical weapons by Assad's forces would be a "game changer" and the United States and Israel "have options for all contingencies".
Hagel met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Tuesday, a day after flying in an Israeli military helicopter over the occupied Golan Heights on the edge of the fighting in Syria that has entered its third year.
"This is a difficult and dangerous time, this is a time when friends and allies must remain close, closer than ever," Hagel, in remarks to reporters before his talks with Netanyahu, said of the United States and Israel.
Discussions between Syria and the United Nations on a U.N. investigation of possible use of chemical weapons have been at an impasse due to the Syrian government's refusal to let the inspectors visit anywhere but Aleppo, diplomats and U.N. officials said last week.
U.N. diplomats said Britain and France had provided U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's office with what they believed to be strong evidence that chemical weapons also had been used in the city of Homs.
Israel, which has advanced intelligence capabilities that it shares with its Western allies, has voiced concerned that parts of Syria's chemical arsenal would end up in the hands of jihadi fighters or the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah, with which it waged a 2006 war.
Israeli leaders have cautioned they will not allow that to happen. In an attack it has not formally confirmed, Israeli planes bombed an arms convoy in Syria in February, destroying anti-aircraft weapons destined for Hezbollah.
(Additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller and David Alexander in Jerusalem, David Brunnstrom in Brussels and Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam; Editing by Jeffrey Heller, Alison Williams and Mike Collett-White)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/israeli-general-says-syria-government-forces-used-chemical-074330220.html
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Taliban say foreign prisoners in good health
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? A group of foreign civilians captured in eastern Afghanistan when their helicopter made an emergency landing are in good health, the Taliban said on Tuesday, as increased violence was reported around the country.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press that the 11 captives were "being investigated," and denied reports that negotiations were underway for their release.
"They are healthy and in a safe place," Mujahid said. "A primary investigation has been started to find out who these people are."
The civilians have been tentatively identified as eight Turks, an Afghan translator and two pilots ? one from Russia and the other from Kyrgyzstan. They were captured by insurgents on Sunday after their civilian cargo helicopter had to land in a remote part of eastern Logar province because of bad weather.
Although the Turkish government has not said what the Turks were doing in Afghanistan, it's believed that they were working for a construction company.
Logar Deputy Police Chief Rais Khan Abdul Rahimzai said local elders had started negotiations to see if the Taliban would release the men, but Mujahid said there were no talks.
"I am rejecting that. Before the end of the investigation there is no negotiation," Mujahid said.
The crisis began when the civilian transport aircraft was forced down in strong winds and heavy rain in the village of Dahra Mangal in the Azra district of Logar province, southeast of Kabul. The area is heavily influenced by insurgents.
The MI-8 helicopter went down in a ravine in the densely forested region, known for narrow gorges and rugged mountains, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Pakistan border.
Afghan police who tried to get to the scene were forced back by insurgent gunfire.
Afghan security forces believe the foreigners have been taken to neighboring Nangarhar province, which borders lawless tribal areas in Pakistan where insurgents have hideouts.
Although the capture or kidnapping of foreigners is not uncommon in Afghanistan, large-scale captures of foreigners are rare.
The last such instance was in July 2007, when the Taliban abducted 23 South Korean church volunteers as they traveled by bus along a dangerous road in southern Afghanistan. The militants killed two men soon after taking them and gradually released the remaining captives during the next month.
Also on Tuesday, NATO said two of its service members were killed in an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan. It provided no other details. Their deaths bring the total of foreign forces killed in April to eight; 34 have been killed since the start of the year.
April already has been the deadliest month this year for security forces and Afghan and foreign civilians as the U.S. and other countries prepare to end their combat mission by the end of next year. According to an Associated Press tally, about 238 people ? including civilians, foreign troops and Afghan security forces ? have been killed in violence around the nation this month.
