Center Mass Firearms LLC

675 Hayes St.

Alcoa TN. 37701

US Corp. Agents

Loope Pool and Spa LLC

301 Foothills Mall Dr.

Maryville TN. 37801

Benjamin L. Loope

ProGolf Management LLC

1015 Enterprise Way

Maryville TN. 37801

Paul D. Carter

Housetops 4 Haiti

961 Cloyds Church Rd.

Greenback TN. 37742

US Corp. Agents Inc.

JM Ent. of Maryville Inc.

1019 Greenwich Dr.

Maryville TN.

Jenny Moynihan

RYS Inc.

4349 Wonderland Dr.

Louisville TN. 37777

RYS Inc.

Energy Solutions LLC

225 Savannah Park Dr.

Maryville TN. 37803

Dewayne Cutshell

BRADLEY COUNTY

Davis Const. Co. LLC

1597 Wildwood Ave. SE

Cleveland TN 37311

Rodney L. Davis

SRB Investments LLC

175 Spring St.

Cleveland TN. 37311

Charles B. Burns Jr.

HAMILTON COUNTY

YS Benford LLC

4749 Pine View Ln.

Chattanooga TN. 37416

Yvette S. Benford

NBC Development LLC

8701 Dayton Pk.

Soddy Daisy 37379

Kyle R. Weems

Soil Resources Initiative Inc.

2912 Anderson Pk.

Signal Mountain 37377

Charlene Nash

Salon Eaj Inc.

7310 Standifer Gap Rd.

Chattanooga TN. 37421

Jae Philpott

DAR Properties Inc.

7336 Claudes Creek Dr.

Ooltewah TN. 37363

David Rose

Hearth LLC

1800 Rossville Ave.

Chattanooga TN. 37408

Deanna Duncan

Dan & Krish Group Inc.

3113 Elmore Ave.

Red Bank TN. 37415

Krishna Maharjan

Scoble Group LLC

106 Forrest Dr.

Lookout Mountain TN. 37350

Scoble Group LLC

Wicked Marketing Solutions Inc.

5958 Snow Hill Rd.

Ooltewah TN. 37363

US Corp. Agents

Dependable Highway Express

1212 Green Pond Rd.

Soddy Daisy TN. 37379

Dependable Highway Express

Englewood Ent. TN LLC

2650 Sydney St.

Chattanooga TN. 37408

James A. Hurst

Category 5 Consulting LLC

330 Crest Terrace Dr.

Chattanooga TN. 37404

Maynard Thompson

Real Estate Unlimited LLC

1900 Oak St.

Chattanooga TN. 37404

Hisham Elasmar

Linhunt Properties Inc.

4126 Mountain Creek Rd.

Chattanooga TN. 37415

Paul Knox

Rush Property Co.

711 Signal Mountain Rd

Chattanooga TN. 37405

Roberta Campbell

Peoples Advantage LLC

730 Germantown Cir.

East Ridge TN. 37412

Michael Nash

Fleet Research Inc.

9206 Tamara Ln.

Chattanooga, TN. 37421

Ralph Mcdarmont

Owl Hill

1725 Lake Wood Cir.

Hixson TN. 37343

Michael Goins

Lighting Design Assoc. Inc.

282 Montlake Rd.

Soddy Daisy 37379

Christopher Coleman

Callie & Allie Designs LLC

9407 Lazy Circles Dr.

Ooltewah TN. 37363

Jeffery M. Graham

Braham Const. Co. Inc.

5809 Quail Hollow Cir.

Chattanooga TN. 37416

Randy Crumley

Riversong Church

703 Clarendon St.

Chattanooga TN. 37405

Lance Perry

Azieltech LLC

5872 Stonewall Dr.

Harrison TN. 37341

Andrew Gordan

KNOX COUNTY

Tellico Services Inc.

116 Industry Rd.

Knoxville, TN.  37385

Mark D. Soules

Keystone Sales Assoc. Inc.

448 Country Run

Powell TN. 37849

Keystone Sales Assoc. Inc.

J King Enterprises LLC

8141 Kingsdale DR.

Knoxville TN.37919

Jeffery King

Whimsy Designs LLC

11805 Brookline PT

Chattanooga TN. 37416

US Corps Agents Inc.

Sisco Medical Services LLC

10810 Snapdragon Way

Knox TN. 37931

Mel Sisco

Corp. Events LLC

1216 Snowdon Dr.

Knox TN 37912

Corp. Events LLC

CPS Leadership LLC

9111 Crosspark Dr.

Knox TN. 37923

Kevin KragenBrink

Pegasus Prop Of Farragut

740 Brochardt Blvd.

Knox TN. 37934

Jon Kidder

Orgbook Inc.

12934 Meadow Pointe Ln.

Knox TN. 37934

ICS Law Group P.C.

IV Logistics

5400 Lyndell Rd.

Knox TN. 37918

Vitalie Gribinet

Law Office Julie Eisenhower PLLC

121 Killarney RD.

Knox, TN. 37923

Julie D. Eisenhower

Beltone TN. LLC

7019 Kingston PK.

Knox, TN. 37919

Perry A. Ebel

Special Touches Maint. Inc.

4100 Alam Ave.

Knox, TN. 37919

George M. Coode Jr.

Healthcare 21 Solutions LLC

625 Market St.

Knox, TN. 37902

Jerry W. Burgess

Biofinders Inc.

10421 Raven Brook Ln.

Knox, TN. 37922

Chad Thatcher

Strikezone Ent. LLC

8318 Harborcove Dr.

Knox, TN. 37938

Stephen Carpenter

NeuroSolutions LLC

4701 Simona Rd.

Knox, TN.37918

Roelof Van Der Meulen

Savage Restoration and Const. LLC

11002 Kingston PK.

Knox, TN. 37934

Earl S. Savage

Tweety LLC

5555 Clinton Hwy

Knox, TN. 37912

Greg Meadows

TGK LLC

5555 Clinton Hwy

Knox, TN. 37912

Greg Meadows

Torres Law Firm PLLC

6906 Kingston PK Ste 106

Knox, TN. 37919

Charles Torres

Built Wright Homes & Roofing Inc.

410 Bearden Rd.

Knox, TN. 37919

Corp. Services Co.

Braden Family Medicine PLLC

7701 Corryton Rd.

Corryton, TN. 37721

Joe M. Braden

Tupelo Honey Knox LLC

1 Market Square

Knox, TN. 37902

Tupelo Honey Knox LLC

Southeast Ren. Specialists Inc.

4614 Hickory View Cir.

Knox, TN. 37921

Brandon Yarborough

Kana Inc.

