Public / private partnerships and the way forward on glass foot

Joe Laymon is Vice President of human resources, medical and security for Chevron Corporation. He leads Chevron global human resources, medical care and security features.

Only a few were predicted that the country that only a few decades later, to put the first man on the moon would face significant differences in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. But with the United States experience unfilled 9.1 percent unemployment, and many jobs in the technical field, our challenges are clear.

We see an acute human resources challenge in the energy sector alone. According to the National Petroleum Council the number of persons exceeds the entitlement to pension, the number of people in the industry. The U.S. energy employees must be complemented, meet the growing worldwide demand for energy.

And yet, the national assessment of educational progress reports that about 75 percent of the students of our nation, not in mathematics are completed they are 12 degrees, as the primary driver of economy of the United States in STEM fields. In fact, you are competing U.S. Department of labor projects, to need which 15 20 science successful on the fastest growing professions in 2014 or mathematics skills for the jobs.

The challenges are particularly acute in California, Chevron home State. Same report by the national assessment of educational progress noted, that the proportion of the California students in the VORBAU topics below the national average.

Chevron thinking years ahead, about how can we invest in the development of human capital to build staff bring stem skills and ingenuity, energy to the global market can use. To this end, we have partnered with a number of nonprofit organizations in California, the educational challenges of today new drive solutions make small changes, produce significant results.

In one classroom in Richmond, California, a community that suffers from some of the highest unemployment in the State, were students, the school brings with the launch of a technical laboratory. Skills of the pupils in technical principles which was laboratory through our partnership with project established the stem curriculum for middle possible lead the way, a non-profit, and high school students.

A few miles on the road in Oakland, California, we young women, the stem cells are not otherwise suspended could fields career in technical areas through Techbridge, an organization the opportunity information that provides after school and summer programs and encourages girls to pursue education in STEM disciplines. The organization offers practical projects, exploration career and academic and vocational guidance for girls.

We depend, skilled workers, to provide safe and reliable energy. This need is only as the demand for energy increasing around the world grow. And as well as the plans for the energy sector several decades in advance, we need a long-term perspective to improve STEM education.

To solve future employment challenges STEM curriculum must support for the private sector in our schools during the partnership with non-profit organizations such as project lead the way and Techbridge. The formation of partnerships, complementary resources, expertise and resources to help can be used a competitive workforce back economic prosperity in the United States for the 21st century, in the short term to unemployment solve and our nation competitive in the long term.

Do you have to share something? Send messages and contributions to stem@usnews.com.

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'No public money' to buy Titian

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23 October 2011 Last updated at 12:21 GMT Titian's Diana and Callisto has a price tag of £50m The Scottish government has said it will not make a contribution towards securing a second masterpiece of Western art for the nation.

The National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) and the National Gallery in London have until the end of next year to buy Titian's Diana and Callisto.

Its companion piece, Diana and Acteon, was bought for the nation with the help of £12m from the Scottish government.

A spokesman said there were "no additional funds" for major purchases.

The government added it had ensured the long-term loan of the "important Bridgewater Collection to Scotland for another generation".

But the spokesman added: "Since 2008, successive culture ministers have made it clear that this government has made its contribution to the campaign.

"We wish the NGS every success with their efforts to secure the other Titian painting, Diana and Callisto.

"However, with a 57% cut to the culture portfolio capital budget over the next three years, there are no additional funds available for major purchases."

The Duke of Sutherland has put Titian's Diana and Callisto up for sale with a price tag of about £50m.

That painting, and its pair Diana and Acteon, were produced in the 1500s by Renaissance artist Titian - full name Tiziano Vecelli - and considered to be among his greatest works.

The Bridgewater Collection is considered the most important private collection of Old Master paintings on loan to a UK institution in the UK.

Included are masterpieces by artists such as Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt and Poussin.

The pictures have been on continuous public view in Edinburgh's National Gallery of Scotland since the collection was placed there in 1945 by the then 5th Earl of Ellesmere, later 6th Duke of Sutherland.

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Analysis: Move to new plans may not save public pensions

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Sherri (C) and Curtis Walker (R) go over retirement options with Calpers Benefit Program Specialist Lisa Bacon (L) at the Calpers regional office in Sacramento, California, October 21, 2009.

