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5 Steps To Harness The Power Of Conference Calls To Support Small Businesses

A number of large businesses have been helping small, minority-owned and women-owned businesses since the beginning of the pandemic. JP Morgan Chase donated $8 million to small businesses to help them avoid economic hardship during the pandemic. Arizona-based AvAir, an aftermarket aviation company, gave every global employee $500 with the idea that they spend it at small and local businesses in their communities. Experts have said we won't return to normalcy until the end of 2021, which means this assistance needs to continue. Large companies in the real estate industry, including my own, have a chance to help provide this assistance. Giving money is one way to help other businesses, but there are nonmonetary ways as well. An idea that reaches across the social distance is hosting conference calls to provide helpful advice.

October 21, 2020

2020
Adventure
Life Lessons
Essays

Atomic Habits by James Clear

The writer, James Clear, and I both had traumatic and life-changing experiences in our formative years. And, for both of us, these experiences changed us into who we are today. Clear’s life-changing injury occurred when a baseball bat hit him in the face on the last day of sophomore year in high school. It easily could’ve killed him and definitely could’ve held him back from the amazing success he’s had since. When I was 14, I was in a shooting accident. I was in the hospital for months and had over 15 procedures and surgeries. In addition to losing my right eye, I basically lost an entire year of my life and, by the time I was 15 years old, I considered myself a grown-up. I learned many things I was glad to know, and many things I didn’t want to know, but nonetheless, all those things influenced my later successes.

October 19, 2020

2020
Inspiration
Books
Beyond Book Club
Atomic Habits by James Clear

October's Featured Artist: Sanford Biggers

This month’s featured artist, Sanford Biggers, is a New York City-based multidisciplinary artist who defies categorization. There is hardly a medium that Biggers has neglected to experiment with, boasting an oeuvre that includes sculpture, painting, mixed media, performance art, conceptual art, and film. Mr. Biggers, however, has not limited himself to the visual arts. As the lead and keyboardist of the multimedia concept band Moon Medicin, he also operates as the creative director, putting together performances in collaboration with other musicians featuring backdrop images of “sci-fi, punk, sacred geometry, coded symbology, film noir, minstrels, world politics, and ceremonial dance.” Born and raised in Los Angeles, Biggers received his master’s from the Art Institute of Chicago with a specialization in painting, before landing in New York City in 1999 to complete an artist residency at Harlem’s Studio Museum. Place is an important notion in his work, as he draws from his experiences of growing up in Los Angeles, teaching English in Japan, and spending a large part of his adult life in New York City. Biggers’ work in general is an act of “material storytelling” that employs motifs related to his concerns with the Black experience, violence in America, Buddhism, and the narrativization of the cultural and political history of the United States.

September 29, 2020

2020
Impact
Inspiration
Clark Art Collection
Art

October's Featured Architect: Gyo Obata

This month’s featured architect is Gyo Obata, my friend and the gifted architect behind HOK (Hellmuth, Obata, Kassabaum)—the St. Louis architecture firm of international fame. Obata is Japanese-American and was born in San Francisco, coming of age in the turbulent era of World War II. In 1942, Obata narrowly missed being sent to an internment camp for people of Japanese descent when, the night before internment, he received word of having been accepted into the architecture program at Washington University in St. Louis. He left that night. Both of Obata’s parents had been artists—his mother, Haruko Obata, was a floral designer and his father, Chiura Obata, was a painter whose work is also part of my private art collection. Gyo Obata himself has been one of the most influential architects of his time. Following his graduation from Washington University, Obata went to graduate school outside of Detroit, studying under the Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen at Cranbrook. Some years later he was recruited to work for architect Minoru Yamasaki, with whom he designed Lambert Airport in St. Louis—one of the first modern airports to invoke the glamour and ingenuity of travel while the traveler was still on the ground. As Yamasaki’s health declined, Obata joined forces with colleagues and Washington University alumni George Hellmuth and George Kassabaum to form HOK. This was in 1955 and allowed Obata to focus completely on design while Hellmuth worked on marketing and Kassabaum dealt with operations. From the beginning, it was important to them to create a highly diversified firm that had a fully integrated architecture, engineering, and design practice, allowing them to expand quickly and become the extensive firm it is today with more than 1,600 employees and 24 offices worldwide.

