ACS scores three-year contract with Brother International
Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. announced a three-year $13 million contract renewal with Brother International Corporation to continue providing high level hardware, technical and customer care support services to the printing leader.
The services are provided by the ACS Business Process Solutions division headed by Group President Tom Blodgett of Lexington.
The new agreement continues an eight-year relationship with Brother. ACS is providing inbound and outbound customer care support and data entry services for warranty registration cards. ACS employs more than 3,000 in Fayette County.
WEG officials update business community
The World Equestrian Games 2010 Foundation has already raised 75 percent of its budgeted goal in terms of sponsorships, but there will still be many opportunities for local businesses to play a part, according to Terry Johnson, vice president of sales and marketing for the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.
Johnson joined WEG 2010 Foundation CEO Jamie Link and Krista Greathouse, director of events for Foundation housing partner Short's Sports and Events, at Central Library to update an audience of roughly 80 business people and community members on the status of their event planning efforts at a lunchtime forum in February.
The Foundation is in the late stages of assessing its specific needs, ranging from the event's IT requirements to the number of portable bathrooms on site, and drawing up plans that will give businesses a better idea of their possible roles, Johnson said. In addition to a hospitality plan that should be finished by the end of March, the Foundation has also had preliminary discussions with Commerce Lexington and expects to release a plan this summer showing how small businesses can get involved. Deposits have been taken for roughly 60 percent of the event's available trade show spaces.
"We're building an event from scratch," Johnson said. "There's no manual to go by because the Games have never been held outside Europe."
Despite the increasing challenges brought on by the economic downturn, Johnson said the Foundation is confident that it will meet its sponsorship goals, adding that there is a "good possibility" that two or three more sponsors will be announced in the next 60 to 90 days.
In the meantime, Greathouse confirmed, the number of visitors scheduling to travel to the Bluegrass for the event continues to grow, although their inventory of private homes for rent currently exceeds their tenant interest threefold. Hotel accommodations in Lexington and the surrounding areas are ample, Greathouse said, at the same time putting to rest concerns she has heard on whether the event will draw crowds as anticipated.
"I can tell you, tried and true, they are coming," Greathouse said. "Right now, we're averaging 2,000 new room night requests a month."
The forum was followed by a question-and-answer session, during which local business members expressed their interest in topics ranging from the city's efforts at event preparation and planned duplicate medal ceremonies downtown to the audience draw for particular events and ad space availability in programs for the Games.
Link emphasized that partnerships and alliances, such as those being developed with the city of Lexington, will be integral, pointing out that "it's not a one-horse show."
City officials later confirmed that a liaison with the city is expected to be named within two weeks.
Link noted that international coverage of the Ryder Cup in Louisville exhibited a strong sense of Kentucky's overall hospitality, and he said he hopes the personal experiences of World Equestrian Games visitors in Lexington will reflect the same. And while everyone is watching their pennies these days, Link noted that Lexington and Kentucky shouldn't lose sight of the big picture.
- Susan Baniak
"The economy is sour right now, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't invest in our future," Link said. "It would be short-sighted of us to focus on what it's going to cost, because to me it's not a cost - it's an investment."
Council approves Lexington/WEG "Host City Agreement"
The Urban County Council gave final approval to a "Host City Agreement" between LFUCG and the World Games Foundation 2010, the body organizing and overseeing the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games scheduled for September 25-October 10, 2010, at the Kentucky Horse Park.
The agreement spells out advertising and vendor restrictions in a so-called "Clean Zone," the area within a four-mile radius of the Horse Park and along Newtown Pike between the park and city. In the month prior to and during the event, advertising within the zone is strictly limited to Games sponsors.
The city is planning to host a downtown festival throughout the 16 days of the Games. Under the agreement, the city is required to design its own logo and cannot include the words "World Games" or display any of the official Games logos.
Remembering Paul Harvey: 1918 - 2009
Many us have them in our offices: mementoes of events in our lives that had special meaning to us, some of them perhaps even somehow defining our futures.