Credit: Reuters/Max Whittaker

By Lisa Lambert

WASHINGTON | Fri Sep 30, 2011 11:37am EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - To fix their persistent pension problems, some states are looking to reshape their retirement plans to resemble those in the private sector, but they may find may employees resistant and the savings elusive.

Over the last few decades, the private sector has ditched traditional pension plans with their defined benefits. They have been replaced with defined contribution accounts, such as 401(k)s, in which employees allocate a set amount each month to invest -- often partly matched by employers -- and then cash out at retirement.

This has left the public sector as the main provider of defined benefit plans, which pay employees a fixed amount each month after retiring.

But pension funds have been stung by the recent financial crisis and recession, leaving taxpayers and political leaders agonizing over the possibility they will be unable to afford those defined payments. Estimates of a total shortfall range from around $700 billion to $3 trillion, due to differing forecasts of investment returns.

"If the idea is that tax revenues are down and state budgets are crunched, and they surely are ... I think it's worthwhile to take a step back and look at the actual costs," said Ilana Boivie, director of programs for the National Institute on Retirement Security, or NIRS

"Most states that have done those feasibility studies have found that you're not going to save any money" by switching to a defined contribution plan.

According to the National Conference of Public Employee Retirement Systems, the next two years will see "modest growth" in hybrid plans that combine elements of the defined benefit and defined contribution schemes. Around 5 percent of public entities already offer hybrids.

About 20 percent provide defined contribution plans, and around 5 percent will add a defined contribution option in the next two years.

Some states want to keep current employees in pensions and put new hires into defined contribution plans.

Alaska, the District of Columbia, Michigan and Minnesota all use defined contribution plans as their primary retirement offerings. In July, Utah began requiring employees to choose between a defined contribution plan and a hybrid.

The NIRS, in a study released on Thursday, found that moving into a system similar to 401(k) accounts can push up costs, especially at the start.

"That unfunded liability represents a debt that is a benefit promised and owed," said Boivie. "That unfunded liability will not go away."

When the defined benefit plan is closed to new members, employees and employer contributions to the plan could spike because the time span for wiping out funding gaps will be shorter and new employees will be putting money into their own retirement accounts instead of the pension plan.

Meanwhile, employers must bear the administrative costs for both plans as they phase out the pension program.

Defined benefit plans pool risks to achieve greater investment returns, the NIRS report found. They are able to "provide the same retirement income at about half the cost of a defined contribution plan."

The study also looked at retirement systems that offer employees a choice and found almost all workers prefer pensions.

The group examined the West Virginia's Teachers Retirement System's decision to provide new employees with defined contribution retirement plans in 1991. It found that the loss of new members made it more difficult to finance the unfunded obligations of the defined benefit plan.

Stock market problems prevented retirements from 2000 through 2002 and those in the new plan "achieved much lower investment returns" than the closed pension fund. In 2005, West Virginia returned to a defined benefit plan.

Nebraska opted for a defined contribution plan in 1967, which it closed in 2002 for a plan that does not let employees control investments made with their accounts. Instead, it guarantees an annual return and then pays out like a defined contribution plan, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

ALL GOVERNMENTS RETHINKING RETIREMENT

During the 1990s stock market boom, said Timothy Rouse, vice president of business development and public markets at ING U.S. Retirement, interest in public sector defined contribution plans surged. But, he said, it came from employees hungry for higher returns and not from states seeking savings.

The ING retirement group does not advocate how governments structure their retirement systems. Instead, it helps them manage the redesigns they choose.

Rouse said state and other public authorities can struggle with shifting to defined contribution plans because "in the short-term you're trading an 'IOU' for a hard dollar expense."

During recent budget crises, some states shrank their pension contributions or skipped them entirely.

Rouse said each state and local government has a unique set of issues to address in pensions. He added, though, that the recent recession is forcing all governments, including the federal government, to look at reforms.

"It's pretty much across the board. No one is safe from these discussions," he said.

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Could Romney Private-Sector Resume Trump GOP Foes' Public Service?

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For nearly every other career out there, on-the-job experience tends to be the best way to hone the skills necessary to get ahead. But for politicians, that might not be the case.

