What Did Barry See

REMINDER: As long as you're here, don't forget to read the other posts on the NACUMS Blog.


Congratulations to Joanne Gish, the Document Services Manager Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA for the first winning guess in the impromptu "What did Barry See" contest. Also to Brian Geimer, from Sacrmento State for being our runner up.

Thank you all for the deluge of guesses. It was fun to shoot down your suggestions with other larger structures or to explain why your guesses didn't fit the clues. Thanks also for giving me a host of things that I can go see on my future wanderings.


I had stayed the night in Vincennes, IN. In the morning, my wife wanted to drive across the Lincoln Memorial bridge before heading home to Oshkosh. So, we drive through town and just before the bridge, I looked over to my left and said "what the %@&# is that!" Curious as I am, we checked it out.

George Rogers Clark National Historical Park, located in
Vincennes on the banks of the Wabash River, is a United States National Historical Park. The George Rogers Clark memorial is the largest such memorial outside of Washington, DC.

The George Rogers Clark National Historical Park centers on the massive Memorial, a neoclassical granite rotunda with 16 Doric columns circling a bronze sculpture of the colonel leaning on his sword. Seven monumental murals inside the memorial chart the American settlement of the Ohio Valley and Clark’s battle to wrest the Northwest Territories from British control.

The Memorial is located on the site of the former British Fort Sackville which was captured by Colonel George Rogers Clark and his army of frontiersmen and Frenchmen. The moment of the fort's surrender on February 25, 1779 marks the birth of the United States north of the Ohio River.

When the army led by Col. George Rogers Clark captured the British fort at Vincennes on February 25, 1779, the size of the United States essentially doubled. Clark’s victory opened the vast Northwest Territories, comprising nearly as much land as the original 13 colonies, to American settlement.


In 1778, Clark made plans for aggressive action against the British in the Old Northwest and, going to Virginia, persuaded Gov. Patrick Henry and his council to send an expedition. Clark and about 175 men crossed the Ohio River at Fort Massac, then swept into the Illinois country and took the British-held settlements of Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes. The British under Gen. Henry Hamilton advanced from Detroit and retook Vincennes after Clark had left. Winter and Ohio floods halted Hamilton there, but Clark and his men, defying cruel conditions of cold and hardship, braved the flooded bottom lands to return to Vincennes. With the heroic aid of Francis Vigo, François Bosseron, and Father Gibault, he struck at the British fort and surprised and captured Hamilton and the garrison in Feb., 1779. When news of his victory reached General George Washington, Clark's success was celebrated and was used to encourage the alliance with France. Washington recognized his achievement had been gained without support from the regular army in men or funds.


CLUES

1. (In the continental U.S., it's the largest of its kind outside of Washington, D.C.)

   The George Rogers Clark memorial is the largest such memorial outside of Washington, DC.

2. Monkeys first hit.

   Take the Last Train to Clarksville. Clarksville, IN. is named for American Revolutionary War General George Rogers Clark, who lived for a time on a point of land on the Ohio River. Founded in 1783, the town is believed to be the first American settlement in the Northwest Territory of the new United States.
   
   

3. Song "On the Banks of the Wabash".

   The historical park and Clark memorial are on the banks of the Wabash River.

4. The younger one is more famous the the older one.

   Clark's younger brother William, won greater fame as a leader of the Lewis and Clark expedition. In all, Clark had five brothers and four sisters.

5. How did Louisville, KY get it's name?

   The settlement that became the city of Louisville was founded in 1778 by George Rogers Clark and is named after King Louis XVI of France.

Hey!!! Again, thanks for playing. I hope everyone enjoyed themselves and don't forget to read the other blog posts.

Barry

Clue # 3

As promised, here's Clue #3

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/mp3s/2000/2386/cusb-cyl2386d.mp3

Good Luck everyone.

Pritha Mehra Addresses the Member Concerns

Members attending the NACUMS conference were rewarded with a rare opportunity to meet face-to-face Pritha Mehra, the Vice President of Business Mail Entry and Payment Technology. The focus of her first discussion was to be on the numerous new and exciting initiatives that her team is working on including: Full Service IMB, a universal permit for all postal services; a universal payment platform; and the new MDA call desk.

Starting out by asking the group what their pain points were, (the impediments to using Full Service IMB, things that made using the Bulk Mail Entry Units less than satisfactory) she made notes of all the concerns and issues that were raised. Pritha made it abundantly clear that she wanted input and feedback from the participants, and to not hold back, and the members did not hesitate to comply.

