Submarine Collision

As a former submarine officer, I always cringe when I hear about a collision at sea.

Although the collision between the USS Hartford (SSN 768) and USS New Orleans (LPD 18) caused a few injuries among the sub’s crew, the sailors are back on duty.  The real damage will be to the careers of the officers involved and the Navy’s ship repair budget.

Take a closer look at the picture and you will see that, in addition to the damage at the front of the sail, the paint is scraped off the top of the sail and the sail is mostly separated from the hull.  More pictures and commentary are on the USNI blog.

Here’s what happened according to the U.S. Navy:

BAHRAIN (March 21, 2009) The Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Hartford (SSN 768) pulls into Mina Salman pier in Bahrain where U.S. Navy engineers and inspection teams will assess and evaluate damage that resulted from a collision with the amphibious transport dock ship USS New Orleans (LPD 18) in the Strait of Hormuz March 20. Overall damage to both ships is being evaluated. The incident remains under investigation. Hartford is deployed to the U.S. 5th fleet area of responsibility to support maritime security operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Cmdr. Jane Campbell/Released)

NYSSA Program on ETFs

We had a great program on Exchange Traded Funds at NYSSA in New York on Thursday.

Panelists included:

Michael Eschmann, Senior Vice President at Direxion Funds, a leading sponsor of leveraged ETFs.  Direxion has launched 16 ETFs since last November which have attracted over $1.5 billion in assets in a very short period of time.

Peter Hill, NYC regional consultant for State Street Global Advisors (SSgA).  SSgA is the second largest sponsor of ETFs in the U.S. including the world’s largest gold fund, SPDR Gold Shares, which recently passed $30 billion in assets.

David Elan who joined us from Boston where he is a principal and member of the investment committee at Windward Investments.  Windward manages over $2 billion and uses ETFs as key part of a diversified investment strategy.

Berk Nowak, co-founder of Highmount Capital and a member of NYSSA.  Highmount uses ETFs as part of an overall approach in advising wealthy families and was recently ranked by Bloomberg to be in the top 20 in the U.S. in terms of average AUM per client.

WSJ Insight Exchange

Breakfast on Thursday was courtesy of the Wall Street Journal at their Insight Exchange in New York.

The Journal‘s Gwen Bounds moderated a panel that included restauranteur Danny Meyer and marketing guru Seth Godin.

Godin’s advice to entreprenuers in a tough economy: “you don’t have to be a giant business to be successful.  Get in touch with your inner lemonade stand”.

Chinese Jump US Navy Ship

From CBS News:

A Chinese intelligence ship and four others surrounded the USNS Impeccable, an unarmed vessel with a civilian merchant marine crew, as the craft conducted ocean surveys in international waters in the South China Sea, the Defense Department said in a statement.

The first foreign policy crisis that former President George Bush suffered was also with Beijing shortly after he took office — China’s forced landing of a spy plane and seizure of the crew in April of 2001.

Are we starting to see a patttern here?

Brandhackers Meetup

Went to my first Brandhackers Meetup in NYC to hear Allen Adamson talk about his new book Brand Digital.

Allen brings great perspective on branding issues from his years as a brand manager and brand consultant at WPP.

His key point is that your brand needs to be different in a way that is relevant to the customer/consumer.

My example (not Allen’s):  if you make an electric car with a range of 5 miles, it is different but irrelevant.  Make an electric car with a range of 40 miles, then you are different AND relevant.

Skiing in Vermont

We were getting an inch an hour in late February on Stratton Mountain.

I was surprised to see they already had a trail with my name on it.  And it is even rated at my speed – green!