Posted: 16 Apr 2010 03:48 PM PDT

By ROBERT "ROCKY" CAHILL/Columnist

It was October of 1957, and I was 7 years old. But the real news was the Russians had beaten us into space. Yes, the Reds had put up a satellite, Sputnik, while our space folks (nobody had heard the word geek then, at least not in its present context).
Russia launched Sputnik before our Vanguard even got much more than off the drawing board. Just a few short months later they blasted Sputnik II into space with a bigger payload (the first had been about 184 pounds and made our Vanguard look puny with its payload of less than 5 pounds) plus a live dog named Laika. Made us look like a bunch of amateurs. Scared us too. If they could throw something into space weighing close to 200 pounds, they could throw a heck-of-a bomb at us from over there.
I remember lying in our backyard on warm nights with most of the kids in the neighborhood, including our dear friend the late Helen (Williams) Barbrow, who all of us thought of as a big sister. We would watch as tiny light traveled across the night sky, and Helen pointed it out to us explaining what Sputnik was, a space craft, a real honest to goodness spaceship, well sort of anyhow. I think it was then that I fell in love with outer space and wanted to become a spaceman.
We were all red-blooded American kids, and we didn't want those doggone Russians to beat us at anything. My brother Rusty and I, along with some of our friends, were maybe a little more into it than some kids. We felt we had a closer tie. At the time the Space-Race burst open, there was a huge rush to build the launch center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Our uncles Robert and Phil Smith worked a couple of years on the project. Robert, a WWII veteran, was a superintendent of one of the construction crews there. Phil, a Marine vet who saw battle in Korea, held a degree in physics but did engineering work. Although he designed several commercial items, he also did a vast number of defense projects.
During the early days of the space program, Phil worked as a surveyor, surveying and setting the points to build several of the tracking stations needed then to keep contact with our astronauts as they flew in space.
Back then, in the days before Homeland Security and the super-paranoid government folks, the space program people were a bit more freewheeling. Sure they had plenty of security, background checks and rules and regulations, but once, Robert and Phil were coming home for a few days vacation and brought us the neatest souvenirs a boy could actually have. They brought home a small chunk of the solid fuel used to propel the early boosters. Just enough so the nephews could have a tiny piece each to play with. That stuff burned hot enough to melt concrete. I know; we lit ours. Wish I still had a miniscule piece left. Bet it would bring a fortune on e-Bay. Can't say for sure that I would sell it though. That was about the coolest souvenir I ever have or ever will own.
Yes sir, we had astronauts and they were going to fly in space. I would have let the NASA bunch lop off my little toe with a meat cleaver if it meant I could become an astronaut. I wanted it bad, still do. Of course now, I realize it is not to be.
But I will say this. My friends and family all know I have a fear of heights. Have for years. Don't even like to be more than a step or so up on a ladder and only then when necessary. If they called today and said I could fly on the space shuttle, the only thing is I would have to manually climb a spindly ladder, from ground level all the way to the tip of the shuttle and go in that way, I'd say, "Get the ladder ready people, this country boy is gonna travel in space." That's how bad I want it.
Along came the mission to the moon. People claimed it never happened. Some say our weather has been different ever since that first trip. Me, I thought it was maybe the coolest achievement I would ever see us make. I still think it was wonderful. Next we developed the space shuttle. At last a re-usable spaceship that could carry several passengers. We, in conjunction with our former dreaded enemies, the Russians, then began building the International Space Station. The first step, in my opinion, in our colonizing other planets, perhaps the moon for a start.
Sure NASA and other countries' space agencies have had their errors, failures and tragedies when lives were lost. But most great achievements made by humans have always been accomplished only after such sad events. I honestly believe the problem with our wonderful space program is it has been too successful. People, especially politicians, have begun to take it for granted. In my humble opinion, both our last president and our current one are (or in Bush's case were) guilty of this. Space launches and exploration don't grab the headlines and public interest as they once did. I find it disappointing that I don't think either of them considers it a priority. Besides, it just doesn't get the great press it once did.
But it is extremely important. There may be and likely are asteroids and such bodies out there that are rich with many of the natural resources, minerals and such that our bursting-at-the-seams human population uses up so quickly and needs so badly. There may even be places where in a century or two may be home to large populations of former earth humans. Besides all this, there may be inhabitants from other places looking our way right now and about whom we need every bit of knowledge exploration can divulge just in case.
The idea of scrapping the shuttle program and having our spacemen and women bum a ride with the Russians is just, well heck, it's just un-American. There is talk of developing a heavy payload rocket that can carry more and go further than the shuttles, but can it do what the shuttle does? I don't know and I suspect neither do they. The Russians have a long history in space, including first human flight and first human to orbit the earth. After that, we have, in general, kicked butt as far as space exploration has gone. The many benefits from our space research are amazing, including everyday things like Velcro and super-glue.
I hope and pray that our President and our Congress and Senate see the benefit of a robust and re-energized space program. We need NASA just as much as it needs us. And by the way, in case any of you NASA guys are out there reading this by chance and think it might be cool, just put that ladder up and stand back while I start climbing. But, let's not mention that meat-cleaver-little-toe thing OK.

