The Power of Purpose

Posted on 01/21/2024 | 1 comment

Our most joyful experiences of work are doing things that matter . . . helping people, building something important, meeting critical needs, touching the future . . .

We are wired to cooperate, to accomplish more together than we could on our own. The bigger story (or “meaning”) that inspires action is called PURPOSE — and when we act with purpose we say we are responding to a calling.

Often our actions focus on a narrow goal. When we act and think in a bigger context, we create a bigger story about what we’re doing. Bigger stories inspire and encourage us and others because they create opportunities for us to be bigger, to use more of ourselves.

The benefits of purpose are well documented among children and adults – both in physical health & cognitive functioning. Purpose in the workplace – making work meaningful, understanding the contributions we are making – is probably more critical today than ever.

There are few more ubiquitous questions than what is my purpose. Especially since the pandemic, employees have been reflecting on purpose in their lives. Millennials, especially, evaluate work based on an alignment with a purposeful life.

Numerous surveys show nearly 80% of employees want a sense of purpose from their work; nearly 70% acknowledge their work drives their sense of purpose. This number is even higher for executives. But, most employers fail to deliver. According to a 2021 McKinsey & Company’s survey, 85% of executives find a sense of purpose at work but only 15% of frontline managers and employees do. We too often fail to share the bigger story, to allow time for reflection, to provide opportunity for employees to work on what they consider important.

Friends won’t be surprised that I spot Maslow’s hierarchy at work here. Even the grim purpose of putting food on the table, sending our kids to college while sacrificing one’s vitality and dignity motivated countless boomers through mindless, disempowered jobs. And, have no doubt, paying one’s rent and financing one’s lifestyle still does . . . it’s the back of the coin for the boss who thinks the pay & benefits are all that’s needed to motivate employees.

Freepik

You see the power of purpose in a kid’s eyes anytime you send them off on a well-scoped adventure – a treasure hunt, playing hide & seek, or saving enough pennies so we can eventually break the piggie bank.

We’re still learning about what makes Gen Z cynical about finding a sense of purpose at work. Early studies suggest they are keen negotiators for their time in very transactional relationships with employers. If we, as employers, are looking for any longevity and loyalty among the largest generation on Earth, we could start by listening to them, to understand their sense of purpose, and offer them meaningful work that they can test and come to trust.

Sources cited:

Help Your Employees Find Purpose – or Watch Them Leave. (4/5/21)

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/help-your-employees-find-purpose-or-watch-them-leave

Great Good Magazine, Science-based Insights for a Meaningful Life. University of California, Berkley https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/purpose/definition#why-find-purpose

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ABJ: Inside SailPoint’s first six months on the New York Stock Exchange

Posted on 06/08/2018 | Leave a comment

(CommunityMatters) Mark McClain is a good friend, mentor and EF/Culturati supporter. I hope ABJ won’t mind my reprinting this super profile

ABJ: Inside SailPoint’s first six months on the New York Stock Exchange

CEO’s advice once you go public: Forget about it

 

mark mcclain sp abj

 

By   – Staff Writer, Austin Business Journal

When Mark McClain sat down for an interview at about 2:20 p.m. on May 30, he didn’t know the share value of the company he runs.

Which is the point.

Acknowledging he borrowed the line, the co-founder and CEO of Austin cybersecurity company SailPoint Technologies Holdings Inc. said he tells colleagues, “Every time you’re looking at the stock price, you’re not helping the stock price.”

McClain said focus on execution is what’s enabled SailPoint’s stock to perform so well since its initial public offering on Nov. 17.

The company’s share value (NYSE: SAIL) has more than doubled its $13 opening, and was trading at $26.37 at the start of June. Go here to track it yourself.

“We’ve had a very solid performance in the public markets. We’re pleased with that,” but it’s distracting, McClain said. “We joke about people following the stock every day on the computer, ‘Can we banish Yahoo Finance?’”

The company’s expertise in the increasingly important realm of identity protection and treating their employees the right way are among the reasons McClain cites for SailPoint reporting strong results in its first two quarters on the New York Stock Exchange. The company’s clients include accounting giant PWC, health care titan Humana and financial heavyweight Western Union.

Mark McClain

Mark McClain

Was taking SailPoint public always the goal, or is that simply how it played out? More the latter. At the end of the day, we came in, Kevin [Cunningham] and Jackie [Gilbert], our original co-founders, with the idea of when you do the right thing, the right things happen. So let’s go find a great market, let’s go build a great product, hire a great team to drive that value to the market.

