The Blog Less Traveled

Let’s end the month of February on a high note. There’s a gentleman named Bob Moore who owns a business in Milwaukie, Oregon called Bob’s Red Mill Natural Foods. He started the business with his wife, Charlee, in 1978. It’s grown steadily over the years and is a multi-million dollar operation with over 200 employees. This month he celebrated his 81st birthday. Normally, the person celebrating their birthday gets all the presents. However, in this case, the tables were turned – and in a big way. Bob unveiled an Employee Stock Ownership Plan that effectively gave the ownership of the company to his employees. Any employee who has been working there for at least three years is a fully vested owner. How about that for showing employee appreciation?

Here’s another good example of why you still have to have hope in the human spirit when most of what you hear on the news is about corruption and human failings. We definitely need to hear more about the Bob Moores out there.

To read more on this story in The Oregonian newspaper, click here.

I first came across the story of Leonard Abess in a Reader’s Digest article in their July 2009 magazine. He’s the CEO of the Miami-based City National Bank. When he recently sold his majority stake in the bank, he gave $60 million dollars of his profit to all of his current employees and retirees in the form of bonuses based on years served. The guy didn’t tell anyone about it. He didn’t publicize it in any way. He just did a great thing without looking for any pat on the back. Compared to all the self-centered and egotistical CEOs we seem to read about every day, Leonard Abess is a real hero – a decent man. This is the kind of guy I want to work for. He genuinely appreciates his employees and gave them a lot more than the typical lip service most bosses in his position do. In today’s business environment, he is a beacon of hope and someone that more bosses need to emulate. Obviously, not all bosses are in a position to give the type of monetary rewards that he did. However, there are a lot of ways that bosses can reward and recognize their employees. Simple things that employees can appreciate and feel good about.

Let’s hope that there are more bosses like Leonard Abess out there. Let’s hope that his good deed is an inspiration for more people in the business world. If you’re interested in reading more about this man, I included a link to one of the articles about him below.

For the Wharton article, click here.

This is my second article in the “Good News” series. I just ran across a website called Ode Magazine. It offers both a print and online version of their magazine. An excerpt of their “About” page states:

Ode is a print and online publication about positive news, about the people and ideas that are changing our world for the better. For the first nine years of its existence, Ode was published in Dutch. But in the summer of 2004 … it launched the English-language edition of the magazine. Ode now appears ten times a year in both English and Dutch, with a worldwide circulation of more than 100,000. In print and online, Ode’s aim is to bring a new reality into view, to explore opportunities for positive change in our daily lives and our daily minds.

There is a link on their website called “Good News” that lists articles from various media outlets that they consider positive or good in some aspect or form. My only criticism after perusing the list, and the magazine itself, is that it seems overly reliant on the liberal-leaning media. The majority of stories are from NPR, MSN, Slate, Huffington Post, New York Times, The Guardian, etc. I think they could use a little more balance in this regard. You can see some of the liberal agenda and ideology working its way through some of the articles. There seems be be a good dose of climate change and tree-hugging articles in the current listing. The articles aren’t really geared at presenting a good news story of a personal nature. It’s more slanted at themes and issues that affect us all. However, I’ll try to keep an open mind and not be too judgmental at this point. It might prove educational and enlightening for me. See folks, I’m even trying to follow my own advice that I wrote in an earlier article last week.

To go to the magazine’s home page, click here.

To go to their “Good News” section, click here.

In previous postings, I think I’ve harped on the fact that the news media, in general, seems bound and determined to get as much bad and sensational news on the air as possible. There’s no attempt to provide any semblance of balance in this regard. It permeates television, newspapers, the Internet, etc. This negative bias really grates on me. I want to read about or view some of the good things happening in this country and around the world. And there is a lot of good out there and it’s not all that hard to find.

What I’m going to do is start a new category called “Good News”. It’s going to feature a story about someone who’s doing something good out there. No parameters other than that. It can be an individual, a group, an organization or a company.

My first good news article is about a man named Jorge Munoz. I found an article about him on both the New York Times and the CNN websites. He’s just an ordinary guy but he’s doing extraordinary things. He’s a bus driver in New York but he spends most of his time cooking and delivering meals to the homeless. From what I read, he does this every night, seven days a week, 365 days a year. The links below will take you to the appropriate websites. If you want to read a heart-warming story about the human spirit, these two articles are definitely worth a look.

For the CNN article, click here.

For the New York Times article, click here.