A freelance journalist, Robert "Rocky" Cahill writes regularly for the News & Messenger. His Possum Philosophy column appears in each Saturday edition.

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RBC's global arm pushes virtues of its philosophy

Posted: 16 Apr 2010 04:16 PM PDT

When Lehman Bros. collapsed in September, 2008, Britain's chancellor of the exchequer, Alistair Darling, went into a very un-British-like panic. Were any of the big banks still trading?

"We got a call from No. 11 Downing Street," remembers Patrick Meier, Royal Bank of Canada's London-based managing director of global investment banking, referring to the chancellor's official address (next to the prime minister's residence at No. 10). "They wanted to know if we were still in the gilts [British government bonds] game. We were. We told them RBC was not in a crisis situation. Our liquidity was strong and we kept trading gilts and bonds."

Scroll forward almost two years and RBC is marketing its status as a big, healthy survivor for everything it's worth.

The full-page ads taken out by RBC Capital Markets in the Financial Times and The Economist magazine since last summer may be as riveting as a seminar on roofing nails – there's no art, no photos of glamorous women bankers. But RBC evidently wants to make a virtue of dullness.

The ad's headline is "Consistency. It's all in our approach." The message: The Canadian bank avoided the disasters during the boom years that felled competitors. It steered clear of subprime mortgages and top-of-the-market acquisitions. While rivals melted and got bailed out or nationalized, RBC just got bigger, keeping its triple-A credit rating, one of the exceedingly few big banks to do so.

And now RBC is leveraging this rare "Consistency" to embark on one of its biggest expansions in both investment banking (RBC Capital Markets) and wealth and asset management (RBC Global Asset Management, or GAM). In London, where much of the growth is taking place, RBC is taking on so many employees that it's running out of space. They are housed in two buildings that face one another in the City (the name for London's financial district). As well-dressed pros from Barclays, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and other banks come knocking, RBC is looking for more real estate.

RBC is getting their pick of the talent pretty much everywhere. John Montalbano, the GAM boss who is also the CEO of Phillips Hager & North, the Vancouver money manager bought by RBC two years ago, said he no longer has to troll for men and women in suits. "Just the other day an entire research team from Boston knocked on our door and asked if we were interested in poaching them," he said.

RBC didn't take the mutineers up on their offer. But Mr. Montalbano said RBC is on the hunt for a big British money manager, one that is strong in fixed income, alternative investments and large- and small-cap equities. "There are a number of institutions looking to shed money-management businesses," he said. "Making an acquisition in Britain is our prime goal – we want to add more than $50-billion in assets under management."

Meanwhile, across the street, RBC Capital Markets is plotting its own expansion. In Europe RBC has about 100 investment bankers and 65 employees in global equity markets and research. It wants to double the size of the European investment bank within two years.

"No one is hiring to the extent we are," said Joshua Critchley, the former Goldman Sachs banker turned head of RBC's equity capital markets and corporate broking.

Will the strategy work? Even though RBC is a credit crunch survivor and is creeping up in the advisory rankings, it won't be an easy job.

That's because RBC, by its own admission, is weak in certain key industrial areas and has yet to build a truly global franchise. While it is fairly strong in New York and getting stronger in Europe, its Asian and Latin American presence is still relatively small, even as deals are heating up in those regions. And RBC has little reach in several important areas such as industrials, consumer products, business services and financial institutions.

RBC is becoming a factor in some international investment banking areas, notably oil and gas, metals and mining, utilities and infrastructure. It was the No. 1 adviser in 2009 in global oil and gas M&A, according to Bloomberg. Its big oil and gas score last year was advising on the sale of Toronto-listed Addax Petroleum to Sinopec International for $7.3-billion (U.S.) (though the mandate was split among RBCs' Toronto, Calgary and London offices).