144 Merchants Dr.

Knox, TN. 37912

Pankajkumar Patel

Old Path Baptist Church

4611 Central Pk.

Knox, TN. 37921

Bill Kelly

Little Ventures LLC

417 Gwinhurst Rd.

Knox, TN. 37934

Deron Little

Living Well Management LLC

3600 Henson Rd.

Knox, TN. 37921

John W. Ferguson

Quality Motors LLC

6014 Clinton Hwy

Knox, TN. 37912

Quality Motors LLC

SEVIER COUNTY

Immanuel Ent. LLC

526 Sunrise Circle

Sevierville, TN. 37862

Corp. Services Co.

Bershire’s Custard Inc.

942 Parkway

Gatlinburg, TN. 37738

Byron D. Bryant

Majur Properties

535 Parkway

Gatlinburg, TN. 37738

Jennifer Waroway

The majority opinion indicates that the Fourth Amendment’s protection of persons against “unreasonable searches and seizures” would extend to private property, such as an automobile.  The physical intrusion is considered a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, thus requiring the securing of a warrant for the government to justify such a search.

Significantly, four of the Justices would have also ruled that the search violated an individual’s “reasonable expectation of privacy.”  These Justices suggested that the majority approach created problems since the police do not have to physically touch a vehicle to conduct surveillance, mentioning automatic toll-collection systems and smartphones that continuously track their own location as examples.

Many commentators expect various laws to be introduced in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling, restricting the use of location-tracking data.  It is likely that these future laws will attempt to regulate tracking features on smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, perhaps requiring consent of the device users to such tracking.   This issue may affect what employers can do when it comes to monitoring their employees’ whereabouts.

OFCCP proposes goals for the disabled

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) recently published in the Federal Register a proposed rulemaking to revise the affirmative action plan regulations for government contractors and subcontractors for individuals with disabilities.  The proposed regulations would increase contractors’ data collection obligations for individuals with disabilities and establish a utilization goal for individuals with disabilities.

The OFCCP proposes a 7 percent national utilization goal for each job group in a contractor’s workforce, goals which previously existed only for women and minorities.  The OFCCP is quick to state that the 7 percent figure is only a goal, and a contractor’s failure to meet the 7 percent goal “does not by itself constitute discrimination.”  There are also suggestions of “targeted” disabilities, including deafness, blindness, and missing extremities.  Another possible regulatory requirement would be to invite job applicants to self-identify their disabilities, before hiring decisions are made, to monitor the impact of the employer’s hiring practices and measure the effectiveness of its affirmative action efforts.

Double “D” day for unions is April 30

Two important labor law developments are scheduled to take effect on the same day, April 30, 2012.  It is on that day that the National Labor Relations Board’s notice-posting rule is currently scheduled to go into effect, requiring all employers subject to the Act to post notices in the work place informing workers of their rights to organize a union.  On the same day, the NLRB “quickie election rule” is also scheduled to take effect.  This quickie election rule would dramatically reduce the number of days between a union filing a petition with the Labor Board asking for an election, and the date of the election.

Previously, the median time period for such an election date was 38 days from the filing of the petition.  The median date could drop to 25 days or less under the new rule.  An employer could one day receive a union election petition, not even knowing that a union organizing campaign was going on, and around three weeks later, there would be an NLRB union election.

Employers warned not to seek too much medical information

Often, employers need to determine whether an employee is able to perform the essential functions of the job, able to return to work from medical leave, or able to be reasonably accommodated.  In these situations, an employer may have legally valid reasons for requesting medical information regarding an employee.  However, employers should be careful not to request too much medical information.

An employer can violate the American with Disabilities Act’s provisions on disability-related inquiries if an employer asks for more than what it reasonably needs.   In the case of a reasonable accommodation issue, employers are limited to obtaining such information as is reasonably needed to determine whether the person requesting the accommodation has a disability, and if the person medically needs the accommodation requested.  The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the courts have found violations of the ADA where employers have instead treated these matters as a fishing expedition, and asked for unnecessary medical information beyond what was really needed.  Thus, employers should be careful when seeking to obtain medical information regarding their employees.

Jerome Pinn is an attorney in the Knoxville office of Wimberly, Lawson Seale & Daves.  He welcomes your comments on this topic or other employment law issues, and can be reached at (865)546-1000.

Virtually all discussion of health care policy today avoids explicit reference to underlying principles.  In the United States, any reference to uniquely American values — including the inviolability of the individual — is particularly avoided.  Indeed, while the discussion consistently and studiously neglects to mention any fundamental ideology, it invariably takes for granted the standards of altruism and collectivism.  Outwardly, the mantra is “practicality.”

Even within the terms of pragmatism, socialized medicine is not practical — it does not work.  When policy proposals from pragmatic arguments are offered (always as a litany of concretes, and often based on erroneous information), they should be addressed in the full context of the ideological causes such proposals routinely ignore.  And it must be established that the reason socialized medicine (or any application of socialism or collectivism) does not work is because it is immoral.

The first task in proper health care policy formulation must therefore be to turn the discussion to its necessary roots.  A foundation must be built by establishing the proper political and moral principles: the distinctly American values of freedom, individualism and the right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness.

Political Principles

One economist who is a tireless advocate of medical socialism has written that the only obstacle to universal health care is “ideology and personal choice.” Eliminate those and we can have universal health care. Of course, that is quite correct, and it is seldom that the advocates of such policies are so explicit. Although the writer obviously is talking only about ideologies other than his own (which is easy to identify), elimination of such ideologies as freedom and individualism, and such concepts as personal choice, are a sure foundation for collectivism.

Individualism must be at the heart of health care policy. Life, liberty and the pursuit (or practice) of happiness is the proper basis for policy. That must include property rights, and no right to property is more important than one’s ownership of his own body. Failure to maintain this foundation opens the door to the most common attacks on freedom in health care.

It is important to recognize that advocates of medical socialism are not primarily trying to apply the principles of collectivism in order to promote better health care. They are using the issue of health care in order to promote collectivism. In 2007 Senator Clinton proposed the expansion of an expensive and wasteful federal and state program to expand government health care from poor children to families of four with incomes up to $82,000.  The proposals became law in 2009.  The goal is obviously not to help the poor but to move as many children as possible — eventually all children — into a government health care system.  This is another “slice of the sausage” that Sen. Clinton promised when the Clinton administration’s proposals for national health care were defeated in 1994.  When she could not get the whole sausage of national health care, she promised to deliver it one slice at a time.