September 29, 2020

2020
Inspiration
Architecture

The New, New Workplace

My Design/Build company, Clayco, delivers approximately 4,000,000 square feet of class A office and call center space per year to Fortune 100 companies and other major employers. For us, creating productive work environments has always been second to the safety, security and well-being of our clients’ employees. That was before COVID-19. Now those three are even more of a priority. During recent conversations with CEOs, facility managers and chief talent officers/HR executives, we’ve speculated about what preparations may be necessary to return the workforce to the office. CEOs want their employees back for various reasons, and there are important decisions to be made, both for a few months from now, hopefully, and far beyond. A number of us working from home are struggling with tools we may have dabbled in before but which are now front and center for conducting business. Between the user interface, an overloaded Data Center capacity because of the unanticipated surge in use of Microsoft Teams, Webex, Zoom and other products, it’s been challenging. While the option of having some our workforce at home is probably here to stay, it’s often easier to collaborate, communicate and find efficiencies in the office. However, the executives I’ve talked to are eager for a return to normal, but ONLY when it’s safe. We will certainly require new guidelines, CDC recommendations and suggestions from major health institutions. As employers, it will be our job to create work environments where “de-densifying” and social distancing can work in every department. Some companies have already started thinking about a “care package” to be distributed to their workforce before they return to work. This could include guidelines and maps for new routes to their workspaces, healthcare products like hand sanitizer and masks, and even goggles. Work hours may be staggered in some facilities. Making workers feel that their managers care about them and their families will be critical. The front-line facility people will be more important than ever. Property management, security, compliance and life safety should be top of mind. Re-evaluating every step from receiving for deliveries to the dock door itself, as well as the best cleaning products to use, will need to be scrutinized to protect those involved. Safeguarding up-close contact areas with plexiglass separations, to having more sophisticated UV protection in the HVAC system, more fresh air overall, and other mechanical changes, will be required.

September 23, 2020

2020
Adventure
Life Lessons
Essays

Climbing Capitol Peak

My first recollection of being inspired by mountains was as a 10-year-old in elementary school seeing a documentary of Martin Luther King eloquently speaking of having been to the mountaintop. I think it was his last speech before his untimely death. Later, I kiddingly told my dad that a buddy and I were thinking about driving to California. We were almost 17. My dad laughed and walked away, but a little bit later he came back and said, “Are you really interested in driving out to California?” He offered to let us take one of his painting company’s old cars to the West Coast, and we quickly accepted. All kinds of visions of the mountains, valleys, deserts and other landscapes went through my head, and it was almost too much for my imagination to bear. We drove the southern Route 66 to San Diego and then came back via the northern route up through Sacramento, through the mountains where the Donner party had their disastrous run-in with the snow, and then across Nevada and along the route many of the wagon trains took westward. The ruts are still visible over 100 years later. But it was the mountains, in Colorado, that I liked best.

September 23, 2020

2020
Adventure
Travel
Nature

Aimé Mpane

Aimé Mpane is a Congolese artist who splits his time between Brussels, where his studio is based, and Congo, where he grew up and continues to do research for his work. Originally trained in sculpture before moving onto painting, Mpane’s pieces are a mixture of sculpture, painting, and installation that speak to the legacy of colonialism—something that Mpane has experienced firsthand. Because of this, he felt convicted to address these issues through his work. Despite the atrocities of colonialism and globalization, Mpane infuses his work with hope and a sense of endurance, appealing to human solidarity and courage. He does, however, remind viewers that colonialism and racism are not simply things of the past, they are very much alive and present in the experiences of people in Congo and those who are living in the diaspora. It is not just scars from the past, there are still wounds being inflicted. When asked how he manages to remain so positive, despite his experiences of racism and colonialism, Mpane responds that it is important that people are able to understand one another, to see the experience of the other and put oneself in their shoes. If people don’t have dialogue, if they are unable to speak to one another openly, then there will be no advancement. Mpane has created works that are on display in public spaces and in museums, such as his sculpture in front of the Belgian Embassy in Kinshasa and the monumental sculpture he designed especially for the re-opening of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium. He also creates exhibitions and aims to work with galleries that are not African-art themed. Mpane’s reasoning for this is that he wants his work to be viewed by American and European curators so that his reach and messaging can go beyond the classification of “African art.”