That's the message that former Massachusetts Republican Gov. Mitt Romney has been trying to get across, anyway, as he sells his resume to the public for a chance at the White House in 2012. Taking a jab at both President Obama and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, his top foe of the moment in the bid for the GOP's presidential nomination, Romney on Tuesday made sure to highlight his private-sector creds over his competitors' public-sector pasts. "I am a conservative businessman. I have spent most of my life outside of politics, dealing with real problems in the real economy," he said in his speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in San Antonio. "Career politicians got us into this mess and they simply don't know how to get us out!"

For Romney, who dropped from first to second place in national polls after Perry joined the race, this could be a smart way to distinguish himself from the pack of current and former legislators he's up against. [Read about Romney's political odds in the South.]

Lately, as he travels the campaign trail and attacks Obama's jobs policies, Romney's been careful to emphasize his 25 years at Bain Capital, an investment firm based in Boston. While at Bain, Romney was able to make once-struggling small businesses into familiar household names, like the Staples office supply company, for example, or the Sports Authority athletic equipment chain. Compared to Obama, who began his career as a community organizer and law professor before stepping from the Illinois State Senate, to the U.S. Senate, to the White House, or Perry, who has been involved in Texas politics since 1985 and is the state's longest-serving governor, Romney can safely say his quarter century at Bain gives him more years in the private sector than either.

That comparative advantage as a successful, multimillionaire businessman could certainly play well for Romney given the current American political culture, says Thomas Patterson, professor of government and the press at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. "That particular argument probably resonates more in this country with this electorate than it would in a lot of other places, in part because we have such a steep tradition and affection for private enterprise, and we're more skeptical about government. So if there's a bias attitudinally in this country, it's a bias toward the private sector," Patterson says. [Read how Romney's wealth could be a problem for him in the 2012 presidential election.]

But, even with a general affinity for capitalism, it's still unclear whether Romney's type of CEO-style business experience would translate well into the role of the nation's commander in chief. Similarly, it's not at all proven that being a career politician, like Perry, is such a bad thing either. According to Lynn Vavreck, a political science professor at the University of California-Los Angeles, being a career politician, as Romney refers to them, could be seen as a major asset for someone seeking the presidency, and especially at a time when legislative politics are as contentious as they are in Washington. "What a career politician understands that someone who's new to politics and unpracticed at it doesn't understand is that we often agree on the goal, but we very rarely agree on the way to get there. So the hard work of politics is getting to a point where we can agree on how to get to a goal that everyone wants," she says. "There are a lot of benefits to having spent a career in politics, [namely] being practiced at the art of bargain or compromise, or becoming an expert in a policy area." [Read more about the 2012 presidential election.]

Not to mention, those coming straight from the private sector have rarely, since the start of the 20th century, made a successful run at the White House. In fact, according to Patterson, the last person to get close was Wendell Wilkie, who won the Republican nomination in 1940. Of course, Romney does have a full four-year term as Massachusetts governor to help him overcome that historical obstacle and segue from the executive boardroom to the Oval Office.

Whether his attacks on career politicians will be good for him or not will become clearer as the race progresses, but his emphasis on his own background and such natural differences between himself and other candidates should ultimately score Romney some points. "You can't present yourself as something you're not. He's not a career politician, he's a private-sector guy, so he has to leverage that as a strength," says Vavreck. "Romney is just doing what any candidate would do. He's trying to paint his characteristics as a strength."

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9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero set to open to the Public

NEW YORK - the plot of land that has known for a decade as "the pile", "the pit" and "ground zero" will host the public Monday for the first time since the terrible morning in 2001, and visitors will find a place transformed since instead of grey ruins so embedded in our collective imagination. "

The 9/11 Memorial & National Museum expected to open its doors to 10, in fairly tight security, and allow a few thousand people to walk among hundreds of trees of white oak on an 8-acre plaza and look to two huge fountains where the twin towers of the World Trade Center was once.

Visitors can also run their fingers on the names of the 2 977 people killed in the terrorist attacks in New York, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania, so that the six killed in the bombing of the trade center in 1993. The names engraved in bronze, will bring the two pits.

Memorial tree adorned at ground zero plaza opened to the families of the victims and with dignitaries for the first time, Sunday, on the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

After that locate the name of his sister in the massive reflecting pool bronze medal when South of the World Trade Center Tower once stood, Salma Simjee was comforted by the knowledge he had a sustainable place. Yet it was not enough to facilitate his grief.