The objective of such paternalism extends far beyond the nationalization of health care.  We and our children must all become dependent on government as the only source of our health care. Most children already must depend on government for their education (i.e., their indoctrination).  Ideally these advocates of government would also like children to rely on government for food and housing. The motive may or may not be an ideological commitment to socialism; it is certainly an avid commitment to a political spoils system.  The enemies of such a system are autonomous individuals pursuing their own happiness and deciding how to live their own lives.  Like the corruption of the client system that helped destroy the Roman Republic, citizens are inculcated into a system that destroys personal freedom and choice through dependence on government for the needs of daily life.  That is the ultimate goal: the abdication of freedom by citizens in exchange for a government that will take care of them.  “It takes a village.”

Without a foundation on the principles of individualism, the door is open to anti-concepts such as the “right to health care.” Those who proclaim the “right” to health care usually mean its opposite, i.e., that no one has the right to any health care at all unless they get it from the government.  When private health care is criminalized and everyone is forced into a government system with nowhere else to go, we are at the mercy of the political powers that administer such a system, whether it actually delivers health care or not.  (This perversion of the concept of rights into goods and services, which you must be forced to provide to others, is described by Ayn Rand in her article “Man’s Rights” in The Virtue of Selfishness.)

Is the objective really to criminalize private health care?  To some extent that already has been achieved. The federal regulations governing Medicare were 130,000 pages long, until the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill added another 1,300 pages.  No one can understand them.  No one can read them.  No one can even lift them.  It is not possible to comply with some of these regulations without being in violation of other provisions.  Yet physicians and hospitals can be held criminally liable for violating many of these provisions. What can be the purpose of such confusion?  It is the ability to subject physicians and the rest of us to the arbitrary and capricious application of these regulations by any random bureaucrat.  These regulations have grotesquely distorted and set the standard for the way private insurance companies pay for medical expenses.

Does this currently affect us on a daily basis?  Most definitely.  If you are 65 years of age or older, after a lifetime of paying Medicare taxes you are stuck with it. But if you want or need a procedure that Medicare does not allow, and if your physician accepts Medicare patients, he is forbidden by law to provide it even if you choose to pay for it yourself.

Medicare and Medicaid expenses have increased exponentially over the last 40 years and are a primary contributor to increased spending on health care.  Federal programs now account for about 50 percent of medical spending.  Federal tax policy has provided strong incentives for third-party payment of medical expenses, divorcing most of the costs from those who receive services.  That is another primary factor in increasing costs.  Heavy regulatory regimes of insurance and medical licensing by 50 state governments have greatly inflated the cost of both insurance and health care itself.  State regulations prohibit the purchase of insurance from other states — thereby eliminating the possibility of a competitive national market for insurance and further increasing the cost of insurance. Insurance commissioners and other regulators in every state have united in opposition to legislation allowing their citizens to buy insurance from other states.

Presumably they each must believe that consumers are endangered by the regulatory environment in the other 49 states.  Affordable health insurance is thus often impossible for consumers to find because it is forbidden by law.

The strongest advocates of medical socialism want Americans to believe that what we have today is a free-market health care system based on principles of laissez-faire capitalism, and that we need to replace it.  What we actually have, of course, is an essentially fascist system of highly complex and government-financed health care manipulated by interest groups with political pull.

America’s health insurance and medical care system is an overregulated, bureaucratic monster that is the creation of government.  It is in need of major reform, and the status quo should not be defended.  But reform of the system must not take the form of more of the government poison that has been killing it. ν

Other than Dr. Paul, I tend to despise the gaggle of Republican candidates as much as I dislike Barack Obama, as both parties seem intent upon claiming that it is important that the deck chairs on the Titanic be re-arranged, and that the pattern of re-arrangement really will make a difference as to the fate of the ship. Unfortunately, the fate of America is like that of the “unsinkable” Titanic.

If I am to gauge from this election campaign as to the “heart and soul” of America, I would conclude that it is about war, assassinations and sex — lots and lots of sex. Let me look first to the Obama campaign, which is cash-rich, confident, and headed for victory, in my opinion.

While I have not seen all of the slick opening video that is the Obama media salvo, let me say that what I have seen makes me ill.  Here is “dramatic” footage of the president and his stooges, er, advisers, intently watching the ongoing events on camera of the assassination of Osama bin Laden.  Understand that this footage was shot with a political campaign in mind, and in that footage American soldiers are in harm’s way and people are losing their lives.

In the end, we were looking at what apparently the U.S. government does best these days: kills other people, with such footage being touted as dramatic “proof” that Obama is the best man for the job.  And while I have no plans to see the rest of this video, something tells me that it will not contain any “dramatic” photos of American-led massacres in Afghanistan, American drone strikes “accidentally” blowing people at weddings in Pakistan, burned-out Christian churches in Egypt and Iraq following American involvement, and U.S. soldiers with their arms and legs blown off while serving in utterly futile wars.

Nor do I believe that Obama’s campaign will tout Attorney General Eric Holder’s recent speech at Northwestern University Law School in which he claimed that if Obama decides to have someone killed, the thought processes alone that went on in the mind of the president fit the requirement of “due process of law” as required in the U.S. Constitution.  (I do find it quite interesting that all of the Democrat angst at the “dictatorial” actions of President Bush has disappeared even though Obama has garnered more power to himself than even Bush had dreamed of having.  So much for liberals and “civil liberties.”  It was a charade from the beginning, and maybe it is good that Obama finally exposes this farce for what it always has been.)

Obama’s other great “accomplishment” has been to rip off bondholders and taxpayers, not to mention engage in other financial trickery in order to bail out the United Auto Workers and its subsidiaries, General Motors and Chrysler. The bailouts are front-and-center in the Obama campaign, which tells us that this administration really has no shame when it comes to the economy.

Let me turn to the Republicans.  In the lead is Mitt Romney, who I guess wants to be president because it would look good on his resume.  The creator of “RomneyCare” now claims ObamaCare is a fraud, even though the latter is a mirror image of the monster that Romney birthed when he was governor of Massachusetts.

On the economy, he refuses to admit that ours is an economy in great need of mass liquidation of malinvestments that piled up during the Clinton, Bush and Obama years.  I hate to say it, but in the years to come, those malinvestments are going to come anyway in the form of economic stagnation that will make the 1970s look like a decade of prosperity.

His main challenger, Rick Santorum, previously was known as a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania who was blown out in the 2006 election.  Today, Santorum is reborn as a guy who has centered his campaign on defunding birth control and wanting to turn the USA into a land of righteousness.  His foreign policy position seems to be something akin to the spoof Murray Rothbard once wrote in which he advocated tongue-in-cheek that the United States “invade the world.”  What was once farce now seems to be dead seriousness, as Santorum and his erstwhile sidekick, Newt Gingrich, see no limits to the need or ability of U.S. armed forces to fight all over the globe.

