What should Babson’s campus look like?

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Brett

Recently, I received an e-mail requesting feedback on a couple of options proposed by Babson’s Campus Master Plan team. Info on the options is at the following website: http://projects.sasaki.com/babsoncollegemp/index.html

Below is my take on each option.

Option A
I agree that College Drive does not serve a practical purpose for vehicular traffic. It is much more efficient to enter the West Gate road if the object is to reach the west side parking lots.

Horn would definitely improve via an addition in the area proposed. It’s currently a nice, but slightly awkwarly arranged building. I have mixed feeling about losing green space to residential areas. It is practical, but it may also take away some of the visual charm which comes from long walks to Reynolds from Olin.

It doesn’t make sense to me that this plan relocates a significant portion of the residential population, yet the Dining hall isn’t moving with it. The dining hall seems like it would have significant and regular pedestrian traffic, but it is located on the other side of an active road.

Option B
If this option is executed right, the layout of the first year space could be really neat. I can imagine a very active social environment for these students out in the back of this V-shaped building. Also, it could be done in a way that makes the little alley between the first year building and PM Central a warm, quaint environment.

The Reynolds/Hollister fill-in is a good idea. Reynolds itself seems just a bit too small. If you open up a new workspace between these two buildings, the whole center could be a more vibrant place.

Overall, I think this idea has more promise. I still like certain parts of Option A, such as the extension to the Horn Library and the fieldhouse at Webster. These changes could be incorporated into Option B as well.

Both Options
The personal fitness equipment in Webster is lacking and dated. This should definitely improve to allow students to  take better care of their personal wellbeing. I would recommend a smoothie bar along with the other changes in Webster.

Also, I’m surprised that there are no plans to renovate Woodside or the Executive Conference Center. These buildings are at odds with the entire look and feel of the rest of the Babson campus. Even marginal improvements, like re-siding the building, would offer a dramatic asthetic improvement for that area of the campus.

The Skating Center is currently very removed from the campus. As part of the campus, this should be accessible to pedestrians. It’s odd that this building isn’t very close to the other athetic areas.

Personal Finance Update

Posted on November 7, 2010 by Brett

Since I’m not very comfortable talking about work, mainly because I’m not exactly sure the “line” is, I’ll be talking about miscellaneous personal financial issues in this post.

The biggest personal finance item I’ve been working on is the refinancing of my mortgage. It’s amazing the deal you can get with a good credit score and some solid full-time work history. I was able to get a 3.85% (well, all costs into account a 4.2% APR) 15-year fixed mortgage on my condo. While I did have to pitch in for additional principle and closing costs, this was a no-brainer when considering the 30-year fixed 7% rate I was getting on my existing mortgage. I’ll be paying approximately the same amount per month, but getting the condo paid off in 15-years instead of the 28 remaining years on my previous mortgage. It took a power of attorney and some coordination over my 2 weeks of leave to complete due to my current deployment, but it really wasn’t an overly burdensome task.

I didn’t have much to invest after depositing the maximum allowable amount into the DoD’s Savings Deposit Program (compounds at 2.5% quarterly, no risk, no brainer) at the beginning of my deployment. However, the two picks I did make have really performed well. I also think they serve as good examples of how to invest in a reasonable fashion given limited time and incomplete information.

I chose to invest a chunk of money into the ETF IOO (iShares S&P Global 100 Index Fund) on 6/1/2010. To this date, I’ve made a 17.8% total return on this investment, which projects out to a 41.4% APR (adjusted for my transaction costs and dividends). I made the choice to invest in this ETF given a number of relatively basic factors. Overall, the market was down signficantly after a spike in April. There was concern (as there still is) over consumption-hindering economic and unemployment trends. And it was clear that the large cap stocks with a broad international reach covered by IOO weren’t very sexy at the time since the P/E ratio for the fund was around 9.25:1.

Here’s the thing – global large cap companies have a better ability to adapt to market downturns than any other group of companies. Not only are they able to attract top international talent for their organizations, they also have the capital to wait out negative market conditions. Additionally, due to their built-in money management functions and international business, they are affected less by currency fluctuations. Suprisingly, this is still a value pick. The P/E ratio still is sitting at 10:1 after a stellar performance for the past 5 months. I don’t believe that this P/E ratio indicates maturing growth either – look at how Microsoft, one of the stocks covered by this fund, has reinvigorated its business over the past year.