The presentation, originally scheduled for an hour, ran far over and it was decided to basically scrap her next presentation on the State and Vision of the USPS under PMG Donahoe, and continue this fact finding session.

Pritha repeatedly asked for volunteers to work with her team to solve these issues and develop new procedures and opportunities. Attendees were enthusiastic to participate and we can look forward to a lot of progress in the near future.

Attendees Take the MDC Exam

NACUMS members have been given the rare opportunity to hold the Mailpiece Design Consultant (MDC) exam. 27 members sat for the test consisting of 100 multiple choice questions; 9 were first time conference attendees. The exam and study session was approved by the Mailing Systems Management Association (MSMA) and conducted by Elizabeth Lombard, Manager of Certification, Pitney Bowes Learning & Performance.

(Pictured: Brenda Schadler, Indiana Wesleyan University)

Live Blogging of the NACUMS Conference

I'm going to try and put as many postings up as I can regarding the NACUMS conference, but as you can probably guess, there is a lot going on here and I may not always be able to do it as often as I like.

Today was a good example. Members have been coming in all day it was terrific to see so many familiar faces. Early registration was held down in the lobby but I had to miss it to get ready for the Board of Directors meeting in the evening. This year the Member Services Committee wrote lovely notes to first time attendees, and provided nice bags with water bottles and souvenir trinkets.

The Board of Directors meeting was supposed to be from 7-10, but ended closer to 11:30. Much of the meeting was devoted to issues relating to the current conference, but other topics were also discussed. With all the new projects and programs that are under way (more on those in future blog posts) we have decided that we now need to put more efforts into contracting for outside managements services, maybe. A special task force headed by the Vice President, Mike Butts, to look into all aspects of this matter will be formed. Lea Holt and I met with the heads of NAEP (National Association of Educational Procurement) and NACUBO (National Association of College & University Business Officers) in February to learn the basics, but now we need more detailed plans. We also discussed Committee plans, the details of the Membership Meeting on Monday, news from the Regional associations, and Board Officer responsibilities.

Tomorrow I will check in with you with more updates, but it's late now and I'm a bit tired.

iPhone app - Mail Industry Acronyms

NACUMS has its first ever iPhone app thanks to the creative team at Oklahoma State University; Donna Morris, NACUMS Board Member and Chair of Member Services, and her graduate students, Mukul Gaikwad & Aniket Kadam. This app is now available for the iPhone or iPod Touch (iOS 4.3 or higher) with those compatible with previous versions and the iPad coming soon.

I personally think that this is an awesome achievement and want to extend thanks on behalf of the NACUMS Board to the OSU group for their efforts on our behalf. This project took well over a month and involved countless hours of building, testing and refining.

This is a significant achievement for NACUMS and is hopefully our next step to providing the tools our members and the industry need to be successful.

You can get the app at the iTunes store.

Start of Our Fiscal Year

Today is the first day of our new Fiscal Year which brings the excitement of welcoming new members to the NACUMS board of Directors. Mike Butts takes over as our Vice President, Ute Franklin as Secretary, and new comer Whit Allen as a Board Member at Large. But this is bittersweet as Board loses two long time pillars, Kathy Waters and Ed Talley. We need to thank them, and Richard Boudrero who is completing four productive years as Vice President.

I probably should say something profound and inspiring at this time of transition. Instead I will just tell you all I hope the coming year will bring good changes, and to enjoy the long weekend.

posted by Mark Goodrich, President of NACUMS

NACUMS and Performance are tied together

OK, I tried writing this blog a couple of different ways, but it all came out cheesy.  “A tale of two performance reviews” needed only a Ritz cracker.  “Before and after Performance reviews” was cheesy enough to clog arteries.  Bottom line is this:  I had a performance review last week and the standards I was judged on are the same characteristics NACUMS and the Regional Associations help develop in its members.  Take a look at this list:

·         Job Knowledge

·         Communication Skills

·         Customer Driven

·         Decision Making

·         Problem Solving

·         Productivity

·         Team Work

·         Organization

·         Ability to Supervise

·         Entrepreneurial

·         Professional Judgment

·         Utilization of Resources

·         Initiative

·         Dependable

·         Resourceful

Cunimail, National and Regional Conferences, Webinars, NACUMS representation at MTAC, Benchmarking tools, and the community of mailers gathered around NACUMS helps every manager, every employee and every Mail Center improve each one of these characteristics.  I don’t think my performance reviews would be as positive as they are if it were not for NACUMS and my Regional Association.  Had it not been for the support of these groups, my tenure would not have been as long either.  