While I clearly believe that this whole business of birth control is NOT something the government should be funding, nonetheless no one is going to win an election by concentrating on it.  (I must admit, however, that it does make me sick that the “Christian” Obama believes that the government should take food from the mouths of my children so that taxpayers can subsidize the “hookup” culture that dominates the social scene of American colleges and universities these days.  If these people wish to engage in near-anonymous sex, let them pay for their own contraceptives.)

If there is anything characterizing the U.S. presidential campaign for both parties, it is the theme of delusion, lots of delusion.  Obama still resides under the delusion that he can spend and subsidize the U.S. economy into prosperity, and that there should be no limits to his power to kill or imprison whomever he wishes.

The Republicans still masquerade as the “tough guys” who bring low taxes at home and kick butt abroad.  In reality, they are empowering a state that imprisons more people than any other regime on the planet, commits atrocities abroad and engages in widespread abuse.

Of the main candidates for president, only Ron Paul has stood for reducing the abuses of government, ending our future and destructive wars abroad and giving Americans some freedom from the abuses of government.  And people from both sides say that he is the “nut case?” Lord help us. – Bill Anderson

The following comments were made by Sen. Corker from the floor of the Senate on March 27.

Mr. President, today I rise to speak about the subject our nation is focused on as the Supreme Court takes up some of the Constitutional provisions of the health care law that was passed a couple of years ago in this body.

Obviously, the courts will decide whether the law that was passed is Constitutional.   There are a number of challenges that will take place by the end of June, according to what we hear.

Secondly, there is an election process underway where the candidates running for the Republican nomination have talked about the things they will do in the event they are elected as it relates to the health care bill.

I want to talk about the fact that regardless of the Supreme Court and regardless of what may happen in the electoral process, I have yet to meet a person on either side of the aisle — and maybe today will be the first time — who believes this bill can work as it was passed.  What that leads me to say is that regardless of what happens, I think most of us are aware that the financial data that was used to put together this bill is flawed, and due to the fact that it is flawed, it will not work over the longer haul.

For the same reasons I railed against the highway bill for breaking the Budget Control Act we just put in place last August, I voted against this bill — the fact that we used 10 years’ worth of revenues and 6 years’ worth of costs, which greatly exacerbates the problem in the out years; the fact that we took $529 billion in savings from Medicare to create this problem and yet left behind the issue we deal with in this body almost every year and a half, which is the sustainable growth rate that we deal with with physicians; and then, thirdly, the fact that we placed an unfunded mandate on states.

The state of Tennessee has actually been highly progressive as it relates to health care.  In the State of Tennessee, dealing with citizens who are in need, we created a program called TennCare.  It went through lots of problems but over the last several years has been functioning in a stable way.  But what this bill did was mandate to the state of Tennessee that in order to keep the Medicaid funding that funds TennCare, the state has to, on its own accord, match Federal grants with over $1.1 billion in costs.  So from 2014 to 2019, what this bill does is mandate that the state of Tennessee use $1.1 billion of its own resources to expand the Medicaid Program to meet the needs this bill has put in place.

This is the point of my being on the floor here today.  Again, I do not know of anybody here who believes this bill will cost only what was laid out as we debated.  As a matter of fact, we have had so many people — the McKenzie Group and others —who have laid out how many private companies in our country will basically get rid of their health care and put people out on the public exchange.  And the cost of that is going to be tremendous.

State of Tennessee could save $160

million on public exchange

Our own former governor, a Democrat, who has spent a lot of his lifetime in health care on health care issues, projected that the state of Tennessee, if it decided that it wanted to put its own employees out on the public exchange, could save $160 million — by putting its employees away from its own health care plan and out on the exchanges.  Obviously, I doubt that is something states are going to do.  But his point is this: In a free market system, people are going to respond based on what is best for their company and what is best for their employees.

If you look at the subsidy levels that this bill lays out — up to 400 percent of poverty — they are massive subsidies.  We are talking about people who are earning over $78,000 a year.  So when you look at the subsidies this bill has put in place, what employers are going to quickly find, especially because we put a subsidy in place on the one hand and on the other hand, because this bill lays out the type of coverage companies have to have in place —there are attributes that cause those costs to rise, and we have already seen that happening throughout our private sector.  I think that is undeniable what is going to happen is the companies are going to say, “We would be better off paying the $2,000 penalty. Our employees get these massive subsidies, by the way, that are paid for by all taxpayers in America.”

What that means is that there are going to be far more people on these public exchanges than ever were anticipated when this bill was being put in place.

My point is that the bill, when it was being constructed, used 10 years’ worth of revenues and 6 years’ worth of cost, and that made it neutral. Anybody can see that in the out years that is obviously going to create a tremendous problem, a fiscal problem for this government, for our country. But the problem is that when it was laid out, the amount of people who were then thought would go on the plan was much lower than is actually going to be the case.

Again, I think what you are going to see throughout our nation, if this bill stays in place as it is, is a massive exodus by private employers from the health care business.  What that is going to do is put them on these public exchanges with the subsidies, and, in fact, what it is going to do is drive up the cost even more than people ever anticipated.

So this is my point.  There is going to be a Supreme Court judgment this June.  None of us knows what it is going to be.  We have pundits on the left who say they are confident the bill is going to stay in place.

We have pundits on the right who say they are confident, Constitutionally, it is going to be overturned.  We will have an election in November that may change the course of history as it relates to this bill.

Health care bill cannot work

Even if those two events have no effect on this bill, I wish to come back to my base premise, which is that there is no possible way this bill is going to work as it was laid out during the debate.  There is no way the projections that were laid out as to what the cost of this bill is going to be are going to be what the actual costs are.

What I say is, regardless, this body is going to be pressed with replacing this legislation with something that makes common sense.  There was actually a lot of bipartisanship, prior to us passing this piece of legislation, about what those commonsense measures should be.  We ended up instead with something that was far more sweeping, something most Americans find offensive, something that, no question, will cause this nation tremendous fiscal distress.

My point is, yes, we are going to be watching this June as the Supreme Court rules.  Yes, we are going to pay attention to the elections in November. Regardless of those outcomes, it is my belief this body will have to come together and put into place a different piece of health care legislation that actually fits the times and the American people and allows the freedom of choice the people are accustomed to and is built on premises that will cause our country to be fiscally sound.  I stand ready to work with people on both sides of the aisle when that time comes to make that happen.

It is a beautiful, historic setting.  As you tour the grounds, you can imagine what life must have been like for our nation’s first president.

