May 242019
 

I began my day at the Broadwell Hill Learning Center being greeted by Shiloh and Tala, and of course getting covered in hair as they begged for attention. Once they got their hellos, I began talking with Kathy about how she raises her worms and the concepts of verma-compost. I had never known that worms could be so picky about their environment. They hate light, need the right amount of moisture, and like certain foods.

This was also the first time I learned how Athens’ Own takes a lot of food waste from local businesses to create multiple different composting bins. I think this is a great method, and I think in the future if larger businesses could begin employing this form of off grounds composting for their food waste, this could be a great way for local farmers to build composting businesses, and to slowly heal the earth we have been filling with trash for the last century or more. It was around this time that I joined Constantine to talk while he replaced the wheel bearings on the Athens’ Own truck.

We began our discussion with the topic of how to use my Holistic Goal. Constantine talked about how creating a personal holistic goal can make it easier to align community and team members together. By seeing where each others goals are similar, you can create plans together to help one another achieve those goals. An example could be how my holistic goal includes having meaningful work; work that helps others. Because Athens’ Own has the goal to help community members and to create a better local economy, our goals are parallel and can work together to help reach those individual goals.

Con also used the term “compounded interest”, a common financial term, but he used it to describe how a person can “invest” in another person’s human capital, and in the long run this can lead to them receiving “interest” off each other, by taking in interest in one another. By taking the time to help one another, you can in turn benefit yourself.  This works in to the marketing world by showing how taking time to include people in the marketing discussion, who may be without a business major, can make a marketing team stronger. Application of this could be using biology and conservation science students to help create a marketing plan for Broadwell Hill and Kathy’s verma-compost business; using students with Journalism or Communications majors can help a marketing team plan different ways to publicize a company like Athens’ Own. I thought this was a great way to think outside the business box, by creating a team with multiple different backgrounds. This can help to stimulate compound growth by utilizing human capital.

A specific discipline Constantine took particular interest in was that of an actuarial. This discipline uses numbers and statistics to help create an idea of what the future might look like; specifically for Con, what the world will look like for my generation’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren if people continue to take our forests and environment for granted. There needs to be a push for people to realize that the health of their communities and the Earth is a necessity, , and for people to start thinking about how to get the word out to millennials especially, because we are the next people to work for the world.

In the context of the Athens’ Own, Con describes it as being “in” internship, rather than being at an internship. The difference is that Athens’ Own wants to create a work experience that is indicative of the real world and that helps those who are “in” internship cultivate new thought paths while on their malleable journey towards the Worker Readiness Certification. Con described the opportunity to use modern gaming styles as a way to get students more involved in an internship experience, and also to get them involved in the revival of Earth. This game would have levels, one could be an individual project, such as reading At Home with Holistic Management, and others could be team based, such as a project similar to Ohio University College of Business cluster. Each level would use different incentives and goals to help keep the “player” motivated, but also to help them build up interest in the community and economy around them.

My main takeaway from our discussion was the importance of teams, and how the way to make influence is to work in groups, even if they’re not your typical persons. Thinking outside the box, and trying to find ways to get millennials involved with each other and with their surrounding communities is the only way we’re going to be able to insight change. Before I left, Constantine was putting back together the wheel bearing and began to explain to me how you would typically tighten the final bolt that much, but for how the car had aged that’s what was appropriate. I took this in my own small metaphorical way of thinking of how certain teams, like the parts of the bearing, will fit together differently, and just like our discussion about making unique teams, the car needed its own unique touch to work its best. I also learned that I should never over tighten a wheel bearing if I ever need to work on one in the future.

May 092016
 

I began my day at the Broadwell Hill Learning Center being greeted by Shiloh and Tala, and of course getting covered in hair as they begged for attention. Once they got their hellos, I began talking with Kathy about how she raises her worms and the concepts of verma-compost. I had never known that worms could be so picky about their environment. They hate light, need the right amount of moisture, and like certain foods.

This was also the first time I learned how Athens’ Own takes a lot of food waste from local businesses to create multiple different composting bins. I think this is a great method, and I think in the future if larger businesses could begin employing this form of off grounds composting for their food waste, this could be a great way for local farmers to build composting businesses, and to slowly heal the earth we have been filling with trash for the last century or more. It was around this time that I joined Constantine to talk while he replaced the wheel bearings on the Athens’ Own truck.

We began our discussion with the topic of how to use my Holistic Goal. Constantine talked about how creating a personal holistic goal can make it easier to align community and team members together. By seeing where each others goals are similar, you can create plans together to help one another achieve those goals. An example could be how my holistic goal includes having meaningful work; work that helps others. Because Athens’ Own has the goal to help community members and to create a better local economy, our goals are parallel and can work together to help reach those individual goals.

Con also used the term “compounded interest”, a common financial term, but he used it to describe how a person can “invest” in another person’s human capital, and in the long run this can lead to them receiving “interest” off each other, by taking in interest in one another. By taking the time to help one another, you can in turn benefit yourself.  This works in to the marketing world by showing how taking time to include people in the marketing discussion, who may be without a business major, can make a marketing team stronger. Application of this could be using biology and conservation science students to help create a marketing plan for Broadwell Hill and Kathy’s verma-compost business; using students with Journalism or Communications majors can help a marketing team plan different ways to publicize a company like Athens’ Own. I thought this was a great way to think outside the business box, by creating a team with multiple different backgrounds. This can help to stimulate compound growth by utilizing human capital.