When we started, I was OK with either option. I didn’t particularly want to avoid doing a public offering. At one point, I thought we’d end up selling the company away, and, instead, this is the path we went: from venture-backed, to private-equity backed, to public.

What have you found are the pros and cons of doing an IPO? It’s very early. On the one hand, we’ve only had to deliver two sets of results. We went public in November, so we had to report Q4 of last year and now Q1 just a couple weeks ago.

We’ve reported two good sets of results, so I haven’t had to go through, ‘Oh, no, the numbers aren’t good, yuck, what’s going to happen?’

I think we’re realistic enough to know that maybe somewhere along our journey, we’ll stumble there. I hope we never do. But that’s something you generally deal with at least once. So our mission is: Control what we can and hope that we don’t have some macroeconomic condition that causes our numbers to not be where they should.

On your macroeconomic point, many economists say the next recession will occur sometime in the next few years. Is that something you can prepare for? One of the great things about being a profitable company is you have shock absorption. But can we prepare ultimately? No. Are worried about forecasting exactly when that happens? No.

One of the great things about being a global business is, sometimes these things are global, but often they’re not. Sometimes when the U.S. is down, Europe or Asia is up. The more global we become, the more we build in shock absorption.

 

What do you see as the reasons fewer companies are using the IPO route? Private equity has emerged as a very large new class in, really, the last decade. As part of companies’ growth journey, it’s a new phenomenon.

In many cases, what you’ve seen is companies that might have gone public a decade ago instead went and got late-stage venture rounds, leading to the famous unicorns. Or some [that] realized they couldn’t do unicorn-like things were sold to private equity, and now may stay there for a while and go public later like we did — or may get sold, which often happens. I think we’re going to see more people taking various paths.

There was a time… Tivoli went public on something like $25M on its way to something like $70M. A company that never would go public in today’s market could go public back then on a much smaller scale.

Tell us what SailPoint does in the cybersecurity arena that other companies don’t. Our sub-category is called identity. It’s been around as a discipline for a couple of decades but it’s really emerged as a very important pillar of security relatively recently.

Why is that? Well, if you think about the macro things that have been happening in tech, we’ve gone to mobile, we’ve gone to the cloud. The days when a company thought of its security as, ‘I will build a moat around my castle and I will keep all the bad guys out and everybody inside safe and secure’ — that’s over.

Half your identities you care about in business aren’t your employees. They’re contractors. They’re partners. They’re using their own devices to access your technology, your applications. Because a lot of people hadn’t been paying attention to this, we don’t have very many competitors. There aren’t 10 other startups trying to compete with what SailPoint does because what we do is very messy and very hard.

 

We have to manage all this complex identity information inside all these different applications. They might be mainframe applications. They might be 10-year-old web applications. They might be 2-month-old SaaS applications. To manage that all cohesively is very complex technology. That’s what we do.

Our competitors are companies like IBM and Oracle and Computer Associates. That’s a good competitive set. They don’t innovate quickly and challenge startups very often.

Tell us how SailPoint’s tech works in layperson terms? Everybody today interacts with things that have an account and a password. When you think about a corporation business enterprise, they’re housing a lot of critical information in their applications. They want to ensure that the right people have access to the right information.

What we focus on is the accounts and passwords… what allow people access to all this data. We make sure the right identities, which are generally people — I won’t confuse things by getting into that, nowadays, identities can be non-people — can access what they’re supposed to access to do what they’re supposed to do. Nothing more and nothing less.

Turns out keeping that straight is really hard. If you have 10,000 employees and you have 5,000 applications and you have 10,000 contractors and all those people are constantly moving around and changing, just imagine the volume of change that organization has to manage. That’s what we do.

You’ve taken SailPoint from inception to IPO, a rare feat. Many say only a handful have that skill set. How does the CEO job change as a company morphs from startup to mid-size to public? At the end of the day, I have a very healthy self-awareness in life of what I’m good at and what I’m not. From the outset, I had co-founders Kevin and Jackie who were awesome. We brought in an early-stage leadership team who was awesome.

 

In a sense, it’s a willingness to let go. At various points along the way, I would have frank conversations with our investors and say, ‘Hey, I don’t want to get in the way of us succeeding. If I’m not the right guy to be doing this, please, just tell me and I’ll step aside and let somebody else do it.’ And I think their view was, ‘Well, it’s not screwed up yet. OK, let’s keep going.’