Five people were killed on Tuesday in northern Faryab province, including a local prosecutor, his wife and three associates, provincial spokesman Jaweed Didar said. One of the gunmen also died in an exchange of gunfire, he added.
In southern Kandahar, nine civilian de-miners were captured by insurgents and negotiations were underway for their release, said provincial spokesman Javeed Faisal. The men were being driven back from a minefield on Sunday when they were captured, he said. Afghanistan has a legacy of land mines going back decades and remains one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.
___
AP writers Mirwais Khan in Kandahar and Amir Shah in Kabul contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/taliban-foreign-prisoners-good-health-114652590.html
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Galaxy goes green in burning stellar fuel
Apr. 23, 2013 ? Astronomers have spotted the "greenest" of galaxies, one that converts fuel into stars with almost 100-percent efficiency.
The findings come from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the IRAM Plateau de Bure interferometer in the French Alps.
"This galaxy is remarkably efficient," said Jim Geach of McGill University in Canada, lead author of a new study appearing in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. "It's converting its gas supply into new stars at the maximum rate thought possible."
Stars are formed out of collapsing clouds of gas in galaxies. In a typical galaxy, like the Milky Way, only a fraction of the total gas supply is actively forming stars, with the bulk of the fuel lying dormant. The gas is distributed widely throughout the galaxy, with most of the new stars being formed within discrete, dense 'knots' in the spiral arms.
In the galaxy, called SDSSJ1506+54, nearly all of the gas has been driven to the central core of the galaxy, where it has ignited in a powerful burst of star formation.
"We are seeing a rare phase of evolution that is the most extreme -- and most efficient -- yet observed," said Geach.
The results will provide a better understanding of how the central star-forming regions of galaxies take shape.
SDSSJ1506+54 jumped out at the researchers when they looked at it using data from WISE's all-sky infrared survey. Infrared light is pouring out of the galaxy, equivalent to more than a thousand billion times the energy of our sun. The galaxy is so distant it has taken the light nearly six billion years to reach us.
"Because WISE scanned the entire sky, it detected rare galaxies like this one that stand out from the rest," said Ned Wright of UCLA, the WISE principal investigator.
Hubble's visible-light observations revealed that the galaxy is extremely compact, with most of its light emanating from a region just a few hundred light-years across. That's a big star-making punch for such a little size.
"While this galaxy is forming stars at a rate hundreds of times faster than our Milky Way galaxy, the sharp vision of Hubble revealed that the majority of the galaxy's starlight is being emitted by a region with a diameter just a few percent that of the Milky Way," said Geach.
The team then used the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer to measure the amount of gas in the galaxy. The ground-based telescope detected millimeter-wave light coming from carbon monoxide, an indicator of the presence of hydrogen gas, which is fuel for stars. Combining the rate of star formation derived with WISE, and the gas mass measured by IRAM, the scientists get a measure of the star-formation efficiency.
In regions of galaxies where new stars are forming, parts of gas clouds are collapsing due to gravity. When the gas is dense enough to squeeze atoms together and ignite nuclear fusion, a star is born. But this process can be halted by other newborn stars, as their winds and radiation blow the gas outward. The point at which this occurs sets the theoretical maximum for star formation. The galaxy SDSSJ1506+54 was found to be making stars right at this point, just before the gas clouds would otherwise be blown apart.
"We see some gas outflowing from this galaxy at millions of miles per hour, and this gas may have been blown away by the powerful radiation from the newly formed stars," said Ryan Hickox, an astrophysicist at Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H., and a co-author on the study.
Why is SDSSJ1506+54 so unusual? Astronomers say they're catching the galaxy in a short-lived phase of evolution, possibly triggered by the merging of two galaxies into one. The star formation is so prolific that in a few tens of millions of years, the blink of an eye in a galaxy's life, the gas will be used up, and SDSSJ1506+54 will mature into a massive elliptical galaxy.
