Ocean Yields Unsuspected Treasure
Safe Harbor In the Pension Sea
Corrections or additions?
This article was prepared for the October 10, 2001 edition of U.S.
1 Newspaper. All rights
reserved.
Take Time by the Tail
Lots of dreams go unfulfilled for lack of a big chunk
of time in which to accomplish them. Lots of projects fall further
and further behind for lack of an uninterrupted hour in which to get
them done. This does not have to be so, says Cathy Nissley,
founder of Newtown, Pennsylvania, marketing and corporate
communications
firm CIC Creative. “Instead of thinking `This is going to take
12 hours, so I’m going to have to wait,’ break it down into 15-minute
pieces,” is her advice. “People think anything less than half
an hour is useless,” she says, “but it’s amazing what you
can get done in 15 minutes.”
Nissley speaks on “How to Do Twice as Much in Half the Time”
when she addresses a meeting of the Central Jersey Women’s Network
on Thursday, October 11, at 6 p.m. at the Oakland House Restaurant
in Red Bank. Cost: $28. Call 908-281-9234.
Nissley graduated from Drexel University in 1975 with a degree in
design and merchandising. After working as a product manager for
several
corporations, she started her company in 1993. Her advice on time
management comes from personal experience. By the mid-1980s her career
was taking off, but it was taking too great a personal toll.
“I had no time for myself,” she recalls. “I had a long
commute. I was not sleeping. I was not eating properly. I was
miserable.”
The key question in her life became “How can I better utilize
time?”
Her answer was to start keeping a journal, writing down what she was
doing all day long. She found that she spent “a lot of time in
colleagues’ offices bitching and moaning about the boss.” Cutting
out that time wasting, energy sapping activity, she found time to
take a walk in the middle of the workday. She also scheduled in
meetings
with a nutritionist, and began to feel better.
Taming time, says Nissley, involves “making a conscious decision
to take back your life.” She offers these tips for doing just
that.
Be decisive. “Being indecisive is a huge waste oftime,” says Nissley. “If you can’t make a decision, itsnowballs.”She suggests setting boundaries, staking our parameters, making adecision, and then moving on. For instance, if you need to hire acontractor, make a list of what you expect him to do, when you needthe project completed, what you are willing to pay, and what termsare acceptable to you. “Avoid back and forth,” says Nissley.It sucks up time, and it creates stress too.Delegate. “It’s very difficult to let go of thingsyou are used to doing,” Nissley says. Anyone who takes pride inthe job he does is likely to feel uncomfortable giving up any partof it, yet failing to do so is a sure way to quickly get into timedebt. As soon as a project comes up, begin to think which parts ofit could be outsourced. Get in the habit of concentrating on coretasks, and passing peripheral jobs on to subordinates orsubcontractors.Avoid the pitfalls of perfectionism. “There is nosuch thing as perfect,” Nissley declares. Trying to achieve thatgoal is fruitless, and one of the biggest time wasters of all. Shesees this in her business when a client insists on rewrite afterrewrite,only to return to something very like the original copy. For mostbusiness tasks she says, “good is good enough.”Don’t procrastinate. Jobs deferred are jobs that onlygrow bigger and bigger. If a task is not worth doing, don’t placeit on the to do list. If it is worth doing, schedule it in, and getit out of the way.Just say no. Possibly the most difficult word in thevocabularyof every worker is “no.” Whether toiling in the halls of amultinational or working from what used to be the household laundryroom, everyone is under pressure to take on more. Failing toconfidentlyenunciate that two-letter word causes oceans of time to disappearin ways that are rarely satisfying. Acknowledging the difficulty somany of us have in turning down requests of all kinds, Nissley offerssome painless strategies.”Schedule conflict,” she says. “Those are the only wordsyou need.” Don’t elaborate. Don’t apologize. Just confidentlyannounce that a schedule conflict makes it impossible for you to pinchhit at the meeting, pick up your neighbor’s dog at obedience school,or babysit for the boss’s adorable twins on Saturday night.In cases where you genuinely would like to help out, maybe by sittingon a committee or taking a turn manning the Little