The other stock I chose from a relatively basic analysis of the markey is CVX (Chevron). Since I invested in this company on 6/22/2010, I’ve made a 12.1% total return, which projects out to a 32.4% APR (adjusted for my transaction costs and dividends). At the time, the stock for all oil companies were down significantly due to the BP crisis. The P/E ratio of CVX was around 9:1.

Besides BP, the market reaction to the entire industry was fairly irrational. While the US and other western countries may increase regulatory costs and taxation due to the spill, the economies of the BRICs of the world continue to grow at a rapid pace. Gasoline is still the most readily available source of energy, and the BRICs require a lot of energy to fuel their continued modernization and expansion. A regional disaster is not going to change this, and regional disasters aren’t going to effect global energy companies unless a given company caused the disaster. While the spill was being cleaned up and BP was being punished, Chevron was acquiring drilling rights in southern Russia and former Soviet republic states.

So, in closing, a combination of some general information on current events, a basic understanding of business, and a look at some basic financial ratios can enable a part-time investor to make solid value picks given any market.

What’s next then? Health insurance companies will likely get a boost soon since there is talk of bi-lateral cooperation in reducing the effect of Obamacare, and many of these companies currently hold low P/E ratios. Since I don’t want my spare cash to be idle, I’ll probably look to invest in this industry over the next couple of weeks.

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COIN and the local financial infrastructure

Posted on October 30, 2010 by Brett

After a spurt of trips, I’m back up and running from my office here at Camp Arifjan.

Right now, we’re at a several decision points within the Theater related to the following: should we use systems which have existed within the Army Finance community because we have control over them or should we use host nation providers to accomplish what we need, but without the level of control and with attached fees?

This is not an entirely new concern. A couple of years ago, Army Finance started to shift more and more tasks to utilize the local financial infrastructure in a move that was partially to make some things more convenient for the Army Finance offices and partly to strengthen the local financial infrastructure.

Now, as the timeline for the drawdown draws nearer and nearer, decisions have to be made regarding whether or not to move away from the closed systems Army Financial Management brings along for the Army’s own support. For instance, if vendors we deal with are habitually used to accepting USD and utilizing what amounts to a military gift card program, what happens when we leave? How hard will it be to use their own currency and merchant accounts with local banks? And will those local banks even have the client base to make it worthwhile to offer such things as more modern merchant accounts within the local business community?

As T.E. Lawrence has historically stated “Do not try and do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not win it for them.” And, of course, this observation should apply whenever counterinsurgency operations are present, not only for the Arab community.

This is the mentality we are trying to consider here at Camp Arifjan and it is this mentality that we are using to drive ahead within our Army Banking team.

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I’m back in Kuwait

Posted on September 14, 2010 by Brett

A feeling I had over my last trip overseas is occurring again. It’s a feeling of almost complete detachment of everything happening stateside.

I often look at pictures others let the world see and try to observe the world they live in. I know I have my own interesting and dynamic pictures; memories that are mine alone. But I can’t help placing myself imaginatively into other people’s situations. I wonder at the forks I’ve passed long ago, and wonder at the paths that I, and everyone else, chose to take. And I wonder at what universes never were in our combined journey. All of the images and imaginings coalesce into a grand mosaic, but then break apart as I slip back into what is real. For there is but one path for every one person in reality, even though you might try to steal a look at another’s path from time to time.

I’m on a long prong from the last intersection I hit, and the road is straight, but boring and hazy. I can only hope this path makes the twisting roads ahead that much more fun.

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Afghanistan

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Brett

I had the good fortune recently to go to Afghanistan with some of the leadership at the 326th FMC. While it’s always a bit of a pain to leave a routine and have your e-mail inbox fill to the brink of capacity, it was a nice discontinuity within the day-to-day grind present in Kuwait.

During this trip, I was at Bagram Air Field, Camp Eggers, the New Kabul Compound, and the ISAF base. The living conditions at each of these bases varied greatly.