There’s a good level of humility built into our culture. We think we’re really smart guys, but we’re not the only smart guys on the planet.

We built the company, Waveset [Technologies Inc.], from nothing to about 100 people and about $20 million in revenue. So I’ve gone through that part of the cycle once.

I like to say, I will always make mistakes, I just try to not make the same ones over and over again.

There were things we learned going from ground zero to early-stage like, how do you define a market well? How do you define your first product? How do you extend and grow that product? How do you ensure you’ve built some successful customers? Because if you don’t build successful reference customers in the enterprise market, you will not make it.

This experience has taken us way further up the scaling path. Complexity goes way up in every dimension you can think of.

I think a conductor is the best metaphor for a CEO. They used to play an instrument. They don’t anymore. They’re not actually producing any music. They’re getting all kinds of music out of everyone else. They’re making sure everyone knows what sheet of music we’re on. Are we all clear on the pace and tempo of what we’re trying to do? I need a little more from you right now. I need a little less from you right now. OK, we’re in rehearsal. Stop, we need to do that piece again.

Did anything that transpired during or after the IPO catch you off guard that you didn’t expect? The biggest thing that surprised me about the whole process is how much longer it is than I thought. You always hear about T-minus six- to nine-months to the IPO, you do this thing called a “bake-off.” You basically bring in a bunch of bankers and let them pitch.

What I didn’t realize is, for the two years before that, you’ve been going to investor conferences, spending time with bankers at their conferences. You’re building relationships with investors, building relationships with bankers, beginning to understand the pros and cons of different firms, beginning to understand the pros and cons of different investors and what they’re looking for, what resonates with them. So there is just this huge long ramp that I didn’t have any idea existed before we got down this path.

Being in Austin, we were somewhat off the radar. We were not in [Silicon] Valley. Not on the other coast. There was this kind of, ‘Wow, you’re one of the more interesting companies I haven’t heard of’ conversations with people.

The IPO process — was it physically grueling? It is a very demanding stretch. There is a particular thing called “the road show,” where you’re literally, every day, for about two weeks, where you are from sun up to sun down in meeting after meeting. The thing I tell people you can compare it to is if you go interview for a job and you get eight to 10 straight interviews and people say how exhausting that is. Now do that 10 days in a row.

You do individual investors. You do small groups of maybe 10 to 20. [And] we did a handful of those things in major metros like Boston and New York with like 100 investors. All day, every day, you’re either pitching the story or answering questions. I’m not sure I’ve ever been more exhausted than I was at the end of that.

Who do you bounce ideas off of in Austin? Bill Wood at Silverton [Partners], John Thornton at Austin Ventures, Ravi Mhatre at Lightspeed [Venture Partners],and Bill Bock, former president and CFO at Silicon Labs, after he was the COO at Tivoli.

What advice might you have for other CEOs on their way to running a public company? Talk to people who have been through it. Get a sense of what it’s really like.

 

Some aspects of it are really hard. Sometimes I don’t like the “p” in IPO — the fact that your salary gets published. That part is not fun. But I would tell people, don’t get hung up on those things. If it’s the right thing for the business, just do the right thing for the business. (McClain received a base salary of $307,500 and total compensation of $426,823 in 2016, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Cunningham’s was identical.)

What’s a nugget of wisdom you received when you were younger that’s stuck with you? This older guy at IBM when I was a junior sales guy, he said, you should probably spend about 90 percent of your time on your job and 10 percent of your time on your career. People that spend 100 percent of their time on their job are always frustrated that they never get in the career where they wanted to be. And people that spend more than 10 percent on their career tend to fail at their job because they’re thinking about where they want to go.

Who are some people who remind you to do the right thing and things will take care of themselves? John Wooden [the deceased legendary coach of UCLA’s men’s basketball team] would say, ‘We don’t prepare for the other team. We prepare ourselves.’

My way of thinking about it in the business realm is: Control what you can control. You can control who you hire, you can control the quality of the product you build, you can treat people the right way — customers, employees, etcetera. If you stay focused on those things — they may not be sufficient — but they’re necessary to building a good company. If all else fails, I go back to the Golden Rule. Jesus got it right. If you treat people the right way, a lot in life goes right.