League hot dogstand, but feel doing so would be too much in the immediate future,Nissley suggests another strategy. “Say `Not now’,” shesuggests.”Say `This is not a good time, but leave me on your call-backlist’.”These are graceful ways out that protect your time, and reduce thestress that comes with thinking up a series of creative excuses.Watch those phone calls. Nissley says it is a goodidea to write down the length of each call for a week or two.”It’samazing,” she says, “how fast time goes when you’re talkingon the phone.” Beware of compulsive E-mail checking, too. Schedulein specific times of the day to read and answer E-mail, and let theinstant missives sit quietly in their in-box between times.No matter what, there will remain but 24 hours in day. Thetrick,says Nissley is to analyze how you are spending them. “Don’t ask`Where did the day go?’” she urges. “Find out where itwent.”Top Of PageOcean Yields Unsuspected TreasureAs the saying goes, we know more about the backsideof the moon than the bottom of the ocean. But Peter A. Rona,professor of marine geology and geophysics at Rutgers University,says that “the vision is changing rapidly, with major advancesin ocean exploration. And we are discovering that there are processesand living ecosystems in the deep ocean that are as essential to thebalanced working of the earth as the rain forest is on land.”On Tuesday, October 16, Rona speaks on “Marine Mineral Resourcesfor the New Millennium,” at the Frick Chemistry Laboratory atPrinceton University, at 5.30 p.m. A dinner at Prospect House willfollow the lecture. Call 609-258-5202.Rona, who has been engaged in the exploration of the deep sea floorfor almost his entire career, has just returned from deep divingexpeditionsin the middle Atlantic and the Hudson Canyon, a submarine canyon thatstarts at the mouth of the Hudson River and runs some 400 miles outinto the Atlantic. The lecture will be illustrated with slides ofthe deep ocean.”The ocean is the future,” says Rona. “It covers 71percentof the earth, and is largely unknown.” With a Yale Ph.D. ingeologyand geophysics, Rona started out in oil exploration, but was quicklydrawn to the oceans as “the last frontier on earth.” Beforecoming to Rutgers to build programs in marine science, he was thesenior research geophysicist at the U.S. Government’s National Oceanicand Atmospheric Administration, working from its laboratory in Miami,Florida.Rona says recent major advances in ocean exploration have revealedthe amazing world of heat-tolerant microbes. Living in deep oceanichot springs, the microbes have enormous potential for use in medicineand industry.”These microbes have a whole different life system,” explainsRona. “They are completely independent of the energy fromphotosynthesis,which sustains most of the food chain base, both on land and in theshallow oceans. Their energy comes from chemicals that well up fromthe earth’s interior and discharge into the hot springs on the floorof the deep ocean. This is an entirely different ecosystem — wecall it a `chemosynthetic’ ecosystem.”The heat-loving microbes have been found to contain a whole newspectrumof compounds, enzymes in particular, that are finding applicationsin a number of industries. The National Institute for Health iscurrentlyresearching some enzymes for potential cancer curing drugs, andanotheruseful enzyme is used to replicate DNA, for use in identificationprocesses in forensic and other investigations. Other applicationsare in high-temperature industrial processes, such as enhancing theflow in deep oil wells.The fast-expanding research in oceanography has resulted in the growthof myriad marine-related industries, with commercial opportunitiesblossoming in marine products and equipment, instrumentation, andnatural products from the oceans.A number of leading universities, including Rutgers, have programsin marine sciences for those wishing to pursue a career inoceanography.”There are new technologies emerging constantly,” says Rona.”There is a whole new world in the ocean depths, and thesetechnologieswill emerge at an accelerating rate as we explore the oceans. Rightnow it’s a great age of ocean exploration.”The ocean basins have long been regarded as passive containers, aview which accounted for mineral deposits on continental shelves suchas sand, gravel, heavy metals, and gemstones. Of these minerals, sandand gravel for construction and desalination of seawater are growingfastest as materials necessary for survival, and diamonds