More importantly, my story is not the only one.  Those who have been involved with NACUMS, Cunimail and our conferences can all tell how this association has made them and their departments better. 

Please consider making the investment in your institution, your division, your department and yourself by attending the NACUMS conference July 17-20 in Nashville, TN. 

Is Mail Dead?

Is Mail Dead?  On May 26, 2011, Business Week ask just that and presented their findings to conclude mail was almost dead unless the USPS "reinvented" itself in a European model of service.  


In response, the following was posted on the NACUMS listserv shortly after the article was published:

I have read the article just now and am not particularly worried or depressed. As with most articles, the author has a particular bias and blind spot concerning his subject. First of note, he continuously refers to standard mail as junk mail. This pejorative is regularly used by people happy to see 'snail mail' go away because it shows how superior, tech savvy, and ahead of everyone they are in relation to other poor unfortunates who still use the service. So, the fact that the author is painting a bleak picture is as much a product of selective facts as wishful thinking. The contempt is obvious during the description of an interview with PMG Potter on page 3. "He acknowledges that first-class mail is in an inexorable decline, but he sees junk mail rebounding with the economy. In the last quarter of 2010, junk revenue climbed 7.1 percent." Junk revenue? But the author, while noting all the issues, still seems to blame the whole idea of having mail to begin with so fails to move beyond this point. But I believe that those factors, if mitigated, would actually show the USPS to be viable and thriving, if diminished from its glory days.

What is the true status of the USPS? Here's what I know. Many of its problems are not of its own making, and I believe that if several issues can be resolved, the post office would actually be in pretty good shape.

1)    By law the USPS cannot close Post Offices due solely for economic purposes (page 3).

2)    By law the USPS must prepay a special $5.5B each year into its retire health-care plan (page 2,7). It is the only federal entity that has to do this.

3)    By following law, the USPS overpaid its federal retirement program by $75B (page 2). It is the only federal entity forced to put that much away.

4)    Postal Unions, backed by political allies, have the power to block meaningful contract changes. Unlike most others in the private sector, they have been able to protect their fabulously generous retirement packages ("The USPS's leaders rewarded their union employees with more expensive benefits than most federal employees enjoy. According to the U.S. Postal Service Inspector General's Office, it covers 79 percent of most of its employees' health benefits, compared with the typical 72 percent for federal workers." Page 6), protect work rule restrictions limiting what you can ask an employee to do, prohibit layoffs, and get "3.5 percent raise for APWU members over the period of the contract, along with seven upcapped cost-of-living increases" for the next 4 years. (page 3). And that was a cut! "Fredric V. Rolando, president of the 275,000-member National Association of Letter Carriers, doesn't sound like he's interested in making major concessions."

Even if just 1-3 could be solved we would see most of the USPS issues disappear. And if 4 could be solved, it would flourish.

However, that is not really our issue. I would like to remind everyone that we are not in the mail business. Each and every one of us is in the Education business, because we work at a college or university. Mail is not important because it is mail, it is important because right now our schools use it to convey information, marketing, and other vital business interests. If the school can find a way to exchange this information another way, just as effectively and with less expense, so be it. And as long as mail is an important service I will gladly and willing oversee its operation. But if the mail eventually disappears, because it no longer serves any purpose at the university, I expect to move to another area where my skills can be used to the benefit of the University.

I feel that many are concerned about the decline of mail, not because they are so in love with mail, but more because it could affect future employment. But remember, you are not just skilled in mail, you are operations managers and supervisors who represent the university, instill the vision and goals of the school in your staff, develop processes, work with customers to meet their needs, problem solve, and work as stewards with University resources. Those are the skills you need to develop, promote, and advertise to your school. When they see the job you have done overseeing the mail operation, they will find that those skills are transferrable to other areas that need to be done as well.

Mail is still vital, and will be for the foreseeable future. The sky is not falling, but it is certainly possible that mail goes the way of the buggy whip. But be honored that they university chose you to oversee this operation while it was vital, and be prepared to do the same for another vital university operation if mail does go away.

Mark Goodrich

University of Rochester

President, NACUMS

***NACUMS is committed to understanding the role of Mail Services within the Education Industry.  Our annual conference is coming July 17-20, 2011 in Nashville.  Check here for more information: http://www.nacums.org/Conferences/2011/conference11.php ***