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The Importance of Culture in Democracy

Posted on 07/28/2017 | Leave a comment

(CommunityMatters) It’s been a long time since I was here, on this site, but I’ve certainly been Maslow red white blueimmersed in community matters. We’ve since elected Donald Trump as America’s president – in part because Ds offered a candidate who would have made a good president but ran the worst campaign in decades, and because the Russians (likely in collaboration with the GOP presidential campaign) microtargeted voters in key states. Among these voters the Russians increased the intensity & vote for Donald Trump and disillusioned many Ds, resulting in lower turnout. In this post, I’m not going into what this means, or the spiral we witness.

An editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal captures my attention – The Democrats’ Biggest Problem is Cultural – written by a supposed 40-year Democratic operative (he’s more a 20-yr flunky turned bitter pundit). Ted Van Dyk claims Great Society overreach – that cultural issues and political correctness have overtaken the party’s commitment to jobs, economic growth, the cost of living, education, public safety and a healthcare safety net.

Sometimes even vinegary rumblings prompt worthy thoughts.  What’s the term for equality of opportunity (not promises of equal results) . . . for equal treatment, equal respect regardless of race, faith, gender, gender identity or sexual orientation? If the term was American equality, I guess we wouldn’t be in today’s dilemma. We need a term so that our message can again be distinct – that we stand for Americans who value jobs, economic security, education, public safety, healthcare and equality (is that it, or does it connote promises of equal outcomes rather than opportunity?).

Why the red, white & blue Maslow’s Hierarchy? Because I’m convinced our answers lie there. In case you can’t read my writing, I define basic needs as inclusive of physiological and mental, the next category as the need to belong and for connectedness, and finally the need for self actualization.

I haven’t had time to synthesize these comments, opinions and theory. But, it’s what I’m working on. I’m to spend time on an airplane today writing bout culture and leadership. I’ll be reviewing the insights submitted by 8 of my favorite entrepreneurs as well as articles by several academics. This will contribute to my political thoughts.

And, I’ve been reflecting on the stories and lessons in Arlie Russell Hochschild’s Strangers in Their Own Land, J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Ellegy, and Katherine Cramer’s The Politics of Resentment. I haven’t yet red Christopher Achen’s & Larry Bartel’s “Democracy for Realists” but have listened to an audio summary. It doesn’t spur hope for thoughtful politics but reinforces the importance of symbolism and tribalism, the efficacy of dog whistles.

We must do more than speak effectively of serving America’s working class and middle income families, more than just promoting the symbols of this unity. We must deliver the infrastructure that generates jobs and opportunities and ensures equality of opportunity for everyone in America . . . and, these words & symbols matter.

 

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Fortune: Why Austin Is the Rockstar of Small-Business Cities

Posted on 10/11/2016 | Leave a comment

(Community Matters) mostly posting to capture some great stats. Full article.

quoting:

7% — The growth in the number of small businesses based in Austin from 2010-2013, which led the nation by a large margin (Provo, Utah, came in second at 6.8 percent).

Austin had 44,163 small businesses in 2013 — or 2,342 for every 100,000 residents, a ratio better than most of the 106 metro areas studied.

Austin’s gross metropolitan product (a version of gross domestic product, measuring all goods and services produced) grew 18.2 percent from 2011-2014, second in the country behind Dallas.

Part of Austin’s formula for a small business surge is fairly well established: create an environment with the right pieces, including investors, good business schools, incubators, not too much red tape, and a critical mass of people with a business idea and big aspirations.

While corporate America has been cutting jobs, employment at small business start-ups has increased. Since 1990, as bigger companies cut 4 million jobs, small businesses added 8 million new jobs, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. Today, the 28 million small businesses in the U.S. account for 66% of all net new jobs, 54% of all U.S. sales, and 30-50% of all commercial space, according to the SBA.

 

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Mayor Adler’s State of the City (includes full text)

Posted on 02/17/2016 | Leave a comment

(Community Matters) I loved the humility and the forward vision of Mayor Adler’s State of the City speech last night.adler image 0216 aas

The nerd in me recorded all the applause lines and noted that the overarching theme as Big Cities Do Big Things. Highlighted in the speech: importance of innovation and iterative leadership in solving our problems and the prioritized problems are affordability, mobility, the spirit of East Austin, workforce development, fix permitting and fix Austin Energy.
 
lines that drew most applause during the speech:
 
