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# Mark Ray

Writer

## Sitemaps

- [XML Sitemap](https://mark-ray.com/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website.

## Pages

- [Home](https://mark-ray.com/) - Mark Ray is an experienced, award-winning freelance writer, editor, and content-marketing specialist.
- [About My Work](https://mark-ray.com/about/) - Hi, I'm Mark. I'm a long-time freelance writer and editor. Although something of a generalist, I gravitate towards health content, profiles, and service journalism. Every day, I look for ways to turn words into action to help my clients reach their goals. I’ve been a full-time freelancer since 1998. From books to magazine articles to
- [Testimonials](https://mark-ray.com/endorsements/) - "I’ve worked with Mark on creating several pieces of content for two different healthcare clients (for which I serve as managing editor), and he hits the mark every time. His writing is impeccable. Every word is important and meaningful. There’s no fluff or filler language. He makes his points clearly and directly, but not in
- [Contact](https://mark-ray.com/contact/) - To get in touch, complete this form or drop me an email at mark@mark-ray.com.

## Projects

- [Cast in bronze: an artist's legacy](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2025/11/cast-in-bronze-an-artists-legacy/) - The ongoing debate over whether to remove Confederate statues in the South (and beyond) demonstrates how public art highlights what a society finds significant. By that measure,Ed Hamilton was pretty insignificant when he was growing up black in the 1950s and 1960s.
- [Hotel industry report: a year of uncertainty](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2025/11/hotel-industry-report-a-year-of-uncertainty/) - Our State of the Industry Report last year began with this statement: "The outlook for the hotel industry for the rest of 2024 is, well, complicated." Well, "complicated" applies even more to 2025. Between tariffs, stock market fluctuations and falling consumer sentiment, it's clear that this year's outlook is not so clear.
- [How Quest pre-enrollment data can help your health plan serve members better](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2025/11/how-quest-pre-enrollment-data-can-help-your-health-plan-serve-members-better/) - Healthcare generates unimaginable amounts of data. The World Economic Forum has reported that a single hospital can generate 50 petabytes of data each year; that’s enough to fill 11 million standard DVDs. Unfortunately, 97% of that data never gets used, robbing clinicians and health plans of valuable, even vital, information about patients.
- [Reading, writing, and a whole lot more](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/reading-writing-and-a-whole-lot-more/) - Despite the many challenges of the past year, Autumn Dodson, WC ’18, BU ’21, was an unstoppable force. More or less simultaneously, she wrote the dissertation for her Doctor of Education at Brenau University and a children’s book, My Teacher Looks Like Me. Both explore the importance of having diverse teachers in the classroom.
- [How to choose the right words when talking to your teen](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/how-to-choose-the-right-words-when-talking-to-your-teen/) - Your teenage son comes home from school, mutters a few unintelligible words when you ask about his day and retreats to his room to play videogames. Your teenage daughter comes home from school, parks herself in the kitchen and unloads all her troubles in a tsunami of words. In both cases, you struggle to find the right words and the right tone. What you need, clinical psychologist Dr. Wendy Mogel says, are some voice lessons. That’s just what she offers in Voice Lessons for Parents: What to Say, How to Say It, and When to Listen (Scribner, 2018).
- [Make it shine](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/make-it-shine/) - Having your car professionally detailed can set you back several hundred dollars, especially if you pay someone to come to your home or office. However, you can get great results yourself for a fraction of the cost. If you’re like Costco member Mike Schultz, you may even enjoy the experience. “For me, taking care of a car is therapeutic,” says Schultz (aka Dr. Turtle), senior vice president for research and development at Turtle Wax, a Costco supplier. “If it’s above 32 [degrees] and the sun is out, I’m washing my car.”
- [How subscription medicine can benefit your patients--and grow your business](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/how-subscription-medicine-can-benefit-your-patients-and-grow-your-business/) - One day last fall, a patient texted Vance Lassey, M.D., while he was at church to say she thought she had a urinary tract infection (UTI). After discussing her symptoms and confirming her suspected diagnosis, Lassey, a Holton, KS, physician and president of the Direct Primary Care Alliance, stopped by his clinic on the way home, filled a prescription for an antibiotic and left it in a lockbox outside. The patient picked it up less than an hour later and quickly had her UTI under control.
- [New job? Now it’s time to pick your health insurance](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/new-job-now-its-time-to-pick-your-health-insurance/) - Your first day of work may feel a little like your first day of school. There's a lot to learn – from where to find the coffee machine to all your new coworkers’ names. One of your most important tasks might be picking a new health plan.