A specific discipline Constantine took particular interest in was that of an actuarial. This discipline uses numbers and statistics to help create an idea of what the future might look like; specifically for Con, what the world will look like for my generation’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren if people continue to take our forests and environment for granted. There needs to be a push for people to realize that the health of their communities and the Earth is a necessity, , and for people to start thinking about how to get the word out to millennials especially, because we are the next people to work for the world.

In the context of the Athens’ Own, Con describes it as being “in” internship, rather than being at an internship. The difference is that Athens’ Own wants to create a work experience that is indicative of the real world and that helps those who are “in” internship cultivate new thought paths while on their malleable journey towards the Worker Readiness Certification. Con described the opportunity to use modern gaming styles as a way to get students more involved in an internship experience, and also to get them involved in the revival of Earth. This game would have levels, one could be an individual project, such as reading At Home with Holistic Management, and others could be team based, such as a project similar to Ohio University College of Business cluster. Each level would use different incentives and goals to help keep the “player” motivated, but also to help them build up interest in the community and economy around them.

My main takeaway from our discussion was the importance of teams, and how the way to make influence is to work in groups, even if they’re not your typical persons. Thinking outside the box, and trying to find ways to get millennials involved with each other and with their surrounding communities is the only way we’re going to be able to insight change. Before I left, Constantine was putting back together the wheel bearing and began to explain to me how you would typically tighten the final bolt that much, but for how the car had aged that’s what was appropriate. I took this in my own small metaphorical way of thinking of how certain teams, like the parts of the bearing, will fit together differently, and just like our discussion about making unique teams, the car needed its own unique touch to work its best. I also learned that I should never over tighten a wheel bearing if I ever need to work on one in the future.

Mar 222016
 

Good evening Alec, and thank you for expressing interest to intern with our firm.

Your next steps in application will help prepare you for interview and tryouts, as well as increase the chances of a positive outcome on this adventure.

First, if you don’t already have one, procure a copy of  ‘At Home With Holistic Management’ by Ann Adams. Your local book store may be able to source it for you. You can also find it on line. If you need tutorial assistance with the material or exercises, please advise and we’ll see what we can arrange at distance.

Prior to interview, we will be looking for:

  • your description of your whole and your holisticgoal, using the workbook as a guide to format of your presentation
  • you to create a new post to begin to log your internship journey
  • you to create a new post to begin to log your HM (Holistic Management) journey
  • completion of IS-100.B: Introduction to Incident Command, ICS-100. More on this to follow as we look further into credentialing from online completion.
Mar 222016
 

Good morning Sara,

Thank you for expressing an interest to intern with our firm.

We noticed on your application, where it ask “what are three contemporary issues/problems you are most concerned about?”, a response of n/a.

Can you explain further?

Feb 032016
 

My time at Ohio University has opened my eyes to some of the privileges I’ve had in life. The most substantial being my availability to food. There has never been a time in my life where I have not been able to feed myself, and this is something I believe has blinded many of my fellow students as well. We all have heard the saying “There are starving children in China, eat your dinner.” but may of us don’t realize that there are starving families in Athens. I think that a project that could open the eyes of the student body to the region the live in, and create a call to action for local businesses to get involved could really be an amazing opportunity to help fight the poverty that surrounds this wealthy University.

I think this project would be best completed in steps.

Step 1: Student Awareness

This portion of the plan would involve bringing information to the students. Putting posters around campus that highlight some of the facts regarding Appalachian Poverty, maybe highlighting some groups that are already active in Athens that they may have only heard of by chance, or a widely unused resources on campus, using residence halls to participate in food drives and promotion. Step 1 is important because if students are unaware of the issue, they won’t act as a support system for our project.

Step 2: Local Business Participation

Small business are the backbone of Athens culture, and I think getting them involved in a community they have been apart of for years would be a great move. This could be smaller scale initiative such as making a “Pay it Forward” program where students can buy meals ahead of time for people in Athens who may not be able to afford it, or having reading materials about the poverty in the area, or donation boxes for local organizations. This can help support Step 1 by bringing community members and off campus residents who may not be in areas on campus that Step 1 would affect.

Step 3: University Involvement.

This is the most in-depth part of the initiative, which would be to somehow work out a system with Ohio University where the dining halls would decrease waste by turning them in to a soup-kitchen once a week. This plan is based off the idea that food  from the dining halls cannot be donated because of health regulations, but if they were use utilize the left over food they have at the end of the week, they could greatly benefit the community. This will be more difficult to coordinate because it involves going through the University and there will have to be compromises based on costs for the university etc.

I am excited to be able to present this idea through Athens’ Own. I hope that this could be a great chance to get Ohio University more involved in its community and make a lasting impact on the people who surround the school.