1. And because of decisions this Council made, our utility
will soon become one of the biggest users of solar energy in Texas and in the world.
2. Monument to last minute amendments
3. If time is money, then Austinites are spending an awful lot of money stuck in traffic
4. Cities are great b/c they do great things
5. Ideological positions – doesn’t believe in taking ideological positions. Believes in solutions.
6. Austin needs to build a firebreak that will stop the gentrification or forced displacement of our neighbors in a way that will actually achieve opportunities for permanent affordability or we will lose people and communities all together.
7. Proud to serve with my council colleagues
8. Thanks to Diane Land
9. Determined to make Diane’s sacrifices worth it
10. Thank you to Marc Ott
11. The 200,000 people we cannot lose without losing something of ourselves
12. 5k+ affordable housing units already approved by council
13. Approved neighborhood preservation plan
14. Tens of millions into affordable housing trust fund from towers (& how they are great for the city)
15. Crowdfunding using Austin mini-bonds
16. Will allow us to become an Austin that we imagine by becoming an Austin that we recognize
17. Even those of us who don’t want to get out of our cars will welcome those who get out of theirs
18. Austin needs more mobility choices
19. Transit, bikes & pedestrian options
20. We need urban rail
21. You can also help people make more so they have more to spend
22. a strategic plan for workforce development
23. Economic incentives for jobs for people already here
24. Permitting – file plans and make payments on line
25. Work on music industry better protecting our artists
 
 
and one of my favorite lines: “We can do big things if we as a City Council take a lesson from the startup culture and adopt an iterative leadership style. . . ”
 
(. . . “I believe that to best address the new challenges of mobility and affordability, we must become comfortable with trying new things and adjusting when we receive new information. I want us to creatively and innovatively deal with the problems that fastgrowing cities are facing even if other cities have never figured out the answers.”)
Full text of Mayor Adler’s Speech: 

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Word for 2016

Posted on 01/01/2016 | Leave a comment

(Community Matters) Happy New Year!10603425_10207113573291088_8570812005472658807_n

much fun ringing in the New Year in Marfa again. Our dear friends Kim & Kyle Hughes helped us host this year’s festivities which included a Pizza Foundation party on 12/30, McDonald Observatory star parties on 12/29 and 12/30, private McDonald Observatory telescope tours, a Julie Speed Gallery/Studio Party, and a Ft. Davis State Park hike as well as the Rock Hudson suite NYE party and NY Day at Dick & Janie DeGuerin’s (me here w/ the fabulous Barbara Hill).

Such a fun year w/ so many dear guests including Dustin & Megan Wells & family, Gerardo & Anysley Interiano & family, Kim Taylor & family, Mayor Adler, Diane Land, Sarah Adler, Zach, Molly & friend, Joe & Tana Christie, Eli Smith & family, Stephanie Dodoo & Micah Barber, David Richards & Nancy Novack, Cameron Lockley, Chase Pilat, Joel Robbins & Kevin, Mark & Monica Cravotta & the girls, Senator Shapleigh & Joyce, Gary Cooper & Richard Hartgrove, Autumn Rich, Will Roman, Jason & Lori Heffron & family, Ian Carracio & Evan Sisley, Chad Dedman, et al

My word for 2016 – Eloy. That’s my late dad’s name. Meant to remind me to be more like my father – someone who always thought before he spoke, wasn’t compelled to always share his opinion, who never spoke ill of anyone, and who saved what he wanted to share for the right moment. Big hill for me to climb but I’m gonna try in 2016. Remind me when you see or hear otherwise, just by mentioning “Eloy.”

Steven’s – Communion

Will – Uninhibited

Stephanie Dodoo – Spontaneous

Micah Barber – Yes

Jon – Feedback

Michelle – Community

Ian – Education

Evan – Kinder

J0e – Breathe

Tana – Calm

Richard – Patience

Gary – Balance

Stephanie – Patience

Peter – Present

I need to remember/collect others’

 

 

 

 

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Posted on 12/24/2015 | Leave a comment

es st xmas 15.jpg

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Consensus – Austin as a community, not just a political jurisdiction

Posted on 12/20/2015 | 2 comments

 

(Community Matters) Civics once taught us to look for the intersection of interests and sensitivities of the minority in crafting public rules. It hurts my head and tears at my heart that we’ve become such a divided society where consensus has been replaced with a Ninja fighter, Samurai warrior, adrenaline-winning strategy – how to beat the other side, execute the win-loss strategy and make it hurt. Ha, I hear myself and acknowledge I have subscribed to that path in business and find it unhealthy in civics – hmm questioning whether always right in business but that’s another post.