havedevelopedinto a major industry off southwest Africa.”The advent of the theory of plate tectonics in the 1960s changedour view of ocean basins from passive sinks to active sources ofmineralization,”says Rona. “The constant movement of the ocean crust at plateboundaries creates heat, which drives the hydrothermal circulationsystems below the seafloor.”In this recently discovered environment live the heat-loving microbes,which currently fascinate scientists and industry alike with theirpromise of enormous potential benefits.”These microbes are sources of novel organic compounds that havemany applications to industrial processes,” says Rona. “Butthe microbes themselves appear to be one of the most ancient formsof life on earth. They are being investigated as relating to the baseof the evolutionary tree of life, and may indeed be a key to theoriginof life itself.”— Gina ZechielTop Of PageSafe Harbor In the Pension SeaNo sir, it absolutely does not apply any more. All those401(k) pension planning percentages you have worked out so carefullyand have finally fed into your debugged software are now going theway of the floppy disk. Come January, 2002 all pension laws changedramatically.But that’s all right. You’ve been keeping up, and know all the nuancesof the new law, don’t you? If not, you may want to keep an iratebookkeeperand employees’ rep away from your door by attending the pensionseminaron Tuesday, October 16, at 8 a.m. at the Central Jersey chapter ofWorld-wide Employee Benefits (WEB) Network at the New Jersey HospitalAssociation Conference Center at 760 Alexander Road. Barry Kurtz,whose firm, Pension Advisory Services, designs plans for theOppenheimerFund, Merrill Lynch, Prudential, and Dreyfus, speaks on”InnovativePension Designs: Hype or Heaven?” Cost: $40. Call 609-538-1943.Few items in the benefits spectrum offer as many misunderstood optionsas pensions, and few understand them better than Kurtz. Brooklyn bornand educated, Kurtz studied Shakespeare at the University of Alaska.He carried the bard’s sharp wisdom with him through a business inVermont and then into his own firm, Pension Advisory Services, whichprovides services to investment and insurance companies.Can you work out your own pension plan? “Well,” says Kurtz,”yes — the same way you can do your own corporate taxes. Justget the form and fill it out.” But those who do run the risk ofstumbling blindly into the pit that ensnared one of Kurtz’s clients.It began for this unnamed northern New Jersey gem dealer when hevisitedSwitzerland and discovered a fabulous diamond. Its price glistenedas brightly as its facets. A real steal. Swiftly, he phoned hisbookkeeperand panted into the phone, “Wire me the $350,000 from the pensionfund. We are going to make a real investment for our folks’retirement.””No,” the bookkeeper replied.”What do you mean `No’? he bellowed back.After a great deal of arguing, and a hasty return flight home, thegem dealer learned that his trusted bookkeeper recently had stolenthe entire $1.2 million pension fund. A low blow certainly, but onlythe first.Our employer had bonded himself and his partner, but never his sweetand trusted bookkeeper. Thus, the fidelity bond did not insure hisloss. Further, his bookkeeper, by then tucked safely away in a stateprison, sent word that she wants her pension. Our crimson-facedemployercalled in Kurtz. Kurtz shook his head and informed him that the wayhe had mis-written his benefits contract, the pension must be paidregardless. So to this day the unhappy employer shells out $1,000a month to his larcenous former bookkeeper, the very person who madewith his fund.Few employers make such ghastly blunders — or have such bad luck.But, notes Kurtz, there are host of pension alternatives that manyemployers don’t examine, to their detriment.The new 401K law. This law blows the old 15 percent limitoff the 401K retirement plan. Beginning in January, says Kurtz,employeesof participating firms can defer all of their salary, except for anominal tax share, into the 401K. If, for example, your wife worksfor you, receiving a $20,000 annual salary, and your household doesnot need her salary to pay the monthly bills, she can put $19,000into the 401K plan, saving only a small remainder for tax deduction.Such deferment applies up to a specified dollar amount.The old ’86 reform. This law afforded a particular typeof safe retirement harbor where upper salaried employees were nolongerbound by the pension dictates of the lower paid workers. Previously,those