Bagram Air Field is a messy amalgamation of old Soviet and typical American temporary trailer-style buildings. It looks like the cross between an industrial park and a ghetto. For transitional visitors, tents which held approximately 80 people each were provided. Now, given those conditions, I do want to assuage any fears that our Air Force may be living in those kind of conditions. The Air Force lower enlisted stationed there had their own dorms with a two-room shared bathroom. Or at least this is what a couple of Navy pilots who were sharing a common area with third country nationals told me.

Camp Eggers was cramped, but surprisingly nice. The area is basically a former neighborhood in Kabul that the military is leasing from the former residents. The Finance office is based out of a house with a tree out front and a little grapevine growing up a trellis. Moving around the Camp really felt like walking around a decent city neighborhood. Sure, you couldn’t drink the water from the existing plumbing, but otherwise the weather and general feel of the place reminded me of the Midwest at times.

Likewise, ISAF was a fairly nice post too. There’s a little garden area along the main drag, and there’s actually a sports cafe with real hamburger tasting hamburgers. Pretty much the same look and feel as Camp Eggers though.

Anyways, just keeping all of you out there updated on some little details without violating operational security. It was good to meet a few more exceptionally people out there in Theater, Finance or otherwise.

Why I Serve

Posted on August 8, 2010 by Brett

I wrote a little something for the office here at Camp Arifjan. Here’s a quick and partial take on why I’m in the National Guard:

As a college Sophomore, I was undecided in exactly what career I wanted for myself. Sure, I’ve always been predisposed to certain interests, but making a commitment to sit in front of a computer the rest of my life as a programmer or analyzing economic trends was an overwhelming obstacle for me to mentally leap. I couldn’t ponder forever however – I already had student loans and some credit card debt to worry about. I was locked into the process without an endgame in mind.

One of my rugby buddies from high school did something that was almost unheard of in our city – he joined the military via the Army Reserves. He was an MP at a unit in southern Minnesota, and you could tell he loved what he did every time he talked about it. He was driving around HMMVs, shooting rifles, and getting maced in the face within the normal once a month and two weeks a year schedule that’s normal to the Reserves, and he still managed to make time for his college rugby team. It sounded cool and interesting, but the 6 year contract he signed also sounded like an insurmountable commitment.

Well, the idea was planted. And then 9/11 happened. Just like most everyone else in the country, I was outraged by the attack perpetrated that day. The idea grew. I liked the idea of joining the National Guard, because I would also be serving the state in case any local emergencies happened. Also, I thought, “Hey, if there is a war big enough where the National Guard is deployed, I want to be part of it”. I started talking to a recruiter, and I was interested in anything related to Combat Arms, and, naturally, anything with the biggest bonus (a whooping $8000 at that time!). I ended up as a 14M (Stinger Missile Operator) at a National Guard unit in Central Minnesota.

I’ll admit, the process of conforming was painful for me. I was a smart but somewhat spoiled young adult. Basic Training at Ft. Sill, OK was a humbling experience, and the grip of the Command and Control environment only got tighter at AIT at Ft. Bliss, TX. I came back, and I thought everyone around me was “ate up”. My psychological wind-down from that period was rough. I had a messy break-up and a period of depression after returning home.

I did enjoy the college benefits over the next semester. Also, having had a taste of how bad life can really be, I was able to focus on my studies much better than before. I was more disciplined, and the little stuff got to me way less than ever before in my life.

However, the Army again came first when I was deployed 2/3rds of the way through the semester I returned. I went through 3 months of repetitive and often mundane combat training and drills. Then I deployed to Camp Blackjack (currently part of Camp Liberty) in Iraq. Over my time there, I did patrols, TCPs, perimeter security, and various details, while going through all of the bang and boom activity related to the job. Fortunately, Basic and AIT was psychologically stressful enough where I was mostly inoculated against some of the stressors involved with the position.

Admittedly, my body was a little bit more broken than previously when I returned home. That, combined with what I realized was the mostly tedious job of a Combat Arms job and my desire to get into business for college, lead me to decide to switch over to Finance.