- [Medication management: tips for older adults](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2024/09/medication-management-tips-for-older-adults/) - If your medicine cabinet is overflowing, you’re not alone. Nearly a quarter of older adults are on five or more prescription medications, while half take at least two nonprescription drugs or supplements. To keep up with everything you’re on — medication management is the fancy term — you have to take each medication at the
- [4 revenue sources to explore for your primary care practice](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2024/06/4-revenue-sources-to-explore-for-your-primary-care-practice/) - Ancillary services have long been a popular way to increase revenue for physician practices. In fact, 82% of practices offer at least one ancillary service.1 Such services account for 11% of revenue for both internal and family medicine practices, according to Medical Economics' 92nd Physician Report.
- [Exploring the intersection of entrepreneurship and mental health challenges at South by Southwest](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/04/exploring-the-intersection-of-entrepreneurship-and-mental-health-challenges-at-south-by-southwest/) - Creative. Driven. Caffeine-fueled. Those are just some of the adjectives that describe entrepreneurs. But there are others that few people talk about, including depressed, anxious and addicted.
- [Practicing for her people](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/practicing-for-her-people/) - Robeson County, North Carolina, ranks dead last among the Tar Heel State’s 100 counties for health outcomes and health factors like smoking and obesity. Diabetes, cancer, poverty and a lack of local medical specialists make it hard for the rural county’s residents to maintain and improve their health. But the situation is slowly improving, thanks to Marshirl Locklear, BU ’15 & ’18. A family nurse practitioner, Locklear opened a clinic in the Robeson County city of Lumberton in April 2019, just three months after the physician she’d been working for, Dr. Ben Hardin, died.
- [4 myths about learning after 65 — busted!](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/4-myths-about-learning-after-65-busted/) - Your brain is an amazing organ that changes, adapts, and even gets sharper when you use it — no matter how old you are. And the more you do for your brain, the more benefits you’ll see in return. That includes the way you learn, how you remember things, and even your mood. Translation: Your brain has not already seen its best days — not even close! Here are four popular myths about brain health and aging that you should, er, forget about. Let the learning begin.
- [Prescription drug coverage: What it’s all about](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/prescription-drug-coverage-what-its-all-about/) - Do you take any prescription medications? Most Americans do. Nearly half of Americans take at least 1 prescription drug per month, and about 1 in 8 take 5 or more. And all those prescriptions can add up. In 2021, prescription drug spending hit $378 billion. Numbers like those show why prescription drug coverage is important. Let’s look at how your health insurance can help you pay for your prescriptions and how you can save money when you visit the pharmacy.
- [How to help a loved one make sense of Medicare Advantage plans](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/how-to-help-a-loved-one-make-sense-of-medicare-advantage-plans/) - Whether you’re a full-time caregiver for a parent or just lending a hand now and then, you know how important it is that they have great health care. And for people age 65 and older, that usually starts with a Medicare plan. But if you’re new to this part of the insurance world, it can feel pretty overwhelming.
- [Glasses vs. contacts: The eyewear showdown](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/glasses-vs-contacts-the-eyewear-showdown/) - Life is full of choices. And for many people, one of the toughest is deciding between glasses and contacts. Both eyewear options can improve your vision, but which is right for you? To help you decide, two experts point out some pros, cons, and situations to consider before making a purchase.
- [Vision benefits—what you need to know](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/vision-benefits-what-you-need-to-know/) - Your vision plan is an investment in your current and future eye health. Learn what you need to know about your vision benefits, as well as how and where you can use it. Let’s get started.
- [Early retirement: What it's all about](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/early-retirement-whats-it-all-about/) - After decades of punching the clock, you’d love to quit your job when you turn 65 (or soon after). But retiring early isn’t as simple as saying, “I quit.” Here’s what you need to know about the financial and health insurance aspects of early retirement.
- [Why company leaders need to prioritize their own mental health](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/why-company-leaders-need-to-prioritize-their-own-mental-health/) - As a 28-year-old consultant for Bain, John Donahoe found himself working constantly, traveling frequently, rarely sleeping and always struggling to find some semblance of work-life balance. Then he got a piece of advice that changed — and maybe even saved — his life. A speaker at a training program explained how much effort professional athletes put into improving their physical and mental health. “Michael Jordan has a bench coach, a personal trainer, a chef and a mental coach. He wants to get help so he can get better,” the speaker said. “But you businesspeople don’t take care of yourselves. You think not getting sleep is a badge of honor! And you want to be world-class? You think asking for help is a sign of weakness, not strength. I don’t get it!”