"I would prefer not his name there," said Fresno, California, woman, who had travelled to New York to mourn his sister, Nasima h. Simjee, financial analyst killed in the attacks of September 11. "But it's here."

As both of hundreds of members, the Memorial of 9/11 visiting for the first time, Sunday, Simjee was torn between wanting to celebrate that victims now have a permanent memorial and the knowledge that there was a void in their family life.

His cousin, Sufia Simjee, of Baltimore, Maryland, said that at least they now have a place from flowers for Nasima - even more important since they have never received his remains. "It gives us a place of honour him," she said.

Although thousands of construction workers have come and gone on the site over the years, Monday marks the first time that ordinary Americans without a badge, press pass or a helmet, will be able to walk the grounds.

"It will be that terrorists tried to prevent, we created a place where, regardless of allegiances policies, economic class, ethnic origin, country of origin, people will come together, pay their respect to a location that is transformed to another noted for such pain... to a place of astonishing beauty," President memorial Joe Daniels said that preparations were made for the opening day last week.

This could be some time before the Memorial becomes truly renoué with the city.

For now, public access to the site will be closely controlled. Visitors will need to obtain passes in advance, allowing them to enter only the reserved time. Security screening will be similar to the procedure in airports and courthouses. Visitors will have to empty their pockets, walk through a metal detector and send their handbags and backpacks with an x-ray machine.

A large part of the memorial complex is always closed and will remain for another year. The Pavilion of the Museum, a pendulum structure that subtly evokes the sections of the facade of trade centre which remained standing after the collapse of towers, is scheduled to open on the 11th anniversary of the attacks.

The underground part of the site will not also be open until 2012, meaning visitors will have to wait to see remarkable monuments such as the giant slurry wall, built to keep the Hudson River from flooding of the foundations of the Mall, or staircase of survivor that has helped so many people to flee in security.

But given the names was enough for many families.

"He breaks me," said David Martinez, who watched the attacks would happen to his Office in Manhattan and later learned that he had lost a cousin and a brother - one in each round.

Debra Burlingame, whose brother, Charles, was the pilot of American Airlines flight 77, wept when she found his name grouped with other crew members and passengers on the flight.

"These are all of his crew," she said. "I know that all their families." These passengers, I knew their families. These people are real people me. It is very touching to see all these people here together. »

The centrepiece of the Memorial, the two giant, square pits and reflecting pools who sit in the fingerprints of the two towers, is a marvel. Hurtling down the four walls of each fountain is the largest of the fountains in North America.

Perhaps also striking are the huge towers now pushing into the sky around the plaza. A World Trade Center, the arrow dubbed the Freedom Tower, is now 1 000 feet high and is on track to become the tallest building in the United States. The World Trade Center steel skeleton new 4 is 47 storeys high and counting. The construction by the germination of cranes and fly where workers are building a new rail hub of sparks.

The roar of the construction will be a constant on the site for some time, but it is large enough and open enough for the the standing people in the memorial plaza feel inspired by the March of progress, rather than overwhelmed by his noisy energy.

Some 400,000 people have already booked places in the coming months, said Daniels. The memorial foundation has made arrangements for an entry for the relatives of the victims and provides on setting aside certain hours or days where the plaza will be open to firefighters, police and other emergency services of agencies that have lost someone in the attacks.

"Once on the plaza, I think that people will have that very special feeling to walk on the ground that the public does not have in the past 10 years," he said.

If there is a defeat in all hope in the reconstruction of ground zero, is that the terror inspired by the attacks has not yet fully released his hold on the city. Monumental space designers had envisioned as one of major public places of the city, a status, it can reach until security restrictions fade. This day will come, but not immediately.

"This is a disadvantage, but if you think about any site in the world, I think it's a place where people expect go through some security," said Daniels.

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Appeal to the Public Vigilance Ahead of 9/11 reap these rewards in New York

The New York Police Department, says that its programme to protect the city against a terrorist strike by asking the people that "see something" to "say something of" helps protect against a specific city, but not confirmed terrorist threat against NYC and Washington.

Officials said senior police through civil vigilance campaign of the New York police, the number of reports of suspicious packages and vehicles is now double to triple the average daily.

Of Police Assistant Commissioner Paul Browne, head of communications Commissioner of police of Raymond w. Kelly and a key Adviser, said that, as of this afternoon, the number of reports of suspicious package throughout the city, which normally total approximately 15 per day, stood at 45 for the past eight hours - about three times the average number of reports.

