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Recently, I was reading the Bible verse which says: “What has been, will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”  Eccl. 1:9. I am sure that in our age of innovation and entrepreneurship, people might want to dispute it but let us take it at face […]

IBEC Managing Director, Robert Bush, reports on a visit to one of  IBEC’s clients in the Philippines,  a real estate photo editing company. Larry W. Sharp, BAM Support Specialist, IBEC Ventures Larry.Sharp@ibecventures.com —–  If you want to find out what a company is really like, it’s easy to do…you talk to the people who work there. 

Memorial Day is an important day for a nation like the United States.  It is a day to remember and honor those who died while serving in the nation’s military. The day originated after the Civil War where more lives were lost than any other US war (620,000).  Memorial Day is different than Veterans Day

As an owner of a fourth-year BAM coffee startup in Northern Thailand, my wife Rebecca and I find ourselves hyper-focused on our own world day in and day out. That means trying to control costs, boost marketing, improve employee contact and relations, contact new prospects, inspect products before shipping, preparing loan payments for investors, receipts, accounting,

It has been a long time since I was in business school and it seems I don’t remember much; however, there is something I do remember.  It is the question, “why does one start a business?”  The answer (and the books remind us) is to either solve a problem, or meet a need, or follow

“My job is that of a detective,” stated Micah Lund shortly after we met. What? I thought we would be talking about a significant agribusiness, Oasis Agro, in Central Asia where he serves as the CEO.  I had learned about his robust work in the development world with organizations like the Peace Corps and USAID,

When I was growing up in the 1950’s and 60’s, it was common to retread automobile tires, sometimes called re-tire. It is the process of replacing the worn tread on a used tire with new rubber, giving the tire a second (or third) life instead of sending it to a landfill. That issue described me

My youngest daughter is a Human Resource professional, currently working at Oregon State University.  She recently shared a book she had just read entitled “FIT MATTERS” and knew I would be intrigued with the sub-title, “How to Love Your Job”. My first teaching job was in 1970 at Prairie High School in Alberta, Canada; my

IBEC Board member, Dave Kier, owned and operated a sizable animal feed mill in Iowa (see the IBEC video on the website.)  This is one of the many lessons learned over the years in business. Larry W. Sharp, BAM Support Specialist, IBEC Ventures Larry.Sharp@ibecventures.com —– “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed,

I have often taught and referred to the Kingdom of God (and Heaven) as in the New Testament Gospels books. Approximately half of the references refer to this Kingdom as “here and now”, and half to the “not yet” or the afterlife. In thinking about the “here and now”, some scholars refer to the “Four-Part