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VOL. 132 | NO. 171 | Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Last Word
Bill Dries
Last Word: After The Eclipse, A Very Large Magnet and Cyber Insurance
By Bill Dries
Back from the eclipse it would seem. Although I’m pretty sure some part of the moon is still obscuring me. Alas, I will just have to walk around with a crescent missing here or there. Just don’t look at me directly and we will both be okay. Although you might see me wearing the Seer Sucker this week seeing as how the same laws that govern looking at the sun during an eclipse apparently apply to wearing Seer Sucker after Labor Day. It's just not done. Famous last words.
There is soon to be activity on the 23rd floor of Clark Tower. We hear the Memphis arm of Mass Mutual is moving to the East Memphis landmark once it merges with a Nashville-based financial group.
Another new arrival at St. Jude as the research hospital continues to beef up its structural biology department. Babis Kalodimos is the new chairman of the department. Kalodimos’ specific research has been in the role mutated proteins play in the development and spread of cancer. Kalodimos tells us this is expensive research and that under his leadership the structural biology department will double in staff and types of positions. And then there is the role that one of the most powerful magnets in the world will play in that research.
Shelby County Commissioners spent most of their time Monday on a new health insurance contract that ultimately got turned down. There was also a new coordinator on the federal oversight of Juvenile Court and a contract for new voting technology.
In our Insurance Emphasis:
Cindi Gresham’s rise to leadership at Boyle Insurance Agency has been on a path that began as a biology major at Memphis State in the early 1970s and the offer of a part-time job as a typist.
Your company is probably never too small to get attacked by cyber criminals says a vice president of Smith-Berclair Insurance, a local insurance firm that writes policies for cyber attacks. Herb Davis tells us the first such policy he wrote was for a Memphis law firm that did lots of divorce cases.
Sneed Insurance Advisors is a third generation family business in which the third generation initially went out on his own before becoming owner of the business that long ago abandoned the common practice of cold-calling doctors and is now extending to commercial business coverage.
The Tigers football season is almost upon us. Some of you may even have your tailgating supplies and necessities already in a garage staging area for Thursday when the Tiger returns to Tiger Lane. More to come on that as we approach game day at the Liberty Bowl. But we know there are those of you who are Commodores fans, possibly along with being Tigers fans. No, not Lionel Ritchie’s old band – fans of the Vanderbilt Commodores, which can be a very demanding cause. That's because sports is a different cause at Vanderbilt and thus success is measured just a bit differently.
It’s been a while since we looked in on former U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Sr., who about two years ago, announced he was winding down a lucrative lobbying business in D.C. to start Serenity Columbarium and Memorial Garden on Sycamore View Road – a return to the family funeral and mortuary business. But for Ford it has been a new segment moving away from casket funerals to cremations and different kinds of memorials associated with cremation. Two years on, we take a look at that segment as well as options like donating bodies to science.
Every public high school in Arkansas is getting a virtual reality kit donated by Facebook.
Advice on how to donate to storm relief efforts so your donation will be the most effective.