On our visit to Mount Vernon, I was reminded that our nation’s revolution was a revolution against a king.  George Washington, as commander in chief of the Continental Army, led a fight for independence from a king whom the signers of the Declaration of Independence stated, had a “history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.”

As president of the Philadelphia Convention, George Washington presided over the writing of the U.S. Constitution, which emphasizes the idea of “liberty” in creating the system of government we enjoy today.

I was reminded also of Washington’s modesty and restraint.  It was he who first asked to be called simply Mr. President, rather than some grand title.  It was he who first stepped down after two terms.

I am struck by the different attitude I see in the administration of President Obama, which has shown disregard for those checks and balances and the limits on presidential power that our founders and George Washington felt were so important.

This president’s excesses were first illustrated by the creation of more White House czars than the Romanovs had.  We have always had some czars in the White House but now we have approximately three dozen of them, duplicating and diluting the responsibilities of cabinet members.

Equally disturbing to me has been this administration’s use of regulation and litigation to bypass the will of the people and their elected representatives in Congress, as was the case when the National Labor Relations Board sought to prevent Boeing from opening a factory in South Carolina.

The president has taken to saying in his campaign speeches and his State of the Union Address the other day, “If Congress won’t act, I will,” and he has begun to show that is no idle threat.

Because now, President Obama has broken the precedent set by all presidents before him and made four “recess” appointments while the Senate was in a recess period of less than three days, bypassing Senate confirmation with his appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to head a new and unaccountable agency.

These recess appointments show disregard for possibly the best-known and most important role of the Senate and that is its power of advice and consent of executive and judicial nominations as outlined in article two, section two of the Constitution.

While the exact length required for a recess is not defined in the Constitution, it is clear that President Obama’s actions are outside the history and precedent of the Constitution.  Both parties have relied upon the adjournment clause in article one of the Constitution to argue that the absolute minimum recess period would conceivably be three days.  Even President Obama’s own attorneys made that argument before the Supreme Court.

Liberty is the defining aspect of the American character. If the president’s current actions were to stand as a precedent, the Senate may very well find that when it takes a break for lunch, when it comes back, the country has a new Supreme Court Justice.

Because we believe in the importance of that constitutional system, all of us on the Republican side insist on a full and complete debate on this issue. We intend to take this issue to the American people.  We will file amicus curiae briefs in all of the appropriate courts and we will take this issue to the most important court in the land and that is the court of the American people on Election Day.

    Sen. Lamar Alexander, (R-Tenn.), can be reached in his Washington, D.C. office at (202)224-4944.

We must take a journey all the way back to the 1930s in order to completely understand the death waltz politicians, bureaucrats, academia and the financial services industry have been dancing.  The Great Depression psychologically scarred Americans.  Along with the crash of Wall Street, banks, family businesses and even large corporations, came suicides, a sudden up tick in the number of alcoholics and drug addicts as well as a dark pall that settled over the nation.  It was a depressing and scary time for the common everyday citizen.  Great families, the backbone of America, were suffering, and the average working man was living in fear of losing everything he had while watching his family starve.  If it could happen to rich Wall Street money barons, it could happen to him — a simple factory worker, a policeman or grocery store clerk.  I’ve talked at length with people who were alive back then, and they’ve told me the stories of how their own families were barely existing.  So when the “benevolent” federal government stepped in with public works programs like the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and a few financial services regulations that promised to make sure nothing like the Great Depression would ever happen again, a nation that had lost hope suddenly saw a glimmer of possible prosperity in its future if these and other new government originated programs and regulations were allowed to come into existence.

An entire country of immigrants had endured all manner of hardships to carve out a place for themselves in the New World with hopes of religious and political freedom. They had always known that to survive you had to work hard and could only depend upon yourself.  If you invested your life savings in a restaurant and it failed, you simply picked up the pieces and went to work for someone else or started a new enterprise.  A handout from the government was not something anyone had ever known or considered possible.  After all, America had been a wild frontier that brave men and women had begun to tame.  People died fighting Indians, the various illnesses there were no cures for, wars and on the job because of various health and safety factors.  There was no redress against the government, and there were no government programs to assure clean, hazard-free working conditions, fair lending practices, safe roads or government inspected products on the market.  People paid for their health care in cash or by barter and trade.  Suddenly, in the midst of a depression and a nation in despair, the government was stepping in to make promises that America would be a land of milk and honey if the people would only allow it to happen.

What we, as a nation, allowed to happen next was a series of scams — and of the worst sorts.  Because the American people were frightened, they were easily lulled into dependency.  People who are starving, watching loved ones commit suicide and the upper classes fail financially are in no position to look a gift horse in the mouth.  So while the sheep let themselves be led to the slaughter of their rights, money and property, the wolves handed out some benefits in the form of civil service jobs, Social Security, financial regulations and numerous other government-created perks designed to win the hearts of an untrusting, independent and proud people.  Many Americans were so beaten down, it was easy to win them over and into believing the government could save them.  Those who had weathered the Great Depression relatively well were a little harder to convince, but when they considered the possibility they could lose all if anything like the Great Depression happened again, they too embraced the new government agenda of rescuing its citizens.  These two groups were the foundation of the Democratic Party as we know it today.  Is there a problem or a need, no matter how small and no matter what caused it?   “Let’s not tell Americans to figure out a way to fix it, let’s throw some money at it and create a program,” became the government’s mantra.  The states picked up on how the federal government was “helping” and came up with some “solutions” of its own, so it wasn’t long before cities and counties joined in.

And how was all this “help” being paid for?  Why by raising taxes, and inventing new taxes, of course.  The problem, however, with all this wasn’t just in the fact Constitutionally authorized taxes were no longer able to meet the budget demands of all this government spending.  Weak industries that did not have enough market share  —or any market left at all — were not allowed to fail like they should have been.  (It’s a wonder the covered wagon business and the pony express were allowed to fade away.)  What really caused the eventual mess we find ourselves in again is the fact that politicians, bureaucrats, college professors and other incompetents know next to nothing about markets and finances.  The very people who have been allowed to engineer bailouts, fiscal policy, foreign trade, manufacturing, health care, education and numerous other failing economic sectors have no real knowledge or successful experience in these matters.  Heaven help us if I were allowed to run the space program!  I have never flown an airplane, have never had an engineering class and certainly have no idea where I would begin to quickly gain the knowledge I’d need if suddenly appointed to such a post.  But, then, we have legislators in Congress preparing a health care plan equal to 17 percent of our economy that for the most part went to law school.  If they were doctors, nurses or even terminally ill patients with extensive experience with our health care system, I’d have a little more faith in their abilities.  They approve bailouts for huge industries, but most have never owned even a tiny shoeshine shop.  Many of the members of Congress have never even had a college level economics class, yet they feel qualified to decide which industries “deserve” a bailout and which ones don’t.