During my deployment, I swore I would get out as soon as possible. When I returned to college, this initial desire reversed itself. While I don’t necessarily like the bureaucracy of the military, the hearts and minds of the people I served with were outstanding compared to some of my fellow college students. My end career goal was to be a CPA, but I needed 150 credit hours to get that license, so I debated either getting a minor in Pro-flight or Military Science (through ROTC). ROTC ended up winning out (even though I did get a private pilot’s license before switching over to that option). For the most part, I loved every minute of my hectic schedule while I was a cadet. Additionally, the officers leading my ROTC program portrayed a leadership style that is in many ways unparalleled in any other organization. They were always going the right thing, and I ended up as one of the Distinguished Honor Graduates the year of my graduation and commissioning.

Currently, I’m on my first post-commissioning deployment to Camp Arifjan as a Banking Officer. The Guard and Reserve have certainly turned into an Operational rather than Strategic military reserve over the last decade! While it is a setback to some of my life goals and  civilian career, I understand how important being on the ground overseas is to the objectives of the USA.

So, in summary, I serve in the United States Army because it is a difficult but significant job that not everybody is willing or able to do. Also, the organization has helped me develop the discipline and focus that has helped me out in many areas of my life. In addition, the financial benefits I’ve received for my service have allowed me to skip the burden of student loan debt and start my post-graduate life off ahead of my peers. My choice to serve isn’t ever an easy one despite all of this, but I have still been able to take the good and leave the bad as I go on with my parallel career in the National Guard.

Arrival

Posted on July 24, 2010 by Brett

The transition into the position at Camp Arifjan wasn’t horrible, but the atmosphere of the place was interesting. To keep it simple, there were strong negative feelings across the office among several different people. And really, the atmosphere hasn’t changed that much even to this day. Maybe it’s a side effect of too many high ranking individuals in a small town.  The atmosphere at my regular job at UnitedHealth Group does seem a lot more collaborative.

There was certainly a lot of information even beyond what I learned at DFAS Indianapolis related to the job. There are a multitude of organizations within the government running projects and pilots across the Theater.  Included in this list would be PRTs, Threat Finance Cells, USAID, the Department of State, the TFBSO, the Federal Reserve, the US Treasury, DFAS, and various factions within the military, Finance being one and Contracting another.

Also, the actual financial infrastructure has many differences between the Commercial Bank/Savings and Loan/Credit Union structure we’re used to in the United States. For instance, there is a hawala system across much of the Middle East, including Aghanistan, which is about half of a millennium old. Basically hawaladars (people who run “branches”) are sworn into the career, and allow people to send money through their system for a fee. It’s basically a low tech system to wire funds where the different hawaladars meet occasionally to settle their books. Otherwise, the vast majority of people in Afghanistan carry the money they have, and are suspicious of the local banks.

Of course, all of that information doesn’t matter if we can’t in some way act on it. The goal of my organization is to prevent the loss of US funds entrusted to Army Financial Management Companies and promote US goals, such as strengthening the financial infrastructure of host nations.

So, that’s the general gist of what I’m up to over here at Camp Arifjan. I suppose I’ll start posting updates a little more specific to current events now that the baseline is established.

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CRC at Ft Benning

Posted on July 23, 2010 by Brett

Before heading to the Middle East, I was at least able to acclimate a little bit to the hotter weather I would encounter by spending a week at the Combat Readiness Center (CRC) at Ft Benning, GA. I’m truly glad that the whole administrative process was a little bit faster than the last time I went overseas, but the whole thing could still be described as a painful, Army hurry-up-and-wait style mess.

The simple way to put it is that everyone does everything as a group. In some cases, this makes sense. There are a number of mandatory classes. One class, which was a brief on the CRC process, showed a video of people waiting in line and looking at presentations! That would be a prime example of how empty some of these classes were.

Sometimes, this doesn’t work out logically quite as well. With a little creative effort, they could very well schedule individuals or small groups of people into appointed blocks of time and rotate them through separate stations, such as equipment issues and medical checkups, but instead, they’ll show up with a massive group of people and take the whole day to get them all through. Additionally, they could locate the required employees and facilities right by the bunkhouses where everyone says, but instead they have even the CRC specific training facilities (only used by CRC mind you) about a mile up the road. The location of the CRC site is a little ridiculous too – it’s way out in the middle of the forest. So, they have to have dedicated transportation to get everyone to and from many of the required sites located at the main post.