- [How to have successful conversations about care decisions](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2024/09/how-to-have-successful-conversations-about-care-decisions/) - Older adults often face hard questions about their end-of-life care: Should my doctors take extraordinary measures to keep me alive? Who should decide what care I receive if I’m not able to speak for myself? Where do I want to spend my last days? And how can I make my wishes known?
- [Alyssa Weinberg '22 wrote an opera about climate change](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/alyssa-weinberg-22-wrote-an-opera-about-climate-change/) - Climate change is raising temperatures and sea levels around the world, but it’s also threatening the memories held by society and by nature itself. That’s the premise behind Drift, a forthcoming opera that composer Alyssa Weinberg *22 is developing with librettist J. Mae Barizo, who created the story.
- [Leading through crisis and beyond](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/10/leading-through-crisis-and-beyond/) - Like his colleagues around the world, Frank Ashmore faced the crisis of a lifetime when COVID-19 upended the hospitality industry in March 2020. As managing director of 1440 Multiversity in Scotts Valley, California, he had to shepherd the nonprofit learning destination and retreat center through the pandemic; then, a few months later, through wildfires that ravaged Santa Cruz County.
- [Gold medal lessons in leadership](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2024/04/gold-medal-lessons-in-leadership/) - Chemmy Alcott is synonymous with British skiing. A seven-time British National Overall Champion, she competed in four Winter Olympics and won 44 gold medals over the course of her international career.
- [What to know about stroke prevention and high blood pressure](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2024/09/what-to-know-about-stroke-prevention-and-high-blood-pressure/) - Few health problems can change your life in an instant like a stroke can. Fortunately, experts say up to 80% of strokes could be prevented by healthy lifestyle choices. We’ll talk about those choices in a moment, keeping in mind that prevention is only part of the story. First, let’s review the basics of a stroke, and
- [Finding the sweet in the bitter](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2025/02/finding-the-sweet-in-the-bitter/) - We sometimes think of human trafficking victims as just that: victims. But they can also be victors. That’s certainly true of Donna Lynne Hubbard, honored with a PACT Freedom Award this year for her remarkable work in the antitrafficking field. Her story demonstrates why it’s important for hospitality workers to recognize and report potential trafficking situations.
- [Going beyond the ChatGPT hype](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2024/05/going-beyond-the-chatgpt-hype-2/) - Recent headlines illustrate the potential and the peril of ChatGPT, the generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool that OpenAI released in November 2022. ChatGPT reached 100 million users in just two months and is now cranking out text and cranking up expectations around the world.
- [Heart to heart to heart](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2025/02/heart-to-heart-to-heart/) - If hospitals offered friends and family discounts, the Lindberg family would qualify in spades—or make that hearts. Three generations of Lindberg men have received cardiac ablations at Cleveland Clinic, all performed by Oussama Wazni, MD, MBA. As section head for Cardiac Electrophysiology and Pacing at Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Wazni specializes in electrophysiology—and in the health of Mike, Eric and Michael Lindberg.
- [Rural cancer care](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2025/03/rural-cancer-care/) - Rural residents with cancer tend to have later diagnoses and poorer outcomes. Researchers and oncologists are working to identify and remove the barriers they face.
- [Taking a red pencil to corporate speak](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/03/taking-a-red-pencil-to-corporate-speak/) - Before becoming a professor at Bucknell’s Freeman College of Management, Kate Suslava worked as an auditor for accounting giant Ernst & Young (EY). It was a job that involved listening to plenty of companies’ quarterly earnings calls. Like her EY colleagues, Suslava paid careful attention to the numbers companies reported — things like revenue, expenses and the ever-popular earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA).
- [A cup of kindness for those touched by cancer](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2024/10/a-cup-of-kindness-for-those-touched-by-cancer/) - Late on a Saturday morning in early December, nearly 70 women gathered around elegant tables at Christ Church United Methodist in Louisville, Ky. For the next two hours, they enjoyed an abundance of teas, homemade foods and delectable desserts and talked about every topic but the one thing they had in common: cancer.
- [The best health and home innovations from CES 2020](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/the-best-health-and-home-innovations-from-ces-2020/) - During CES 2020 in Las Vegas in January, more than 4,400 companies debuted some 20,000 tech products, everything from 8K TVs to foldable laptop computers to plant-based pork from the people who brought you the Impossible Burger. (Clearly, the show has grown beyond just focusing on consumer electronics, as it once did.)
- [Unconditional caregiving](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/11/unconditional-caregiving/) - Journalist Richard Lui's father, Stephen, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease nine years ago. Not long after the diagnosis, the New York-based MSNBC/NBC news anchor began commuting cross-country to San Francisco each week to help care for his father, alongside his mother and siblings. Yet it took him three or four years to self-identify as caregiver, perhaps because caregivers, especially men, work in the shadows of society.
- [Could a smarter home help you age in place?](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/could-a-smarter-home-help-you-age-in-place/) - In the heart of Louisville’s Innovation District sits the Thrive Center, a 7,500-square-foot space dedicated to showing how technology can enhance the lives of older adults. And in the center of the center is the prototype of a smart home — including kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom — that demonstrates how technology can help older adults age in place and allow their caregivers and loved ones to keep a virtual eye on them.
- [How the Great American Songbook unites generations](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/how-the-great-american-songbook-unites-generations/) - Whether it's April in Paris or autumn in New York, someone right now is probably listening to a selection from The Great American Songbook. Maybe they're taking the A train to Harlem with Ella Fitzgerald or getting their kicks on Route 66 with Nat King Cole. Perhaps they're playing among the stars with Frank Sinatra or directing their feet to the sunny side of the street with Louis Armstrong.
- [3 estate planning mistakes to avoid](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/3-estate-planning-mistakes-to-avoid/) - With apologies to poet Robert Burns, the best-laid estate plans of women and men sometimes go awry. Consider the friend of estate attorney Roz Carothers' client. The woman, a single parent, left behind a detailed estate plan, but also left behind a problem: after she died, the guardian she'd named for her teenage daughter declined to serve.
- [Courageous conversations at the Human Library](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/courageous-conversations-at-the-human-library/) - You can’t judge a book by its cover, but most people do exactly that with humans. “We so frequently do judge people by their appearances or their identity or their religion or gender — you name it,” says librarian Susan Lauricella of the Wilton Library in Wilton, Conn. “There are all these assumptions instantly made whether you want to acknowledge it or not.”
- [A Kentucky collector finds purpose in his passion](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/a-kentucky-collector-finds-purpose-in-his-passion/) - When Lamont Collins' family moved to a mostly white Louisville, Kentucky neighborhood in the 1960s, he felt like he'd been dropped behind enemy lines (although he was never physically harmed). He survived and thrived in large part because of his athletic ability, which later earned him a spot on the University of Louisville football team. "I was always the best athlete, so kids would always put me on their team," he says.
- [Swinging for the fences](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/swinging-for-the-fences/) - In April, the Smithsonian Institution's National Postal Museum opened a new exhibition, "Baseball: America's Home Run," which features artifacts representing every era and facet of America's pastime. Nearly 300 people attended the VIP opening, including the son of the Pittsburgh Pirates' Hall of Fame right fielder Roberto Clemente and two grandchildren of the Brooklyn Dodgers' Hall of Fame second baseman and civil-rights advocate Jackie Robinson. Rubbing elbows with all of the celebrities and scions was a man few would recognize, Stephen Tsi Chuen Wong, a Goldman Sachs executive based in Hong Kong and the exhibition's honorary advisor.
- [Driven to serve](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2024/06/driven-to-serve/) - Like many retirees, Mike and Carol Johnson load up their fifth-wheel trailer just after Christmas each year and drive south. They don't head to the beach or the golf course, however. Instead, the Brownsburg, Indiana, residents head to a camp, community center, children's home or other facility with ties to the United Methodist Church and in need of remodeling or repair.
- [Rebuilding the family business, one pecan log roll at a time](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/rebuilding-the-family-business-one-pecan-log-roll-at-a-time/) - For generations of Americans in the South and Midwest, a visit to a roadside Stuckey's convenience store was as big a part of road trips as the game I Spy and backseat cries of "Are we there yet?"
- [We are those guys: four decades on the Pacific Crest Trail](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/we-are-those-guys-four-decades-on-the-pacific-crest-trail/) - In the summer of 1981, Rees Hughes and Howard Shapiro, along with mutual friend Jim Peacock, set out to hike the section of the Pacific Crest Trail that runs through Washington state. It was their first encounter with the 2,650-mile PCT, which stretches from Mexico to Canada. Before kids and without major career responsibilities, taking time for a long hike was easy, even if the actual hiking was harder than they'd expected.
- [2024 Wellness Calendar: Your Healthy Aging Checklist](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2024/09/2024-wellness-calendar-your-healthy-aging-checklist/) - New Year’s resolutions are hard to keep without a plan. If one of your goals is healthy aging, ArchWell Health is here to help. Take these monthly steps to a healthier, happier you in 2024.
- [How to maximize home infusion reimbursement](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2024/09/how-to-maximize-home-infusion-reimbursement/) - Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, home infusion reimbursement rates weren't top of mind for Varner R. Richards, Pharm.D., CEO/owner of Columbia, S.C.-based Intramed Plus. Instead, he focused on how his infusion pharmacy could help local hospitals move patients home for post-acute infusion therapy.