Reports of suspicious vehicles, said, which normally total about 100 a day, amounted to 200 by the middle of the afternoon, or double the average daily.

"This shows that the campaign"If you see any thing, something to say"works," said Browne. "It's everything we wanted."

None of the reports proved to be connected to terrorist activities, he said. But it was less important than the fact that New Yorkers have been helping spot unusual or suspect activity.

Mr. Browne said that the bomb team was called to check on a report of unusual activity on the 59(e) Bridge Street some time after 20 Friday night. A passenger in a vehicle travelling slowly on the bridge because of checkpoints at the entrance to and exit from the bridge spotted what he considered an unusual cluster of gadgets and wires attached to one of the beams of the bridge. After the taking of a photograph of the suspicious cluster on his cell phone, he showed it to a police officer at a checkpoint on the bridge, Manhattan Browne said.

The police officer, called in turn, unit of the NYPD's Emergency Service, who then called the squad of bomb to test the beam from wire-laden suspect. The team quickly determined that there was no explosive material in the gadget and bomb that the device is connected to some ongoing work on the bridge. "But this is precisely what we want," said Browne.

By asking New Yorkers, in effect, as the police department civil eyes and ears, he said, millions of New Yorkers were potentially strengthen the effort of approximately 50,000 employees of the city, 34,000 of them uniformed officers, are to identify any suspicious activity.

Since the Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly held a press conference of 22 two days ago, the police service has flooded the city with an army of cops to identify suspicious activity and deter a terrorist strike on the city. The demonstration of force sparked a torrent of complaints of citizens on the snarled traffic, additional bags and backpack checks to the Metro and train stations and on the major bridges, tunnels and entry checkpoints to the points of the city. But Browne insisted that the city had no choice given that federal officials have been characterizing as a "credible" threat that Al Qaeda three car bombs were bound for New York, Washington and possibly up to five cities American to conduct a terrorist strike during the commemoration of the anniversary of 9/11.

Dependence of the city of his campaign "If you see any thing, say something" is regarded as highly effective by city officials and independent experts to fight against terrorism who have studied the program. Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security incorporated New York injunction in the Federal counter-terrorism effort.

And a report to the soon by the Policy Forum Madison, a group of experts in security based in New York, concluded that the campaign is not only very cost effective, but a multiplier of strength for the police.

"The program costs very little but effectively involves the public in his own defence, Michael Sheehan, former Assistant Commissioner NYPD for the fight against terrorism and the author of the study, said." "". "Tip-offs" of a member of family or community concerned that proved an extremely effective tool counter-terror, said.

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San Francisco can pass restrictions of public nudity

Published September 07, 2011| Associated Press

Something could soon come between proud San Francisco nudist and their unusual freedom to all nu.

Walking naked is legal in the city under most circumstances, but a city supervisor concerned about public health and sanitation has introduced legislation Tuesday that would require little inclined to put a cloth or other clothing barriers under their merits when they take a seat in public.

Proposal of the supervisor Scott Wiener would also require nudist to conceal in restaurants.

This "that does," Weiner said the San Francisco Chronicle (http://bit.ly/rao7dr), "is demanding that people show some basic courtesy and decency towards their fellow citizens when they are naked".

Wiener represents Castro District the city, where a group of local sections of men identify as "naked guys" are known to strut its stuff, and some residents were tired of uncensored views.

One of the guys, Eric Anderson, said offended by public displays of nudity people must consider why they have problems with the human body.

"To force their conservative views on me not fair," he told the Chronicle sitting on a metal Chair in a place of Castro with a book, a sandwich and a sarong which separates from the seat back.

Captain of Police of San Francisco Greg Corrales said his station fields often complaints about naked guys, but being in the buff is illegal in the city, only if the person shows signs of sexual arousal. In this case, the behavior may be loaded as obscene conduct.

If a member of the public makes a citizen's arrest, police could free a naturist being a public nuisance. But these complaints almost never happen, Corrales said.

Under the proposal of Weiner, refusing to cover a public seat or enter a naked restaurant had to carry a $100 fine for a first offence and a fine for a second offence $ 200 in the year. A third offence would be responsible for an offence punishable by a maximum $1,000 fine and one year of imprisonment.

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