To their credit, they at least had smaller huge groups than what I’ve experienced in the past, so the logic center of my brain wasn’t quite at a lifetime high level of excruciating disbelief.

I did manage to set a lifetime experience record in one area however. One of my contractor roommates (there were four people per room in this temporary housing) snored louder than anyone I’ve met in my entire life. It was so bad that the other two people in the room moved out the day after we got there. Now, I’m a heavy sleeper, so I thought I could take it. I could not sleep unassisted through his snoring though. I think it’s because he really sounded like he was dying, suffocating right there in his bunk. I did stick it out though by wearing ear-plug type ear buds with the music set on repeat.

Finally, after shuffling papers and having my papers shuffled for a week, I got on the flight over to the Middle East (without my boss since he was held back for a medical review). Sixteen hours later I landed in Kuwait, drove for an hour to the transition site, waited for my bags for an hour, drove for an hour to Camp Arifjan, and spent another hour checking into my bunk-cubicle in a huge room at the I-Building. It was quite the journey to get to my hovel away from home.

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Indiana

Posted on July 18, 2010 by Brett

One thing is for sure – living out of a hotel room is a painful existence. I stayed at a Hampton Inn to the NE side of Indianapolis for about 10 days, followed by the Holiday Inn in downtown Indianapolis during my training.

I found myself missing the easy access to parks and trails around my condo in Minnetonka, MN. I did get out for a few runs at both locations in Indy, but I was felt I was inhaling a few too many fumes from the traffic to find runs in the area to be very enjoyable. Towards the end of my stay, I found myself preferring the treadmills at the LA Fitness gyms in the area.

As far as the locals sights, I thought the Circle Center in downtown Indianapolis was pretty cool, and I really liked the area around Caramel, IN, which not coincidentally was named one of the top small towns in America by Money Magazine recently.

I was able to visit my buddy Rob in Bloomington, IN one of the weekends I was there.  I hadn’t gambled for awhile, and we headed to the far south end of Indiana to a place called French Lick, which was medium sized casino/resort in the area. In usual fashion, I lost about $200 to that institution, and in his usual fashion, Rob got the equivalent to a Royal Flush and some other jackpot while we were there, netting him about $3k. At least he was a good sport about it and picked up dinner.

Other than that, I fell in love with Yelp.com all over again. It’s a lifesaver when you don’t know where the hell to eat.

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DFAS Indianapolis

Posted on July 18, 2010 by Brett

DFAS Indianapolis is an enormous building. The facility is a large square monolithic looking place found in the suburbs of Indianapolis. All around the exterior, apart from the side facing the main road, are fields of parking lots. Inside, the place has as much character as a hospital. Maybe even less so. The long halls running through the interior of the place are bereft of any color, art, or anything else that may cause warmth or please the eye. The basic amenities are there – offices, a coffee shop, a small shop, a cafeteria, and a small, outdated gym – but it isn’t any place someone would visit besides to do work.

Before going to DFAS Indianapolis, the only experience I had in my mind about the place was the mess they had made with travel voucher reimbursement for fellow Lieutenants when I attended the Finance Basic Officer Leadership Course this past year. So, in many ways, I initially felt like I was headed to some hornet’s nest.

However, and thankfully, the only people I met for training there were knowledgeable and competent. Me and my boss, a Lieutenant Colonel from the Reserve Component, had a fairly packed schedule as we were brought up to date on the several systems DoD currently utilizes in order to reduce the amount of currency on the battlefield. We also met several key people within DFAS, and one from the Pentagon, who are a wealth of information on DoD finance policy.

If you want to know the breadth of information this policy covers, take a look at the DoDFMR online (link). Mainly, we use the DoD FMR Volume 5 Chapters 12, 14, and 34 for what we do as the ARCENT/326th FMC Banking Team.

One peculiar thing I noticed about the working atmosphere around DFAS was the strong personal feelings, both positive and negative, that permeated just about every working relationship throughout the place. Was this due to bad leadership, bad followers, or was it just the price to pay for having very knowledgeable people who are just set in their ways? I wasn’t entirely sure, and I didn’t stay long enough to really judge it one way or the other.

In the end, I felt, and still feel, that my experience there brought me up to speed on the essentials I need here at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait.