It looks like we’re finally past the StarLink episode. The FDA has let corn dry millers and masa flour manufacturers stop testing for the Cry9c protein – the marker for the StarLink hybrid.
At the same time, EPA has come out with a white paper saying StarLink has been sufficiently removed from the human food supply that there is no longer any need to test for it.
The StarLink hybrid had not been approved for human food consumption back in 2000 when the protein turned up in tortillas and millers have been testing all inbound corn for its presence since January of 2001.
Dropped off the car this morning to get an oil change and walked the rest of the way to Coffee Break HQ. On the way, a nice lady yelled from across the street. “What a blessed day,” she screamed over the noise from construction at Intrust Bank Arena. I like her attitude.
Here are your links for today:
- Sales of existing homes in the Wichita area dipped nearly 12 percent in the first quarter.
- The Lawrence paper looks at how Kansas University Hospital and KU Medical Center are progressing under their new affiliation agreement. The article also talks about the funding needed for the Wichita Center for Graduate Medical Education.
- Seems like analysts are liking what former Kansan Alan Mulally, who spoke at Butler Community College last month, is doing with Ford.
- Wichita-based Value Place is looking to expand to the Tampa Bay area.
Today’s the day, folks: The day when I sign my “economic stimulus” check over to Phillips-Conoco.
An April Zogby poll finds that about 72 percent of Americans share that same level of cynicism about the checks.
I have a strong sense that the only “stimulation” coming from this bi-partisan act of futility will be at the gas pump.
And the check still isn’t in my bank account. Rats.
This won’t shock anyone, but a just released Right Management survey shows that people say they quit because the employer didn’t value them or treat them well:
Thirty percent quit to find opportunities they couldn’t get at their old job; 25 percent left because of ineffective leadership; 22 percent depart because of poor relations with their boss; and 21 percent said their contributions aren’t valued. So Right Management says that keeping top talent means giving them more of a voice in the business, more feedback, more effective leadership and a career path.
The price for not engaging your top talent? It costs three times the salary to replace someone.
The GAO is supposed to decide by June 19 on Boeing’s protest over the Pentagon awarding the tanker contract to the Northrop Grumman/EADS team. In the interim, both sides continue their ceaseless salvo of news releases about the topic.
The latest is from the Northrop Grumman folks, who crank out material at an impressive pace. It’s a letter from Jo Bonner, a Congressman from Alabama whose district will be home to a new Airbus plant if that side holds onto the contract. (FYI, Northrop spells it “Joe” but it’s “Jo.”) Rep. Bonner, as you might guess, is feeling good about life, as opposed to Rep. Todd Tiahrt of Wichita, whose latest mission in life is to overturn the Pentagon’s decision and get the contract back for Boeing.
Bonner’s letter is to other members of Congress, telling them not to interfere with the GAO process. He also says the contract will mean great things for the Mobile area he represents, and for America (feel free to hum “God Bless America”):
Imagine, too, that an old Air Force base in your district, shuttered in 1964, will once again come alive with the sound of rivet guns in the cause of our national defense.
One curious thing about Rep. Bonner’s letter: He doesn’t mention that EADS or Airbus will build the tanker along with Northrop Grumman. Why is that?
I read a lot of economic forecasts and the more I read the harder it is for me to get a bead on what’s coming nationally. Some talk like the national downturn is almost over and the good times will kick in by the end of the year. Just look at the mini-resurgence in the stock market in the last six weeks. But then you get Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel-prize winning economist who said today that the recession will be one of the worst since the Great Depression. Having lived through the 1982 recession, that’s a pretty sobering thought.
An observation popped in my head this morning while preparing to write a small profile of Boeing Wichita Credit Union’s Wade Bruendl. Bruendl will become interim chief executive of the state’s largest credit union next month, while BWCU’s board conducts a search to replace outgoing CEO Gary Regoli.
Regoli, who has been the credit union’s chief since 1999, is taking a job at a Florida credit union. As I think about Regoli’s tenure at BWCU, I’m not thinking about the fact that under his leadership it doubled its assets to more than half a billion dollars. Nor am I thinking about the tremendous branch expansion by the credit union in the past nine years.
When I think of Regoli and BWCU, I think of one image. Several years ago, I was at BWCU’s headquarters interviewing some staff. As we were leaving the conference room and passing by the employee lunchroom, there was Regoli, eating his homemade sandwich with a brown lunch bag next to him.
It was a momentary glimpse, but one that will probably stay with me forever.
Why? Because in more than 10 years of covering the banking industry, I’ve never seen a CEO of any financial institution brown bagging it.
Makes me think that if Regoli is that frugal and careful with his own money, the same can probably be said for how he ran BWCU.
Business Week has an interesting take this morning on how the nation’s entrepreneurs are fighting back against a slumping economy.
I’m guessing that its theme – keep plugging away with smaller margins – drew a few frowns from nine-digit salaried CEOs and corporate investors across Wall Street today.
But sitting here in the lap of entrepreneurship, you grab a special bit of appreciation for priorities – a long-term plan for business prosperity instead of maximizing quarterly profits. It’s another affirmation of one of Charles Koch’s core business philosophies: Privately operated businesses do best when they can focus, Wall Street-free, on long-term plans to add value to their products.
Bill Wilson is right: It’s amazing what you can find out there in cyberspace. Wild West World lives on not only in MySpace, but now ANYBODY can own a piece of its rueful history — just check out eBay.
Wichita power seller “acountrypawnguy“says he loves theme parks so much he went out and bought up Wild West World’s souvenirs, apparently so he can share his love with the rest of the world. In his description of a souvenir throw he’s selling (as of this writing, it’s going for $4.79 plus $12.50 shipping), he wistfully opines, spelling errors and all:
Ok Here’s the deal. We had this beautiful amusement park open just outside of Wichita called Wild West World. It cost over 52 million and went out of business in 90 days. This was a beautiful park and we are all sick to have it closed. I went and bought up all the souvenirs from there. Why? Because I love amusment parks and I love pictures and sourvenirs.
Although the park reportedly cost some $20 million less than this guy states, and he certainly didn’t buy up all the souvenirs that went up for auction, you can certainly cash in on the sentiment.
So here’s your chance, folks! There are less than five days left to snatch up a “Rare item from Park that went under in 3 mos.”
Just think, a couple of days ago we were complaining how warm it was up here at Coffee Break HQ. I sure enjoyed spring while it lasted.
- Missouri is continuing with its efforts to entice Bombardier Aerospace to build a $375 million plant at Kansas City International Airport. The Senate Economic Development Committee voted 9-1 to recommend approval of the bill that would provide up to $40 million in tax credits annually.
- According to a Manpower survey, engineers and machinists are two of the 10 hardest jobs to fill. Our friends at the Cessna, Spirit, et al probably didn’t need a survey to tell them that.
As a true maverick – I detest American Idol and I don’t have a MySpace page – I retained the right of skepticism when friends told me you can find anything on MySpace.
But as this Wild West World entry proves, they were right.
Somewhere in cyberspace there lurks a fan of the two-month misadventure in prepackaged Western entertainment that has ended in bankruptcy.
It’s interesting and a little reassuring, frankly, to see that the park mattered to someone besides the legions of workers and vendors who didn’t get paid out there. If the author’s out there, please get in touch with us. You’d make a good story.
One of the major goals of any university is to have world-renowned researchers among its faculty, and K-State just scored big in that department.
Bikram Gill, distinguished professor and guru of all things wheat genomic, has been listed on ISIHighlyCited.com as one of the world’s most influential researchers in the site’s plant and animal science category.
Gill’s work was cited 2,177 times from 1984 to 2003, officials with the Web site said, putting him among the top half of 1 percent of all publishing authors.
At K-State, he heads a team responsible for mapping the genome of the wheat plant so breeders can create new varieties able to resist disease, produce higher yields or be used for biofuels.