The echo chamber we hear in national politics is alive, appears growing, in local politics, even Austin’s. Since so many of our friends and colleagues are from rather homogenous communities (industries, economics, educational attainment, geography), it’s too easy to confuse the echo chamber for a jurisdiction’s consensus. I hear dear friends proclaiming . . . but we’re the high tech/entrepreneurial city . . . not realizing that this moniker is not proudly shared by all Austinites – certainly not by many struggling under income inequality, rental pricing spikes, a slowing growth (or decline) in wages, gentrification and other worsening affordability. And, friends who resent any regulatory obstacles, any questioning of their entrepreneurial ambitions. . . Austin didn’t become the city you love without pushing the limits of regulation, ordinances allowed under Texas jurisdiction and public/private partnerships. If neighborhood and environmental activists hadn’t won SOS, there’d be a whole lot less green space. If government, the universities and businesses hadn’t collaborated and intervened to bring to town IBM, Tx Instruments, IC2, ATI, MCC & Sematech, and the various fabs, it’s doubtful we’d be the high tech hub you see today. Nor if artists and musicians (several who resent our, the high tech community’s arrogance, and who endure the spikes in prices we’ve brought) hadn’t built such a thriving arts and creative arts scene, it’s quesitonable whether we would be such an attractive resettlement location given the reputation of our state among young progressives where it not for a very progressive local government, green spaces, the thriving economy and the arts scene.. And, hey, yes, these other stakeholders are enjoying some of the fruits of the high tech/entrepreneurial world’s labor. Before we take such strong positions, shouldn’t we consider the other side – who are the least empowered in this argument and which decision might favorably impact their outcomes? Those most enthusiastically arguing the other side, what, how can we understand their perspective, is there something other than a win-loss here? What’s the win-win? The questions might or might not yield different answers, different positions, but what if in Austin we strived for consensus over an up or down, win/loss. We must tend to our civic culture as it were a delicate, precious living creature – it is.

[edit: a friend pointed out the inconsistency of framing our state as neaderthal-headed in an essay about civility]

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Shrinking American Middle Class

Posted on 12/16/2015 | Leave a comment

(Community Matters) I’d forgotten this NYTimes study: during the last 8 years rise in lower income, shrinking middle & upper – percentage of households in high income have declined while those in low income has risen. The middle class has been declining since the late 70s but since 2009, so has been the number of Americans in upper income. Younger are doing worse, education even more important, race matters.

Screen Shot 2015-12-16 at 3.40.36 AM

I learned from a friend who does business globally (more overseas than here), there’s two ways to think about this.

While millions of Americans have slipped from the middle class into low income, hundreds of millions of Asians have risen from absolute poverty to middle income. There are a lot of super rich who consider their economic constituency global rather than domestic.

The American middle class is shrinking http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-12-13/american-middle-class-shrinking. And, there are a lot more Americans living well today than ever before. Nevertheless, there are more on the top side and more on the bottom side of income/earnings in America, fewer in the middle (in the 60s, 61%, today only 50%), according to Pew. 

“The share of middle-income adults who are ages 65 and older doubled from 9 percent in 1971 to 18 percent in 2015,” the Pew study finds. 

study by New York Times which is more illuminating of the last decade: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-10/here-s-how-much-the-u-s-middle-class-has-changed-in-45-years

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“The Mad Gardener’s Song,” by Lewis Carroll

Posted on 12/06/2015 | Leave a comment

mad gardner Vasquez on behance

(Community Matters) how could I not post Steven Robert Tomlinson’s favorite poem as a kid

The Mad Gardener’s Song

by Lewis Carroll

MONDAY, 4 FEBRUARY 2002

He thought he saw an Elephant,
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
‘At length I realise,’ he said,
‘The bitterness of Life!’

He thought he saw a Buffalo
Upon the chimney-piece:
He looked again, and found it was
His Sister’s Husband’s Niece.
‘Unless you leave this house,’ he said,
‘I’ll send for the Police!’

He thought he saw a Rattlesnake
That questioned him in Greek:
He looked again, and found it was
The Middle of Next Week.
‘The only thing I regret,’ he said,
‘Is that it cannot speak!’

He thought he saw a Banker’s Clerk
Descending from the bus:
He looked again, and found it was
A Hippopotamus:
‘If this should stay to dine,’ he said,
‘There won’t be much for us!’

