MUSINGS OF A CEO

Time 2022-08-09 00:45:21

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MUSINGS OF A CEO

Writings by Kevin Kelly

EMERALD PACKAGING WEBSITEAbout Kevin KellyMain PageAug 17 2020Leave a commentCovid Days

The Silence of Women

Over the last few weeks quiet conversations between women have proliferated around the company.  Whispered talk about the coming school year.  It more or less goes like this, I am told. One woman asks another how they plan to work and teach children trapped at home thanks to Covid.  This nearly silent exchange happens among women from the factory floor to the top of the company.  What will you do? How will you manage the kids? Will you be able to keep working?  Same questions, same shrugs. School districts have made matters worse by not revealing schedules until the last minute — less than two weeks before opening Fremont Unified School District has told worried parents almost nothing — or by imposing schedules that keep children in class until mid-afternoon. They seem little concerned by the wreckage wrought on women, who far more than men, bear the primary responsibility for child-rearing. { read more }

Jun 04 20201 CommentThe Economy

A Call for Corporate Patriotism: Help Save Our Economy

These days the business media and economic prognosticators sing hymns about the coming recovery. The verses go something like this: we’ve hit the bottom; the economy’s opening up; “V” shaped rebound; unemployment shrinks by summertime. The stock market reflects the good news. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen 27% from its lowest point on March 20 and looks poised to recover its all-time high by August. Investors seem confident the good times lay right around the corner. { read more }

Apr 26 20208 CommentsManaging, The Crisis

Business in the Time of Covid

Before March 10 I remained fairly convinced that the virus known as Covid-19 wouldn’t break horribly upon our shores. I don’t know what lead me to believe that, perhaps the lack of cases and the few deaths seen here so far, perhaps a false confidence that everything would work out somehow.  But while driving to work I listened to CNBC  as the market crashed. And I heard former Food and Drug Administrator Dr. Scott Gottlieb describe in harrowing terms the pandemic headed our way.  Without mitigation measures Covid-19 would sicken tens of millions and kill millions in a matter of weeks. Within 45 minutes my mind flipped completely. { read more }

Mar 18 20201 CommentThe Crisis

Our Time has Come (Donate Your Masks)

Our country gradually but steadily has moved to war footing to battle an unseen enemy, a virus. Around the world countries have begun to close borders, shutter businesses, demand citizens stay indoors when not working, not cluster in groups and so on. Our government, slow on the uptake but increasingly less so, has invoked a 1950s law that empowers President Trump to force industry where possible to vastly increase production of wartime supplies needed by the medical community, including masks, gowns, and respirators very much like President Franklin Roosevelt did as we moved into war against Nazi Germany. { read more }

Oct 01 201910 CommentsGovernment, Thoughts

Vaping Romaine

Last November around 2pm the Food and Drug Administration issued a recall for romaine lettuce.  The leafy green had been identified as the culprit in an e coli outbreak that eventually sickened 62 people and hospitalized 25 nationwide, including two with kidney failure.  This followed a recall from earlier in the year that left 172 sick and killed one.  Millions of romaine heads ended up in dumpsters. The second recall banned the product during the height of the Thanksgiving season savaging the bottom lines of growers. { read more }

Aug 27 20196 CommentsEnvironment, Packaging

The End of Plastics?

After years of neglecting recycling, talking about recyclable solutions but not delivering, and working to stop bans, the plastics packaging industry stands on a precipice.  Activists have taken matters into their own hands. It’s not about bag bans anymore. Now they’re pushing for recyclable flexible packaging. Here in California environmental groups have managed to fast-track legislation (Senate Bill 54)  that would mandate recycling by 2030. That could mean drastically reducing the use of polypropylene and polyester, two difficult to recycle plastics popular in a myriad of products. The bill achieves its goal by specifing a waste reduction rate of 75%. As with anything else regards plastics, what begins in California will spread nationwide within a few years. { read more }

Nov 30 20186 CommentsBusiness, Diversity, Immigration, Life

Diversity, Immigration and Our Success

The faces of Emerald Packaging have changed beyond recognition from our founding. White men in shirts and ties ran the factory. They had a firm hold on management. Factory workers weren’t any different. Bookkeeping belonged to the lone woman. She could have run sales as well as or better than any male had she been given training. { read more }

Nov 16 20173 CommentsBusiness, Life

I’m Back and We’re Not for Sale

Recently a purchasing manager at a customer opined that our company Emerald Packaging, Inc., must be up for sale. His evidence? I have not been as active since my father’s death in August 2016 and family businesses nearly always sell after the founder dies. { read more }

Jun 22 20175 CommentsImmigration, Life

Emerald Packaging Immigration Raid Retold by CNN Money

A few months ago CNN Money called.  They asked to do a story about the impact of n and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid we suffered over five years ago.  How could I refuse?  The new Trump administration had made immigration enforcement one of its main planks.  We had an obligation to show what that meant for business. Thanks to what ICE calls an “audit” we lost 10% of our workforce. Most of them had 15 years or more experience with us, so out the door went some of our most accomplished operators and technicians.  We’ve never really recovered.  New employees, though good, don’t replace the knowledge we lost.  Plus as we expanded, that talent wasn’t here to run our new machines. { read more }

Nov 10 201614 CommentsLife

James P. Kelly: March 18, 1930 – August 31, 2016

I haven’t posted anything since March because for most of that period my father’s deterioration due to metastasized melanoma overwhelmed me.  I want to begin again by posting my eulogy (one of four) and my remembrance delivered at a St. Joseph Notre Dame High School financial aid fundraiser. Given that so much of life over these months has been dominated by caring for him and then grieving his death, posting these tribute seems a fitting way back to writing. { read more }

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