Feb 062015
 

My whole:

Decision Makers: Me, Aubrey, Dad, Mom

Resources: house, family, technological devices, car (x3), tools/shop, power machinery,         friends, customers, internet, greenhouse, co-workers (former and present), teachers, land, utilities,   government

Money: Savings, tax refund, stocks, market sales, salary, scholarships, odd jobs,

 

 

Holistic goal: Live to experience great enjoyment, keep health(but not to the point of restricting other aspects), make an above average living wage, enjoy my work, sharpen my mind, listen to great music, look at great art, see the world, finish college, be conservative with how much I consume, do not obsess over work, remember those who were there for you, bring change in ways that I see as beneficial, do not fall to others superimposing ideas upon me (find them in my own ways), make new friends and make sure the old ones are lifelong friends,  get a better car, be nature friendly, never forget my roots, read more, have a life outside work, set up garden/bird watching sight, have internet, never stop enjoying things because you think you have to stop enjoying them as you grow, adapt to new times, be prepared for whatever may come, watch more current events, don’t die till over 75.

Jan 222015
 

This week has been a rather short one; I only worked one day this week due to sickness and holidays. I feel, however, that the one day I came in this week was more satisfying than the rest of last week combined. I feel that I gained some very helpful information in the form of alternative thinking in a career search, many connections I had not yet thought of applying to a potential career path. I also found the information on three pillars fairly thought provoking. Well, week two signing off.

Jan 212015
 

Well, here we are first week here at Athens’ Own. Can’t say I’m too sure what I will be doing quite yet, but the company seems like it has a wide range of things it goes into, so I suppose I’ll have many potential opportunities. Well, only time will tell I suppose.

Nov 182013
 

Here’s what is going on in the world around us, as we see it. I bet you think the world is pretty darn good for what it is. Maybe a war somewhere overseas. Maybe a disease somewhere, a disease that we here in the “developed world” have beaten. You might have even heard about the fact that we WILL run out of energy sources like coal, oil and natural gas at some point. You may think “well, that war is over there, not here. That disease is over there, not here. We’re going to run out of resources years from now, not now. Well, yes. That is true. Those are some of the big ones that will be in the news. What about poverty, food/water availability, human rights, climate change/pollution, corrupt officials in government office, greed, lack of good education available to everyone, lack of living wage jobs and lack of trust in the government. A lot of those are intertwined with each other as well, and they are also just as much in America as they are overseas. That’s not even nearly all the things that are wrong right now anyway. I bet you can probably think of a bunch more.

What about the “worse case scenario” for any of those, let alone a combination of them. A war here in the US. Maybe a global, all-out nuclear war. Maybe a disease pandemic on the scale of “black death plague”, again here in the US. As for all of them, everybody in poverty, no food or water is available, no rights, irreversible climate change + pollution, all officials corrupt, more greed, no education available and no jobs. Yes, those are each the worst case scenario, and probably won’t happen any time soon. But what if they did? Take last year, with the big storm that took out power for so many people all over Ohio. My own power was out for 9 days and that was a challenge. Because of that, water availability, power availability, fuel (for cars) availability were all greatly reduced. What would happen to you, your family, friends, your school, etc, if that were to happen again, say, for a month. It is certainly possible. Would you stay in good health? Where would you get food? Walmart doesn’t have any. How could they? The trucks bringing the food can’t drive, because there’s no gas for them.

Now, do want to do anything about that. You might now say “I can’t do anything about that”. Well, yes you can. We, as a society, are only as strong in a disaster as we are going into it. If everybody is sickish now, how do you think we’d do if a pandemic were to come our way? That’s what resilience is basically about, being able to make it through any given situation, no matter how big or bad. No, you can’t make everybody healthy, or no, you can’t stock up enough food for everybody around. But you can support a local farmer by buying his food. When you buy from Walmart, the money leaves town. The only good thing it does here is gives somebody a job. Now if you give money to a local farmer, ie buy from him, he is going to use that to grow his farm. Buy more cattle, buy more seeds, hire local help (you) and things like that. If that farm is strong now, in a disaster, he will have food. He does not need to drive hundreds or even thousands of miles to bring the food. He’s right there. You make him stronger, you make you stronger.

That’s only one thing. You can do stuff so little as to recycle a little. Maybe you don’t want to spend money on a recycling service. So, why don’t you collect your metal cans and sell them as scrap. You keep that metal out of a landfill, therefore reducing the amount of metal needed, thereby reducing the amount of greenhouse gases creating by mining for and producing more metal.  Along with those pluses, you get some cash. You help the planet and you help you.

Again, that’s only one more thing you can do. You can compost. You can refill a water bottle instead of throwing it out and getting a new one. You can even simply tell others about all of this. There are so many little things you can do without even trying that help build resilience in our community. Some of those you might already do and you may not know how much of a good (or bad) effect they have. Just do a little research and find out what you are doing by what you are doing. That’s all resilience building is, basically. So why not?

That’s what Athens’ Own does. You might call us an engineering firm building solutions for communities. Not just only for communities, for individuals as well. Solutions for a better, stronger more resilient community or person for the future (and for the present). That’s a simple and effective answer to what we as Athens’ Own do.