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In Honor of Mrs. Rosa Parks

Posted on 12/01/2015 | Leave a comment

ROSA_PARKSreprint: (Washington, D.C., Sunday, Oct 30, 2005)

Standing in line among so many proud Black women, proud Black men, proud men and women of every color…

After reading on Friday that Mrs. Rosa Parks would lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda, I booked a ticket for Saturday.  On Sunday, I was in line to honor this woman who by taking a seat taught us how to stand.

Eventually there were tens of thousands in the line.  But, by noon there were only 31.  I was number 29.  The doors to the Capitol finally opened at 8:40pm.

It wasn’t easy finding the line on the Capitol grounds Sunday morning.  Only a non-Black person from a city as white as Austin would assume that two Black women standing near the Washington, D.C. Botanical Gardens were forming the line for Mrs. Parks.  Me–I’m guilty.  And, only after reflecting on this did I realize why Ruby from the Detroit Free Press hadn’t thought to ask these women if they were the line.  I introduced them.  Ruby interview them, especially Ms. Joyce Cox who grew up a bike ride away from the Capitol and told me her story of riding her bike on the grounds as Queen Elizabeth’s motorcade drove by.

Eventually, Ruby found the line and called, telling me it was a few hundred yards away, near Third Street.  When I arrived (11:30), 28 others had gathered.  Once no. 30 and no. 31 arrived, I walked up and down the line talking to each person.  It will not surprise my friends that I have lots of notes on index cards.   

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Eloy Vela Sepulveda (1935 – 2015)

Posted on 10/19/2015 | 2 comments

eloy gloria dance(Community Matters) Dad (80yo) passed away on October 15, 2015 at his ranch in Sealy, Texas surrounded by family after battling kidney disease and cancer. Dad always reminded us, he lived a longer & richer life than he ever expected or deserved. We dispute that it wasn’t deserved.

One of 15 children born to Beatrice Vela Sepulveda of Allende, Coahuila, Mexico and Alfredo Sepulveda of Seguin, Texas, Eloy was born in Aqua Dulce, Texas on May 19, 1935. Eloy spoke Spanish until entering the first grade in Houston. He left high school to join the Army (35th Infantry, 769th Medical Detachment). After four years of service, Eloy met Gloria Gomez at a dance in Houston. He and his best friend married the two women they met that night. Until his death, both couples remained happily married.

Eloy joined Stern Empire Dental Laboratories in 1958 at an entry level, working his way up to President of (then) the world’s largest dental laboratory, becoming Executive Vice President of a public, acquiring healthcare conglomerate – until he retired for his third time at the age of 70. A self-taught man, Eloy read voraciously and mentored friends, employees, his children, nieces, nephews and 14 godchildren. Eloy said, “godchildren are a stepping stone to Heaven.”

Eloy & Gloria owned property in Sealy, Texas – affectionately known as “the ranch” or “the farm” – where they retired in 2005. Over the 44 years, they hosted family, schools, churches & friends, 2 to 400 at a time. Most of Eloy’s 60+ nieces, nephews, and godchildren grew up spending memorable weekends at the ranch camping, fishing, riding motorcycles, tractors, golf carts, horses and the dreaded Shetland ponies.

Eloy is survived by his wife of 55 years, Gloria Gomez Sepulveda and their children: Eugene & husband Steven Tomlinson; Bridget Marie Lewis and husband Eric; and Eli Ronald and wife Luci. Eloy was especially proud of his three grandchildren: Shaun David Holifield, Eli Joseph Sepulveda and Paulina Q. Sepulveda. Surviving siblings include Gilda Cuevas and husband Santos, Roy and wife Lorraine, Ramiro, and Alex and wife Minerva – as well as Fred Alvarado, Vera Sepulveda, Karl Thomas & Joe Palomares. Eloy considered Gloria’s siblings his own and survivors include Lily Martinez, Lula de la Isla and husband, Javier; and Yolanda Gonzales and husband Robert – Sarah Ann Chavez a niece like a sister. Godchildren: Benjamin Gonzales, Brian Gonzales, Diane de la Isla, Sylvia Martinez, Norma Jean Mckeown, Joel Palomares, Roland Alvarez, Zachary Gonzales, Jaime Sepulveda, Jennifer Gurka, Julie Zimmerer and Alma Zimmerer Montelongo (13 & 14?). Plans are underway for a memorial service and celebration of Eloy’s life at his ranch on Saturday, October 31. Information at EloySepulveda.com.

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