designated as high-salary employees (company officers and staffpaid over $80,000 per year) had to follow a pro-rated formula whichbasically limited their retirement deferment to 125 percent of theaverage percentage of chosen contribution other workers made intothe plan. If the lesser-paid employees lowered their contributionto the plan in a given month, the higher ups were forced to follow.This tie is now broken.Negative Election. This is an ideal strategy for battlingworker inertia. Instead of offering a given pension plan to allworkersto vote on individually, the plan is simply published in-house andemployees are told that unless they specifically deny this plan, theyare automatically opted in. This enables swift, all-at-once adoptionof the firm’s new pension plan, without waiting for individual sign-updates.Safe Harbors. “The concept is old,” remarks Kurtz,”but the number of variations are infinite, and each employerneeds examine the number, category, and salary range of his workersbefore rubberstamping someone else’s formula.” You can run a basicmatch plan where every employee who has worked, for example, 1,000hours, receives a 100 percent match of his first one percentcontribution,on a sliding scale up to a match of four percent. Or you can fix theplan with a straight three percent match across the board.Beyond these core pension designs, a lot of very clever andcarefully strategized options are available. Within the past decade,money management plans have proliferated in every aspect of business.Most of us swim in a sea of options whose differences we can scarcelycalculate. While we may blanch at the idea of dumping our golden yearsinto the hands of some outsourced “expert,” decisions mustbe made. And sometimes it pays to have a veteran guide you into theright game. After all, retirement need not be a crapshoot.— Bart JacksonTop Of Page9-11 AngelsThe Realtors Disaster Relief Fund is providingfamilies of the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks withpayments for residential mortgages or rent for up to three months.The fund was created by the National Association of Realtors withthe New Jersey Association of Realtors cooperating to respond to theneeds of New Jersey residents. An application is available on theInternet at njar.comThe New Jersey Conference of Mayors has established acharitable relief fund to help support families who are victims ofthe attack on the World Trade Center and to assist in the recoveryeffort.The U.S. Small Business Administration is providinglow-interestloans to New Jersey small business owners who may have sufferedeconomichardship as a result of the attack on the World Trade Center.Assistanceis available in six counties, including Middlesex County.Small businesses may be eligible for disaster loans up to $1.5 millionfor the SBA. Interest rates can be as low as 4 percent with termsup to 30 years. Small business owners can obtain information bycalling609-989-5232.The Mercer County Bar Association, along with Trentonlaw firms Jerrold Kamensky & Associates and Robin K. Lord,and Philadelphia-based International Computer Consultants aresponsoring a golf outing to benefit the September 11th Fund. It willbe held at the Jericho National Golf Club in Washington Crossing,Pennsylvania, on Monday, October 22. Call 609-585-6200.Cafe Colore in the South Brunswick Shopping Mall isdonatingall revenue from Sunday, October 14 through Wednesday, October 17to the American National Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund to the aidthe relief efforts at the World Trade Center.Piper’s Pub in Skillman held a fundraiser on Saturday,October 6, to aid survivors and victims’ families recovering fromthe World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.On Wednesday, October 17, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. Ice Landin Hamilton is holding an event called “Skate Against Hate.”The skating center will collect a $10 donation at the door and willgive all proceeds to the New York State World Trade Center ReliefFund.The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has donated an initial$5 million to aid families and communities disrupted by the violentacts of September 11. The first grant will be directed to theimmediateneeds of the victims, their families, and the affected communities.The foundation efforts will be coordinated with those of other leadingorganizations — like September 11th Fund.Previous StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