The scientists also used data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the W.M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and the MMT Observatory on Mount Hopkins, Arizona.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- J. E. Geach, R. C. Hickox, A. M. Diamond-Stanic, M. Krips, J. Moustakas, C. A. Tremonti, A. L. Coil, P. H. Sell, G. H. Rudnick. A REDLINE STARBURST: CO(2-1) OBSERVATIONS OF AN EDDINGTON-LIMITED GALAXY REVEAL STAR FORMATION AT ITS MOST EXTREME. The Astrophysical Journal, 2013; 767 (1): L17 DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/767/1/L17
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/space_time/nasa/~3/rDyS8XB5HOM/130423153744.htm
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Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Cedar Rapids man named Iowa Small Business Person of the Year ...
The president of a Cedar Rapids natural care products company has been named 2013 Iowa Small Business Person of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Chuck Hammond, chief executive officer and owner of Raining Rose, will represent the state at National Small Business Week activities in Washington, D.C., during the week of June 16. Hammond will compete for the National Small Business Person of the Year award.
Chuck Hammond, Raining Rose CEO
?Candidly, I?m a little embarrassed because I really didn?t do it on my own,? Hammond said on Tuesday. ?I continue to harp about the fact that we have a great group people. I understand that awards are set up sometimes for individuals, but we all know this was a team effort.
?While the award may say ?person of the year,? it truly is the company.?
Raining Rose started in 1996 as a family hobby in a Cedar Rapids basement. The company, which today produces lip balm and other personal care products, began its rise in production in 2003 when Hammond and business partner Art Christoffersen purchased the company.
Hammond and Christoffersen spent their first year focused on learning the natural body care products industry. That self education, combined with their individual business knowledge and experience, enabled Raining Rose to expand with its line of products.
When Hammond and Christoffersen purchased the company, Raining Rose had 12 employees working in a single room. The company moved in 2003 to an 18,200-square-foot former beverage distribution facility at 407 Ninth Ave. SE.
In December 2005, Christoffersen died from cancer, leaving Hammond as the sole owner of Raining Rose. Hammond successfully led the company through the ownership transition as employment, customers and product lines continued to grow.
Hammond and Raining Rose faced its toughest test in June 2008 the plant and equipment was inundated with 8 feet of water as 10 square miles of Cedar Rapids was flooded. Before entering their flooded building, Hammond and his managers plotted the strategy that ultimately would save the company.
Hammond placed orders for new equipment and found new temporary office and manufacturing sites. He also was able to gain assistance from the U.S. Small Business Administration?s disaster loan program.
Within a year, Raining Rose, one of 25 U.S. lip balm manufactures that operate both as a contract manufacturer and a private label company, not only survived, but saw its sales grow 13 percent.
In 2011, Hammond and Raining Rose broke ground for a 125,000-square-foot office and manufacturing facility at 100 31st Street Dr. SE. The company, with more than 140 employees, moved into its new home in October 2012.
Combining operations from three separate locations, Hammond had the building constructed with growth in mind. The space is filling up quickly as Raining Rose continues to increase products, sales and staff.
?Right now, behind the scenes, we have a hard time in that we?re just growing,? Hammond said. ?We moved into this building and we?ve had a surge of growth that no one anticipated. We?ve had to add a bunch of people and we?re running three shifts a day, six days a week.
?That has created challenges and stresses, but our folks have stepped up and said, ?We can do this and we want to do it for our customers.??
While sales have continued to grow, Hammond said Raining Rose management is focused on the company?s bottom line.
?Growth for growth sake is not a positive thing,? he said. ?While the top line is exciting, the bottom line is more important.
?Behind the scenes there are mid-course corrections. We have parted ways with customers that aren?t good fits either from a product or culture standpoint.
?We want to focus on good business. We have had customers that have grown significantly and we?ve been a part of that growth.?
Source: http://thegazette.com/2013/04/23/cedar-rapids-man-named-iowa-small-business-person-of-the-year/
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