- [Flu prevention strategies for the 2021-2022 season](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2024/09/flu-prevention-strategies-for-the-2021-2022-season/) - The COVID-19 pandemic has been deadly and disruptive. It's also been a real-world test of the best flu prevention strategies. Thanks to masking, social distancing, limited travel and the closure of schools, businesses and entertainment venues, the 2020-2021 flu season was extremely mild both in the United States and globally.
- [Pandemic: controlling infectious diseases before they spread](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2024/09/pandemic-controlling-infectious-diseases-before-they-spread/) - He’s been called Patient Zero, but his real name was Emile Ouamouno. He was two years old, he lived in the Guinean farming village of Meliandou, and he loved listening to his family’s bright red portable radio. Emile died in December 2013, the first victim of an Ebola outbreak that would quickly spread across Guinea,
- [European clinical trials and the GDPR](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/european-clinical-trials-and-the-gdpr/) - Privacy is paramount in the EU and the UK. And that means you as a trial sponsor must focus on safeguarding the personal data you collect on trial participants as well as vendors and even your own EU- and UK-based employees and on-site staff. Failure to do so could lead to study delays and interruptions to data flows.
- [Leading with integrity](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2024/05/leading-with-integrity/) - You could say Rex Tillerson’s path to the corner office began on a portage trail in the Boundary Watters of Minnesota and Ontario. As a 14-year-old Scout from Stillwater, Okla., the future ExxonMobil CEO traveled to the Charles L. Sommers Canoe Base for a 10-day paddling adventur.
- [Get the right gear](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/12/get-the-right-gear/) - Back in 1965, computer chip pioneer Gordon Moore predicted that the number of transistors on computer chips would double every two years. His prediction is surprisingly accurate. And it explains why each year brings a crop of desktops, laptops and tablets that are faster, more powerful and more capable than ever. Features that were once rare, like solid-state drives and facial recognition, now appear on many entry-level products.
- [Class act](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2024/05/class-act-2/) - On Sept. 25, 1957, Eagle Scout Ernest Green Jr. and eight other African-American students walked through the front doors of Little Rock’s Central High School and onto the pages of history. Their simple action capped off months of planning, weeks of legal battles, a handful of street-level skirmishes, and a high-stakes showdown between the governor of Arkansas and the president of the United States.
- [Serving their country](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/461/) - Some 16 million Americans served in the armed forces during World War II. Among them were countless Eagle Scouts who waded ashore on D-Day, endured the Bataan Death March, and island-hopped across the Pacific. Others worked behind the lines, organizing armies, delivering supplies, and providing essential medical and moral support to the men in combat.
- [Boy Scout Handbook, 13th edition](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/boy-scout-handbook/) - Imagine standing at a trailhead with a small group of friends. It’s early morning, and the air is filled with the scent of pine and honeysuckle. In a nearby tree, a squirrel is chittering away. An eagle circles high overhead, soaring gracefully on unseen air currents. At the trailhead, a weathered trail sign reads simply, “Adventure Ahead!” That’s it. No description, no distance, just the promise of some untold adventure. You can’t tell just where the trail leads, but that doesn’t really matter, because you know the journey is the reward. And so, without a word, you and your friends smile, pick up your backpacks, and take your first steps into adventure, into excitement, and into the future.
- [Make the most of your medication coverage](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/make-the-most-of-your-medication-coverage/) - One of the benefits of getting prescription drug coverage is getting help paying for your regular medications. And given that nearly 70% of all doctor visits involve some kind of drug therapy, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there’s a good chance that you’ll be putting your prescription drug plan to good use.
- [Editing imagination](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/editing-imagination/) - Superheroes and antiheroes. Snow White and Jedi knights. American Gods and Hellboy. Those are just some of the colorful characters around whom Dave Marshall (Eagle Class of 2000) spends his days. As editor-in-chief of Dark Horse Comics, Marshall oversees production of some 50 titles a month, many of which look nothing like the comic books you might have grown up with. Or that he grew up with, for that matter.
- [Boy Scouts of America sustainability report](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/boy-scouts-of-america-sustainability-report/) - When I was a Boy Scout in the 1960s, we didn’t learn about recycling or climate change or sustainability. But we did learn to leave each campsite better than we found it, to leave nothing but footprints, and to take nothing but pictures. A half-century later, I still remember the Outdoor Code, and I still return from hikes with pockets full of litter I picked up along the trail. Much has changed since I was a Scout, both in Scouting and in the larger society. Today, sustainability is critically important as a growing population taxes our planet’s limited resources. We in Scouting are intent on helping our members move from leaving no trace to leaving a positive legacy. We are working hard to integrate sustainability at every level of our organization and are committed to developing the next generation of responsible leaders. We have been teaching leadership development for more than a century, and we are working hard to embrace ecological and sustainability literacy as a critical component of a good leader.
