I initially started riding my bicycle to UPS way back in the late 90s. My van had broken down and lacking the funds to fix it right away, I decided that my 10-speed was my best option. I hadn’t missed a day of work during my first year; and I wanted to complete a year with no absence from work. It was a 16-mile ride in each direction at that time, but on occasion, my preload supervisor, Debbie Fried, would meet me along the way; and I’d throw my bike into the back of her truck.

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Last summer it seemed like the media reports of record-breaking temperatures, wildfires and droughts were never-ending. And like farmers and ski resort managers, heat and cold are of particular interest to me because of my role at UPS as a temperature-sensitive packaging professional.

Keeping medicines at the right temperature is essential if they are to work well, and it’s vital to the health of patients. Whether you need an annual flu shot or your regular supply of insulin, it’s likely that a great deal of work has gone into designing the packaging it’s shipped in. Packaging may be the only protection that stands between your medicine and the outside world, from the manufacturer to the point of care, whether that’s a doctor’s office, an outpatient surgery center or even your own home. In fact, a recent UPS survey investigating healthcare supply chain challenges found that product protection is one of the biggest challenges healthcare manufacturers face.

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Farmers have long practiced sustainability to survive. Whether crop, tree, or various other products, farmers must be good stewards of their lands or the lands will cease to produce effectively. I learned this as a young boy growing up on our family farm.

One day, I was griping to my father about having to plant trees and he commented, “That, son is the future.”

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I enjoy riding my bike every chance I get.  It’s a great form of exercise; it also helps keep the roads less congested and sets a positive, active example for my children. They’ve even started tagging along on their bikes when I go for a run!

Wike Bicycle Trailers is looking to make our world healthier and more sustainable. With an end goal of getting more people cycling rather than driving, Wike introduces people to new uses for bicycles – from using their trailers to transport pets, groceries and equipment to helping disabled triathletes compete.

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When Denise Meissner’s son was diagnosed with Autism, she quickly became educated on the use of Visual Cues – single-image pictures that help those with language and communication challenges perform everyday tasks. Since people with Autism think in pictures, visual cues help them follow a schedule, manage behavior, tolerate new activities, and communicate with others. Denise’s son’s behavior and language skills improved dramatically with the use of visual cues, but the cues were often time-consuming to make and cumbersome to transport and manage. Denise wanted to share this communication method with other parents to experience the success her child had with visual cues. She realized that she needed to create visual cues that would be portable, fashionable and fun to use.

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What if I told you that one of the most prevalent reasons for an unsuccessful course of drug therapy isn’t due to what’s in the pill bottle, but what’s on the pill bottle? It’s an unopened lid. As a nation we have an epidemic of ‘not taking what we were prescribed in the prescribed dosage.’ And like any epidemic, it has serious consequences.

Every year, prescription medication non-adherence (not taking medication at the right time, dosage, or simply not taking it at all) is responsible for more than 120,000 unnecessary patient deaths and $290 billion in unnecessary healthcare spending each year in the United States.

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UPS Chief Financial Officer Kurt Kuehn recently participated in a panel at the Bloomberg Washington Summit that discussed the state of the economy and the impact of public debt on business markets.

Kurt was joined on the panel by U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and the CFO of the U.S. Postal Service, Joseph Corbett. The panel was moderated by Robert Litan, research director for Bloomberg Government.

Among the issues they addressed were the pace of business investment in the economy and ways in which postal and carrier businesses reflect challenges faced by other businesses.

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I recently chatted with Bryan Silverman, co-founder of Star Toilet Paper and winner of Entrepreneur magazine’s College Entrepreneur of 2012, to learn more about his business. Star Toilet Paper is unique – they print advertisements and coupons on a wide range of environmentally friendly toilet paper. Then they supply venues with this printed toilet paper, free of charge, by using the revenue from the advertising side of the company.

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Successful supply chains cohesively address the connected flows of goods, funds, and information. New tools and technology for the management of logistics detail and data are producing quantifiable business improvements for leading healthcare corporations.

To be efficient, you want to maintain control over the services that keep your business running – orders to billing – but need help managing the day-to-day tasks. That means supervising orders, inventory and customer service, for facilitating compliance and on-time deliveries, and for expediting invoicing and speeding payment.

During this webinar, Jen Trone, sector development manager of UPS Healthcare, will discuss how you can create a cohesive supply chain, capture market share, and respond quickly to market demands. Participants will learn how UPS Order To Cash® can help them meet the customer demands and improve overall supply chain performance.

Click here to register for the May 2 webinar at 11:00 a.m. ET.

It’s no surprise that small towns and rural communities don’t have the same abundance of fast food restaurant choices, clothing stores, movie theaters and retail shopping as metropolitan areas in the United States. Although fewer resources are available in small towns, the needs are still very present. Just like any other person in the country, the residents of small towns and communities have responsibilities and tasks that need to get done, but for those small town residents it may be a bit more daunting to get errands done. The same can be said for small businesses in these rural areas; they often don’t have access to the resources needed to grow their businesses.

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