Our governments need to allow the markets to correct themselves and quit interfering with businesses who are struggling to survive under a crush of regulation that is expensive to comply with and even more expensive to fight.  We also need to start electing qualified men and women who are not here to “save” us, but rather to get out of our way and let us save ourselves like our forefathers had to do during tough economic times.  Not everyone is going to survive or thrive.  But some will if they are allowed to.  The longer we persist along the path of the past 80 years or so, the harder it is going to be to turn the economy around.

If the government is going to back or bail any industry deemed too large to fail, then some businesses are going to take huge and foolish risks because they have been virtually assured they will be rescued.  Unlike Chris Dodd, I don’t believe that if someone can’t afford something we should lower the bar so they can have it. We already know that since they can’t afford it, they probably will not pay for their loan — no matter whether it’s a consumer buying a house not within their budget or a city going into deep debt to build a convention center that won’t attract enough conventions to be profitable.

I highly doubt Donald Trump would waste even five minutes talking to me about purchasing one of his properties — he knows I could never make the payments or obtain a loan.   But then Mr. Trump is not trying to save the world or get reelected for looking benevolent.  He understands markets, what motivates people — for good or bad — and doesn’t believe profits are evil.  He also understands the fact that when people are frightened as they were during the Great Depression and are in a tanked economy, it is very easy for governments to convince its people they can fix everything.  Communist leaders around the world have led their peoples into virtual slavery when morale was at its lowest.

Let’s hope we don’t repeat history and continue our reckless and unwarranted faith in our incompetent government, regulators and bureaucrats.  It’s time for change, but change that allows for the market to decide who survives and who doesn’t.  The financial problems of today are not going to be cured easily because they are so pervasive and entrenched.

It may take yet another presidential election cycle or two for the U.S. to find a leader who, like Ron Paul, is willing to make some tough decisions and pare the government down to a manageable size, balance the books and bring in people who are able to comprehend reality.  The pundits laugh at Mr. Paul now, but they won’t be laughing very hard in a few more years when the entire U.S. economy implodes.   As much as I dislike the thought, our country may not have that long to survive.  Our economy is already on life support.  Even the smallest piece of good economic news is being heralded as proof of an upcoming a recovery, while the sources of that news are becoming ever more frantic in their attempts to cover up the truth — their policies and regulations have failed once again to bring back true prosperity.  Yet they still refuse to give markets a chance to correct themselves.

Conservatives claim Bernanke has been “saving” the economy via inflation (although other than Ron Paul, none of the Republican presidential candidates have viable economic programs beyond more inflation), while leftists like Paul Krugman claim that Bernanke has not inflated enough and that he should have done more to spread dollars around.  In other words, the guy has saved the world, but ungrateful ideologues are blind to his accomplishments.

I have no doubt that Bernanke believes he has saved the economy from running into a major depression, and for the most part, the mainstream media has been singing his praises.  Critics such as Congressman Ron Paul, who is basing his presidential campaign on doing away with the Fed altogether, are portrayed in the media as financial ignoramuses who really don’t understand the necessity of having an institution like a central bank that can backstop financial losses and give failing Wall Street firms a second chance.

The answer to Bernanke’s status as either hero or the Mephistopheles of inflation depends upon how one views the workings of the economy.  Those on the left believe that left to its own devices, a market economy will implode from within, as either people will fail to spend enough to “buy back” the goods the economy has produced or unregulated speculators will run the economy over a cliff.  Either way, a market economy left to its own devices is doomed to failure.

This view sees the Fed mainly as an entity that reacts to crises caused by private enterprise, and especially the banking and financial sector.  To the liberal-left enemies of the market economy, the collapse of 2008 was the result of unregulated speculators engaged in foolishness which a stricter regulatory regime would have stopped. However, they argue, once the “free enterprisers” have done their damage, it is a good thing that the Fed can step in and help clean up the mess.

Conservatives, on the other hand, don’t have a problem with the Fed being a “backstop” for systematic losses, but they want Bernanke to act with more constraint.  Still, I have my doubts that most conservatives (or at least those that populate Fox News and the National Review and Weekly Standard) can articulate what might be an “optimum” set of actions the Fed should take.

As a libertarian and Austrian economist, however, I come at this whole thing from a different point of view, that is the Fed having created a depression because it desperately has acted to avoid a more serious recession. Let me explain.

For almost all liberals and most conservatives, an economy goes into recession because of a lack of consumer and producer spending.  Any number of reasons can be given for this spending freefall, but in the end, someone has to pick up the slack or the economy will remain moribund.  People on the left believe that such “magic” can be garnered through inflation and increased government spending.  (Some hardcore leftists like Robert Reich and President Barack Obama believe that if we place extremely high marginal tax rates on the richest 1 percent, that the money dislodged can then be given to government agents who will spend it wisely and get the economy going again.)

Conservatives want their “stimulus” through tax cuts and business tax credits, so with these two groups, it is a matter of how the money is distributed, but in the end, there is not as much distance between these two points of view as perhaps their adherents might claim.  Austrians, on the other hand, see the problem not as being a lack of spending, but rather the creation of a series of malinvestments created during the previous boom.  In the late 1990s, the money poured into a number of Internet-based enterprises and the stock market.

During the George W. Bush administration, the new money from the banking system streamed in through the housing market, first via refinancing and then through the sale of existing houses and the building of new housing developments.  Austrians say that the malinvestments mounted during those times, and for a real recovery to begin, those malinvestments either had to be liquidated or transferred to other uses.

By bailing out the banks and helping to bail out industries like General Motors and Chrysler, the Fed has kept them from sliding further down or going out of business altogether, but at the same time, consumers are having to prop up a number of industries and firms that in a normal market setting would go out of business.

Another area of difference in thought between Austrians and the other camps is that Austrians do not see the Fed as a “reactive” entity that responds once economic disasters occur.  Instead, Austrians believe that the Fed has been an active player in creating the web of malinvestments that have collapsed.  For example, without the Fed in the background, there would not have been enough money directed to housing to have resulted in the huge disaster that ultimately occurred.

Furthermore, the Obama administration is floating vast subsidies to “green energy” firms despite the fact that these companies cannot create fuels or produce enough electricity to substitute for the use of coal, oil and natural gas, fuels that the president claims to abhor.  This means that not only do consumers have to pay extremely high gasoline prices (and Obama’s secretary of energy has stated publicly that gas prices in this country need to equal those of Europe — about $8 a gallon), but also pay taxes to subsidize “green” energy companies with political ties to Obama.