- [Work at play](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/work-at-play/) - If you've seen the movie "Big," you may remember this scene: A group of toy executives is listening to a product pitch that focuses more on demographics, market share and revenue projections than on the actual toy in question — a skyscraper that turns into a robot. As the pitch winds down, Tom Hanks’ character, who is a 12-year-old boy stuck in a 30-year-old body, raises his hand. “I don’t get it,” he says. “What’s fun about playing with a building?”
- [An Eagle's origin story](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/an-eagles-origin-story/) - When they’re not busy saving the planet, superheroes offer a window into the human condition, says Sterling Gates, the Eagle Scout who writes DC’s The Adventures of Supergirl comic book series based on the Supergirl TV drama. Batman must deal with the trauma of his parents’ murder, Wonder Woman searches for answers in her past and Supergirl strives to meet the standard set by her cousin, Superman, who happens to be the biggest superhero of all.
- [Aetna’s Rush to Brush program](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/aetnas-rush-to-brush-program/) - In 2018, the global health care industry held 1,218 exabytes of data. That’s a staggering figure considering that a single exabyte could hold all the printed material in the Library of Congress 100,000 times over. Moreover, health care’s data storage usage is expected to grow at a 36% compound annual rate through 2025. All those bits and bytes beg the question: How can health care organizations better use the patient data they have to improve the lives of the people they serve?
- [American Cancer Society annual report](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/american-cancer-society-annual-report/) - When the American Cancer Society was founded in 1913, a cancer diagnosis meant almost certain death—preceded only by a protracted period of pain and suffering. In those days, the Society could offer comfort and perhaps the loan of a hospital bed, but it could not offer much in the way of hope, progress, or answers. Much had changed by the time I first became involved as a volunteer with the ACS 30 years ago. Society research had firmly established the link between smoking and lung cancer, the ACS was crusading for widespread use of the Pap test for cervical cancer, and ACS-sponsored investigators had begun to unravel the genetic code.
- [Boy Scouts of America annual report](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/boy-scouts-of-america-annual-report/) - In 1939—deep in the Great Depression—the Boy Scouts of America opened what would become Philmont Scout Ranch. Fewer than 200 Scouts visited Philmont that first summer, but optimistic ranch employees launched a building program that fall, knowing better times were coming. In 2009—deep in what some have called the Great Recession—we announced the creation of a new high-adventure base, The Summit Bechtel Family National Scout Reserve, in West Virginia. Like our forebears, we know that better times are coming. During a century of service to America, we have faced challenges and seized opportunities. We have grown, and we have changed. In 2009, our 99th year, we’ve reflected on the lessons of the past and looked for ways to apply those lessons to the future. Better times are indeed coming for America and for Scouting. We invite you to join us as we celebrate the adventure and continue the journey.
- [Keys to success](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/keys-to-success/) - Juilliard-trained concert pianist Kevin Kwan Loucks (Eagle Class of 2000) has played Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Seoul Arts Center and other top performance spaces. But one of his favorite venues lies far from New York, Washington or his Santa Barbara home — far from much of anything, aside from a very large hole in the ground.
- [True colors](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/true-colors/) - Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Vashti who didn’t think she could draw. Frustrated, she jabbed a dot onto a piece of paper and handed it to her art teacher, who insisted she sign it. When Vashti returned to class the next week, she was surprised to find her autographed dot hanging on the wall, framed in gold.
- [Into the storm](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/into-the-storm/) - The raging storm was spawning tornado after tornado. It was May 3, 1999, and Reed Timmer and three other college meteorology students watched beside Interstate 44 in Oklahoma while most of the tornadoes vanished as quickly as they formed. But then one didn’t—and it headed straight for them! Realizing they couldn’t escape in their Jeep, the guys ran to a nearby highway overpass and took shelter (only later learning that’s not a good place to hide). The EF5 tornado barreled toward them, snapping trees like matchsticks, peeling asphalt from roadways and sucking everything in sight into its whipping, whirling core. Then, just before it reached the overpass, the tornado took a quick left turn, leaving the storm chasers shaken but safe.