September 9, 2020

2020
Impact
Inspiration
Clark Art Collection
Art

Rare Disease

Rare disease, and in particular cerebroretinal vasculopathy (CRV), is acutely personal for my family, having lost two beloved family members to this devastating illness. The first member of the family to succumb to CRV was David Lending, Ellen’s father, who died at the young age of 52 in 1989. At the time, little was known about CRV, and we ourselves were clueless as to what was happening to him. It was as if all of a sudden his vision was failing, he was limping, and he seemed distant, which was very much unlike him. A little over ten years later, when Ellen was in her early 40s, she too began to exhibit inexplicable signs that something was off. She started to forget simple words and was having trouble with her vision. We saw experts around the country and were unable to figure out what was happening to Ellen until we came to the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where she was diagnosed with the genetic disorder that leads to the development of CRV. Dr. John P. Atkinson was part of the research team that originally identified the rare blood vessel disease in 1988 and then the genetic defect that is responsible for CRV in 2007.

September 8, 2020

2020
Impact
Health & Research

Thoughts on a Very Important Election

The health, social justice, and environmental crises that America is now facing have not only been difficult for many Americans, but they have received a disastrous response. The economy is going to be choppy and it’s going to be impossible for it to maintain its stamina in the face of continued crisis. We will need great political leadership to turn things around, and corporate leaders will have to step up to help fix what’s wrong. Most of you know where I stand on the current occupant of the White House and his administration. What you may not know is that I voted Republican my entire life until 2008, when I threw my support behind my friend Barack Obama and worked feverishly to get him elected. Because of the type of person and leader that he is and was, I am immensely proud of my service to him, his campaign, and my continued participation with the Obama Foundation. During Obama’s presidency, he led with integrity and without scandal, and I believe that this is what we can and should expect from the leader of our country. During that time the United States had worldwide respect, and the White House had the respect of the military and the state department.

September 6, 2020

2020
Adventure
Life Lessons
Essays

The Cubes at Sparta Pike

We are fulfilling CRG’s philosophy to create best-in-class distribution facilities! The Cubes at Sparta Pike will provide crucial mixed-use industrial and warehousing real estate to manufacturing and logistics operators in Nashville, TN.The facility's four buildings will range from 250,000 to 1.4 million square feet at full buildout. Located 30 miles east of downtown Nashville, The Cubes at Sparta Pike is ideal for housing e-commerce, distribution, third-party logistics, and manufacturing users. The development represents The Cubes brand and its ability to meet the modern needs of Fortune 500 companies, premier users, and institutional investors. The facility will expand CRG’s national industrial platform to the high-growth and high-barrier-to-entry markets.

August 15, 2020

2020
Business
Partnership
Clayco
Projects, Building

Christin Apodaca

Christin Apodaca is an illustrator and muralist living and working in El Paso, Texas. She draws inspiration from nature and the different ways it relates to our surroundings, and she primarily works using line drawings to depict native plants, animals, insects, and humans. By blending these different subjects together into surreal, dreamlike compositions, Apodaca’s murals are both memorable and captivating. Christin Apodaca has created more than fifteen murals throughout the El Paso community, and she believes strongly in creating values and textures that can sometimes take precedence over the use of color. It’s a unique technique that allows for color to be imagined by the viewer themselves, and creates a symbiotic relationship between the person and the art.

July 27, 2020

2020
Inspiration
Art

Expanding Amazon’s E-Commerce Centers

Since founding Clayco more than 35 years ago, our culture has always been to do more than just build. We work to tear down obstacles, rebuild old methods and thinking, and provide creative ideas and solutions that advance society. One of the most integral ways we do this is by partnering with businesses like Amazon that align with our values. Amazon is the world’s largest online retailer and is guided by four principles: customer obsession, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. The company prioritizes its community and economic impact to ensure its operations, products, and services benefit people. It’s great to collaborate with enterprises that advance communities through investment, empowerment, job creation, and more.

June 5, 2020

2020
Business
Partnership
Clayco
Projects, Building
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