Underwriting this vast web of malinvestments and subsidies is the Fed, and in the long run that spells disaster, and specifically disaster in the twin categories of inflation and unemployment.  By keeping the necessary correction from occurring, Ben Bernanke has managed both to put off the Day of Reckoning, and also to ensure that when that day arrives, it will be worse than what it might have been had the Fed never been in existence in the first place.

The economy takes care of growth in a good economy.  When demand is growing at a nice clip, all businesses have to do is sell and perform, which most businesses know how to do.  When demand shrinks, most businesses are clueless and generally wait until the economy ticks up again before they really hustle.  It’s make hay while the sun shines.  But what if it doesn’t?

Search the Internet for how to grow your business.  You’ll see things like “expand the number of customers” and “satisfy your current customers better,” or “add new products and services”.

Then search the Internet for how to grow in a slow economy, and you’ll see mostly internal strategies, like controlling inventory, maximizing cash flow, negotiating all your contracts and prices from suppliers and avoid cutting prices to customers.  Maybe even go after competitor’s customers.  Underwhelmed?  Knew them already?

By now you’re asking, those things may be advisable, but HOW do I do them? And you would be right to ask that.  But what about an expanded set of growth opportunities beyond those few?  And which ones should you tackle first?

Think of growth in bands around a strong core

The first concept in thinking about growth is to train yourself to think in terms of where the dollar pools of growth will come from.  So you need to know how to categorize growth opportunities in a way that you can apply the appropriate strategies.

The second step in thinking about growth is that some strategies are more fundamental and you need to execute these before others or you are building on a weak foundation.

Before you even think about aggressively growing your business, you need a strong core basis to build on.

A strong core is a market segment that you enjoy serving extremely well, you are better than your competition, and you know how to be very efficient with resources and expenses in order to make a much better rate of profit than competitors.  I’m going to tell you the most powerful concept you have ever heard for making money in your business.   You need to understand this first to create a successful foundation for a growing company that increases the rate of profit as it grows.  It’s called The Profit Triad.

The Profit Triad: The strong core

Everybody knows you need to satisfy customers better than competitors to get market share.  But it’s got to be the right kinds of customers.  You need customers that load gross profit on your core investment.

If you aim at the customers that don’t provide enough gross profit to pay for your core investment, like Kmart did versus Target and Walmart, you might have good enough total sales, but you will go out of business.

Kmart had market share leadership in the $30 thousand a year and less family income bracket.  Walmart had their best position in $30 thousand to $75 thousand.  Target had their best position with $70 thousand and above.  What you do and spend money doing needs to fit your market.  Kmart couldn’t get their operating costs low enough to fit their market.

The Profit Triad works a bit different in different industries.  For example, manufacturers need to keep their capital equipment humming for two sometimes three shifts.  Idle plants and equipment are usually death to profitability.

Wholesalers need to get larger sized orders that load their trucks within a reasonable radius of their warehouses, because they have a mobile investment and expense base.

Retailers and restaurants need larger orders per visit and per day to pay the costs of rent, utilities and service personnel at the location.  The more gross profit you can earn per sitting or per visit for the same amount of fixed overhead, the better.  It’s not all about the percentage gross profit.  It’s about the gross profit dollars compared to the costs to service the transaction.  That’s what pays the overhead.

Service businesses like plumbers and electricians need high density of customers within a territory to keep their people busy doing billable work versus driving between visits.

Summing up, satisfying customers better by delivering better value gets market share and density of business.  If you know how to organize better and do it at a lower cost then you’ve got productivity.  And third, if you know how to sell more things on each visit, you’ve got high Gross Profit Per Transaction.

I call those three things The Profit Triad.  Together, they are the most powerful three things you can learn to do together in your business.  When you get them going together, you have a strong core business, you maximize your profitability and you’re ready to add layers around the core.

The layers of growth

One of the most prolific growers on the planet is the tree.  The tree develops a strong core, the trunk, which distributes water and resources from the soil to the real points of growth that are on the outer parts of the tree.  If you take a close look at the tips of branches in the spring, you will see bud clusters.  These are called meristems, and they are where 80 percent of the growth of the tree happens.  The other 20 percent are in the core of the tree.

Such is a business.  You start out by developing your core, learning how to make the most money.  Then you grow outward in successive layers of difficulty.

Here are the layers.  I’ll get into each of these in articles to come.  But for now, I’ll give a short sentence to clarify each one.

•  Keep the growth you’ve already got: avoid losing customers 

Most businesses lose 20 percent of their customers annually.  It’s a tax on any growth you’ve got.  Learn why you lose them and fix the reasons.

•  Pursue what customers are still buying from competitors

Customers still buy from other sources.  Or they buy different products from other sources.  Find out what and why and fix that problem.  No, it’s not always about price.

•  Go after the competitors’ customers
This one is a little harder.  It’s about breaking relationships, not as much about the product or service.  Find out what binds the relationship and trump it, or market like crazy until the competition screws up.  Then step in.

• Dominate the faster growing segments first
Some products, services, geographic areas and types of customers or businesses grow faster than others.  Identify these and dominate them before the competition gets a foothold.

•  Create demand for your products and services
Most companies service existing demand versus competitors.  They do it by outselling them on features and benefits.  They don’t have a clue how to create demand, which is hugely profitable if you know how.  Here’s a hint: it’s about making people aware of the problems they have to which there is no solution — until you came along.  There will be more on this powerful concept later.

•  Add highly related “adjacent” opportunities
Adjacencies are right “next” to your current business.  Other things your customers buy that you don’t currently sell.  Customer types you don’t sell to but buy your kinds of products.  Services you could perform for customers better or more economically than they are doing for themselves.  Here’s the main list of “adjacencies.”  Products you don’t currently sell; services you don’t currently sell;  customer types you don’t currently sell to;  geographies you don’t sell through;  marketing techniques you don’t use;  distribution channels you don’t sell through;  business models you don’t use;  and integrating forward into your customer’s operations as a service.

The trick is to brainstorm opportunities in each of these categories, prioritize them in terms of size of opportunity versus ease of execution versus competition, then create execution plans to go after as many as you can simultaneously.  That’s the new imperative for maximizing growth and wealth for your company, yourself and your family.  That’s what it’s all about.  Growth, my friends, doesn’t just come to you.  You need to know how to think about where it comes from and plan to go get it in the right sequence.

In the next few articles, I will be honored to be your guide.  See you next time.

Neil Gillespie is the principal of Shamrock Growth Associates, Knoxville, Tenn.  He is the author of “Discover Your Core, Then go for More.”  You can reach Neil at neilg@shamrockgrowth.com.  His Web site is: www.shamrockgrowth.com. 

LBMC has announced the recent addition of two staff members to its security services team.

Burnette

Mark Burnette has joined the company as a director and Craig Zimberg as a senior manager.  Both Burnette and Zimberg as recognized by the Information Systems Security Association’s (ISSA) Fellow Program, as performing in the top 5 percent of the information security profession.  LMBC is now the only professional services firm in the state of Tennessee to employ an ISSA Fellow.

Burnette has more than 16 years of experience in information security and risk management, including key leadership roles with two of the Big Four accounting firms.  He was chief information security officer for two publicly traded companies for a total of almost nine years.  Burnette has a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Carson-Newman College and earned his master’s degree in accountancy from the University of Tennessee.  He is also an adjunct professor of accounting at Belmont University, where he serves on the school’s accounting advisory board.

Zimberg has over 12 years of information security and internal audit experience.  Six years were spent working with a Big Four accounting firm, while the additional six years were spent as executive director of corporate security for BMI.

He is a graduate of Rutgers University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in accounting.  Zimberg then graduated from Auburn University with an MBA.

Both Burnette and Zimberg are CPAs and are certified by several information security organizations.

BANKING

Regions has announced that Barb Godin, chief credit officer, Ellen Jones, chief financial officer for business operations and support and Dave Keenan, head of human resources, have been named senior executive vice presidents.  All three currently serve on the company’s operating committee.

As chief credit officer for Regions, Godin is responsible for credit policy, credit administration and problem asset management.  She joined Regions in 2003 after serving in senior management positions in credit, retail lending, credit risk management, collections and underwriting.  Godin earned a degree in finance and holds a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Western Ontario.  She is also a graduate of the International School of Banking.

Jones currently serves as the chief financial officer for business operations and support.  In this role, she manages the financial managers who partner with the regional presidents, lines of business and support teams and the day-to-day support provided by the finance teams.  Jones has a master’s degree in business administration from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, and an undergraduate degree in accounting from the University of Dayton.

Head of human resources Keenan joined Regions in 2003 as a senior human resources manager.  Before being named to his current position in 2010, he provided leadership in various areas, including staffing, retention, training, employee relations and organizational development.  Keenan began his career at Frito-Lay, a division of PepsiCo, after earning his bachelor’s degree in political science from Furman University and a master’s degree in human resources from Boston University.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Ritchie

Keely Ritchie has joined Pinnacle Financial Partners as a senior vice president and financial advisor for Pinnacle’s Northshore Drive office in Knoxville, Tenn.  She has more than 16 years of experience with First Tennessee Bank, where she most recently served as a vice president and business banking relationship manager and as vice president and property and casualty insurance officer for First Tennessee Insurance Services.  Ritchie holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and finance from East Tennessee State University in Johnson City.  She is pursuing her master’s degree in business administration as well as finance and accounting from Lincoln Memorial University.

Ritchie is a member of the West Knox County Rotary Club.  Past memberships include the Knoxville Women’s Association of Realtors, Student Finance Association of East Tennessee State University and National Association of Realtors.  Ritchie has also served as a United Way loaned executive and is a past member and chair of the United Way Outcome Based Investment Committee.

Umphrey

HEALTH CARE

Effective April 2, Dr. Lisa Umphrey, a cardiologist with The Chattanooga Heart Institute, will relocate from Chattanooga Heart’s Cleveland office to their Chattanooga office on Citico Avenue, adjacent to Memorial Hospital.  She will continue to see patients one day a week at the Ooltewah office.

Umphrey is board certified in internal medicine, cardiovascular disease and echocardiography, and nuclear cardiology.  She completed her cardiology fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz.  Umphrey graduated from the Loma Linda University School of Medicine in California.  She graduated cum laude with a bachelor in science degree from Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Mich., and is the recipient of many honors and awards.

Giordano

LAW

Lawrence F. Giordano, an attorney with Lewis King, recently received the 2011 College of Law Outstanding Adjunct Teacher Award at the University of Tennessee’s College of Law Honors Banquet.  Giordano, adjunct professor of law at the University of Tennessee College of Law since 1994, teaches advanced trial practice in the advocacy curriculum.

A shareholder with Lewis King, Giordano engages in a statewide practice based in the firm’s Knoxville office.  He is a member and co-chair of the firm’s education law practice and concentrates the balance of his practice in the areas of business, commercial and complex litigation.  Giordano is listed in The Best Lawyers In America® and is a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of American and the Knoxville Bar Association.

LEADERSHIP

Pierce

Knox, Blount and Roane Counties were all represented at a March 27 White House briefing on the Vision 2020 national initiative on women’s issues and gender equality.

Patricia Pierce, one of Tennessee’s two Vision 2020 delegates, was joined by Susanne Dupes, founder of Women’s Leadership Salon and president of the Dalton Dupes Agency, and Wendy Pitts Reeves, founder of Secret Adventures for Courageous Women and of Cove Mountain Counseling.  Dupes and Reeves, both members of Vision 2020, are also involved with planning a June 15^th East Tennessee Women’s Leadership Summit.

Dupes

During the White House briefing, speakers shared information about vision 2020’s Campaign For Equality, including:  Women in senior leadership positions, women and health, women veterans, the economy and educational issues.  The meeting was held in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

NON-PROFITS

Monika Hancock has joined the Knoxville March of Dimes office.  She is a native of Mississippi and a graduate of Ole Miss.  Hancock has lived in the Knoxville area for the past 12 years.  Her background includes not-for-profit organizations, public relations and special events.

Aaron Richardson is the newest member of the Knoxville team.  A native of Knoxville, he is a graduate of the University of Tennessee-Martin and was previously employed by the March of Dimes in Chattanooga.  He will be in charge of handling special events.

Susie Racek is serving as the new East Tennessee Executive Director.  She is a native of Knoxville and a graduate of the University of Tennessee.  She came to the March of Dimes with an extensive background in non-profits and special events work for over 20 years.  Most recently, she worked at Charter Media in cable advertising sales.

UTILITIES

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has named Janet Brewer vice president of communications.  She joins TVA from NCR Corp., where she most recently served as vice president for corporate communications.

Brewer had been with NCR since 2005.  She has served as director of community relations, vice president of change management and communications for continuous improvement and vice president of corporate communications.  She will be based at TVA’s headquarters in Knoxville, Tenn., which was effective March 26.

Before joining NCR, Brewer led the corporate communications team at LexisNexis, a provider of online decision support information and The Reynolds and Reynolds Co., an information management company for the automotive industry.

A graduate of Eastern Kentucky University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, she served on numerous civic organization boards in Dayton, Ohio, where NCR was headquartered prior to moving to Atlanta in 2010.