- [Sergeant Stubby](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/sergeant-stubby/) - As World War I’s final battle began in 1918, a young American spotted a German soldier on the battlefield. The German might have been a spy, or he might have simply been lost. Either way, he ran from the American, who chased him and—at least according to one report—jumped up and took a bite out of his bottom. The American, you see, was a god. His name was Stubby, and his capture of that German soldier was just one reason he became a hero and a legend.
- [Selling like hotcakes](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/411/) - Necessity may be the mother of invention, but some mothers are pretty inventive in their own right. Take Penny Clark. Back in 1982, she sent her 8-year-old son, Joel, around the family’s Utah neighborhood selling pancake mix out of a red wagon. This wasn’t just any pancake mix, however. It was a version of an old family recipe that called for egg whites, baking soda and vinegar, as the instructions she stapled to each brown paper lunch sack explained.
- [Grains of truth](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/grains-of-truth/) - The first thing you should know about Bob’s Red Mill Natural Foods is that there really is a Bob. He’s 88-year-old Bob Moore, he started the company with his wife, Charlee, four decades ago, and he still oversees daily operations at the Milwaukie, Oregon, company. The second thing you should know is that there really is—or rather was—a red mill.
- [Do not discard](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/do-not-discard/) - On an early Wednesday morning at a Costco in Louisville, Kentucky, foods manager Jim Weixler is examining a package of organic apples. His first impulse is to send the fruit to the composting bin, but then he decides that one bad apple doesn’t necessarily spoil the whole bunch. “It has some really good apples,” he says of the package. “I would give this batch to them.”
- [How reducing workplace stress could help prevent heart attacks](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/how-reducing-workplace-stress-could-help-prevent-heart-attacks/) - When the leader of a major organisation suffers a heart attack, it tends to make the headlines. That was the case in 2017, when the American Heart Association’s volunteer president, cardiologist John Warner, M.D., went into cardiac arrest. That was the case in 2009, when 42-year-old Ranjan Das, CEO of SAP India, suffered a heart attack and died – after a workout, no less. And that was the case in 2015, when United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz, an athlete and vegan, suffered a heart attack, an incident that is still often called upon to underline the link between stress, well-being and heart trouble among business leaders.
- [A place for all](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2020/08/a-place-for-all/) - Pastor Larry Stoess and his wife, Kathie, create community one meal at a time.
- [All aboard the Photo Ark](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/134/) - Joel Sartore (Eagle Class of 1977) is an overachiever. Like most concerned citizens, he wants to save the whales and the giant pandas. But he also wants to save the Florida grasshopper sparrow. And the Colombian spider monkey. And the hellbender. And even the homely Sunda pangolin, which looks like a dinosaur that didn’t get the memo about extinction.
- [Facing terror](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/facing-terror/) - On Friday, April 19, 2013, an unmarked car slipped quickly and quietly through the streets of Boston. There was no need for a siren, because the streets were empty — except for the hundreds of vehicles representing an alphabet soup of law-enforcement agencies. Each of those vehicles, like this one, was on the trail of 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect from the Boston Marathon bombings the previous Monday.
- [Flu fighters: How flu vaccines and workplace hygiene can benefit you and your workers](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/flu-fighters-how-flu-vaccines-and-workplace-hygiene-can-benefit-you-and-your-workers/) - Are you a comfort giver or a flu giver? That’s the question the UK’s South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust recently posed in a series of advertisements targeting its employees. In one advert, an elderly woman reaches out to a nurse, who shares a smile – and perhaps the flu virus. In another, a boy tightly hugs the neck of a caregiver who may well be infected even though she shows no symptoms.
- [Scouting magazine--Roundtable section](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/scouting-magazine-roundtable-section/) - Dr. Bridget Walker makes her living scaring people, and she’s proud of it. A practitioner of cognitive behavioral therapy, she knows the best way to fight fear is to face it, as she describes in her new book, Anxiety Relief for Kids (New Harbinger Publications, 2017).
- [Adventure ahead!](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/adventure-ahead/) - The Cub Scout motto is “Do Your Best,” but maybe it should be “Embrace Change.” Since Cub Scouting began in 1930, the program has changed frequently. Age limits have dropped. Tigers have been introduced. Lions have gone extinct. The Webelos Scout program has appeared and expanded. Den mothers have become den leaders and men and women now serve as Cubmasters. But perhaps the biggest changes lie ahead. Effective, June 1, the BSA is making sweeping changes to Cub Scouting, changes that promise to make the program more fun and engaging. Read on to learn what you need to know about the changes.
- [Beating boredom](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/beating-boredom/) - As November slides into December, a raft of religious and cultural celebrations await, including Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa and the International Day of Boredom. OK, boredom doesn’t have its own holiday, but maybe it should. After all, it’s the rare kid who doesn’t complain about being bored during long breaks from school.