Mine sits quietly on a bookshelf. You have to get close to it to make out what it's about, what it says. But of all the "stuff" that crowds this little workspace of mine, the pre-word processor, typed and signed thank-you note dated June 26, 1992, contained in this five-by-seven-inch frame is by far the most precious, because it reminds me of the generous nature of one of the most gracious individuals I ever had the pleasure to work for and with: Paul Harvey.
Mr. Harvey died on February 28 at a hospital in Phoenix. He was 90. An early riser (3:30 a.m.!) whose voice embodied Americana, he was an inspiration to all who derive so much satisfaction from their work that they can't imagine life without it.
Prior to the five-year episode reflected by that framed letter in my office, I had crossed paths with Paul Harvey a couple of times during my career in local and then network radio news: first, when he was a featured speaker before the South Carolina Association of Broadcasters annual convention in the early '70s. I recall a humble personality, devoted to the medium of radio - one who fully appreciated the concept of "theater of the mind."
The second path-crossing occurred later in the decade. By then, I was the morning anchor at the AP Radio Network in Washington and Harvey was on tour, promoting the release of the first edition of "The Rest of the Story," a collaboration with his son, Paul Harvey, Jr. I remember being struck by the ready willingness of this busy man to stop and spend time "hanging out" in our newsroom, fielding the questions of a staff of young eager-beavers, some of whom would themselves go on to become household names - CNN's Candy Crowley and Richard Roth, and Mark Knoller of CBS Radio News, among them. I'm betting they too recall that day as a fond and influential moment in the development of their careers in broadcasting.
It was more than a decade later, on a routine morning just after completing an anchor shift at ABC Radio Network News in New York when I was approached by management to ask if I could stick around and sit in for Paul Harvey. Something had come up, and he could not do his noon program that day. It was then about 8:40 a.m., and I had to write the entire show and deliver it, live, at noon.
It's one thing to write an hourly five-minute radio newscast, punctuated by the recorded voices of newsmakers, correspondent reports from the field and the occasional live-insert from the location of a breaking event. Thanks to those breaks, you have plenty of time to collect your thoughts as you move through the script. But I was unprepared for what Mr. Harvey had been quietly performing, day after day, for decades: 15 minutes (an eternity in radio) of collected news items, tidbits and tales that, taken in their totality, reflected daily portraits of the human condition. Fifteen minutes, delivered without benefit of those taped interludes and, in Harvey's case, with the additional duty of delivering the messages of his sponsors. This man had been daily accomplishing a feat on the equivalent of using a garden trowel to fill the Grand Canyon.
I was aware that the Harvey shows were then being aired over some 1,200 radio stations and heard by an estimated 24 million listeners, but from the isolation of a studio in New York, those were just numbers. It wasn't until I came home to Morehead, Kentucky, in 1993 to attend my high school reunion that I fully appreciated his reach. Because this reunion was so unusual in nature - each graduating class spanning 50 years in the history of The University Breckinridge School had been invited - and because the first Gulf War had just ended, the phrase "the mother of all reunions" had resonance. I included in a show a tidbit about plans to gather these former students and their former teachers. Later, while at the reunion, I learned that quite a few in attendance had made their way back home to Morehead, some from great distances, only after hearing about it for the first time on that Paul Harvey broadcast.
Eventually, I returned to Kentucky and for a time continued standing-in for Paul Harvey from a studio at WVLK.
It was cherished experience, but mostly it was influential. Paul Harvey taught the lesson that one can find tremendous personal satisfaction in pursuing a career in the work that they most enjoy performing.
If that isn't saying enough about the man, consider this: he even made it a joy to wake up at 3:30 a.m.
- Tom Martin
Many of us have never known life without Paul Harvey on the radio. His passing marks a milestone in the American experience. His work established standards of radio script-writing and performance that likely will never be eclipsed.
CORRECTION
The Bizlist in the January 23 edition of Business Lexington listed an incorrect number of bachelor's degrees for Midway College. Midway conferred 271 bachelor's degrees in 2007-2008, tying them at 13th with Lindsey Wilson College in our Bizlist ranking.