- [Shared wisdom](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/shared-wisdom/) - Welcome to Scouting! You’re joining a force of volunteers a million strong, some who started in Scouting before you were born (see tip No. 38). Yet you may be uniquely qualified to have a powerfully positive impact on the young people in your unit (see tip No. 43). No pressure, huh? We at Scouting magazine have been where you are and we understand just how intimidating the job can be. So we created this handy guide to help you through the first months of your Scouting career. Half of the tips stem from our own experience; the other half come from Scouters across the country who responded to survey questions on our Facebook page (see tip No. 20). We appreciate their input and look forward to the day that you, too, start sharing your wisdom with Scouting’s next crop of rookie leaders.
- [Antibiotic resistance: Toward better stewardship of a precious medical resource](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/325/) - Antibiotic resistance has emerged as one of the world’s deadliest health crises. The spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria is threatening the effectiveness of last-resort treatments for life-threatening infections. Every year, 700,000 deaths (and counting) are attributed to antimicrobial resistance, a category which encompasses antibiotic resistance; that’s equivalent to the population of Seattle, Washington or Leeds, West Yorkshire being decimated annually. Without action, the death toll could reach 10 million per annum by 2050.
- [The ticking time bomb: Ageing population](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/the-ticking-time-bomb-ageing-population/) - When Emma Morano died in Italy April 2017, she was the world’s oldest person. She was also the last link to the 19th century, having been born in November 1899. According to a BBC report, the 117-year-old woman’s life “not only spanned three centuries but also survived an abusive marriage, the loss of her only son, two world wars and more than 90 Italian governments.” She credited her longevity to genetics and a daily habit of eating three eggs, one cooked and two raw.
- [Day is done](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/day-is-done/) - I’ve played the trumpet since I was 11, and I even majored in music in college. After I became a nun, in 1992, I played only at Christmas and Easter, and I missed playing more. Fortunately, about 10 years ago, I heard about Bugles Across American and signed up as a volunteer.
- [Infection prevention quiz](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/infection-prevention-quiz/) - Preventing infections is critically important in every clinical setting, whether you're a physician office, ambulatory surgery center, long term care facility or community health center. Learn how your facility is doing when it comes to environmental cleaning and disinfection – and where you could potentially do better in this self-guided quiz.
- [Common values, uncommon rewards](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/common-values-uncommon-rewards/) - Becca Calendo and Amelia Lorenz, housemates at Chicago's Hesed Community Cooperative, love molasses cookies. So last Christmas they used one of the group's three kitchens to whip up several batches of their favorite recipes. Then they enlisted the rest of the community for a blind taste test. 'It was very spontaneous--something we thought of that evening over dinner,' Calendo says. But it was more than that; it was an example of what living in an intentional community can be like.
- [Super Scouters!](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/super-scouters/) - It’s a bird … It’s a plane … It’s Super Scouter! These eight volunteers find time for Scouting, family and a whole lot more—and you can, too. Whether your Scouting role requires an hour per week or an hour per week per Scout, finding enough time can be a challenge. Yet countless Scouters have figured out how to balance their Scouting jobs with their “real” jobs.
- [The forgotten killer: cardiovascular disease](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/the-forgotten-killer-cardiovascular-disease/) - In his days as an Australian Rules footballer, Nicky Winmar had felt plenty of pain and discomfort. But none of it compared to the chest pain that sent the 46-year-old retired athlete reeling early one morning in August 2012. The intense, crushing pain left him bewildered and pounding his breast to try to get relief.
- [Faculty profile: Jackie Villadsen, Physics & Astronomy](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/08/faculty-profile-jackie-villadsen-physics-astronomy/) - Professor Jackie Villadsen, physics & astronomy, is helping to answer one of science's burning questions: Are there Earth-like planets in far-off solar systems? To find out, she and her research team are studying bursts of radio waves from stars like the red dwarf YZ Ceti, which lies 12 light-years away from our solar system. As they've documented in the journal Nature Astronomy, those bursts could indicate that a nearby planet, YZ Ceti b, has a magnetic field similar to Earth's. "This is the first case where someone has detected bursts of radio waves from a star that's known to have a planet really close to it," she says.
- [What US trial sponsors should know about the GDPR](https://mark-ray.com/blog/project/2023/07/what-us-trial-sponsors-should-know-about-the-gdpr/) - U.S. life sciences companies that conduct trials in Europe must deal with more than language nuances and time-zone differences. They must also comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This bedrock privacy regulation controls the use of all personal data, not just health data, of persons residing in the EU and the UK.

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