RBC is wise to hire talent as opposed to taking the risk of buying a name-brand investment banking shop, said Mike Holland, the founder and owner of New York fund manager Holland & Co., which oversees more than $4-billion of investments.

But the strategy is a slow burn. It could take many years before the Canadians can compete outside their home market with top names such as Goldman, Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse and JP Morgan. "They're just beginning to become a factor, though it's still early days," Mr. Meier said. "Hiring people with the right cultural fit can take time. But at the same time there is a big push on. We're very keen to move quickly. You'll see a first wave this year, then another next year."

Mr. Critchley left Goldman Sachs last September, he said, "because there is an extraordinary opportunity here to build something. We are the only global investment bank of our size that doesn't have a fully grown up European investment bank and equity distribution franchise."

RBC knows it has to move quickly, because the competition for talent – and the income packages they demand – is already heating up as banks recover and post fat profits again. "Soon, the only guys who will defect from the global banks will be rejects being pushed out," a the London deal maker said.

The wealth and asset management side, across the street, is also in hiring mode. It recently picked up Phil Langham from Credit Suisse, a portfolio manager who was hired for his emerging markets experience. The bank is also shifting some senior managers to London from Toronto. One was Jane Lesslie, the portfolio manager whose specialty is global fixed income and currencies.

Mr. Montalbano said his goal is to add $10-billion to $15-billion of non-Canadian assets under management in the next five years through organic growth. If the British money manager is added, the figure would rise overnight by $50-billion or so (RBC currently has about $220-billion of assets under management, globally).

Morale is high at all of RBC's businesses in London, because growing companies are always more fun that shrinking ones. "We're the 800-pound gorilla in slippers right now. No one is hearing us coming," Mr. Critchley said. "But in 12 months time, we'll be really here with a presence."

Growth of a brand

In one form or another, RBC has had a presence in London, England, for 100 years.

In the past decade or so, it has become more of a standalone operation, establishing a trading platform for foreign exchange, fixed income, swaps and equities. Its vast London trading floor has 430 traders and sales people. Recently, it has become a fairly big name – the No. 4 player – in the British gilts market.

"I don't think we had a brand here until three years ago," said Tim Chapman, who is RBC's head of international energy operation. "Now we have something to talk about."

RBC highlights for quarter ended Jan. 31, 2010:

Total revenue: $7.3-billion

Net income: $1.5-billion

Net income by segment:

Canadian banking: $777-million

Wealth management: $219-million

Insurance: $118-million

International banking: ($57-million)

Capital markets: $571-million

Corporate support: ($131-million)

Source: Company reports

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Sometimes, the best way to pull through is to stop pushing

Posted: 16 Apr 2010 09:00 PM PDT

By DANIELA VELZQUEZ

dvelazquez@tbo.com

Published: April 17, 2010

Nonviolence (ahimsa) is the first of five restraints (or yamas) taught in classical yoga philosophy. The others are: truth (satya), not stealing (asteya), celibacy (brahmacharya), and not coveting (aparigraha). (These are very simplified definitions, which I'll come back to and address in future columns.)

If you let it, yoga can become violent.

You won't see the cleat marks or cauliflower ears you might get in a bloody sport such as rugby, but you might be making your practice violent by the thoughts you have on the inside.

I'm not talking about the kind of harmful thoughts that require a doctor's urgent attention. I'm talking about the more subtle stuff that stealthily infiltrates our everyday monologue.

They may sound like: "I should be able to do this better." Or "I'll just push through this pain."

These little thoughts, which add up over time, can decrease your self-worth and diminish how you treat others. We expect medical professionals to live the maxim, "First, do no harm." But how often do we apply it to ourselves?

Some apply the principal of ahimsa to what they eat (vegetarianism) or how they vote; Mahatma Gandhi applied it to politics for his peaceful resistance movement.

But for our purposes, we'll start with the man in the mirror: "If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and then make a change."

You might be thinking, well, if I can't work out hard, then what's the point of applying nonviolence to my physical activities, including my practice?

Enter yama No. 2: Truth. There's a lot of talk in yoga about your edge - a place where you intensely challenge yourself, even through discomfort, but not to the point that you hurt yourself.

That seems like a really fine line, eh? It's one that's different for everybody each day and each moment. And that includes me.

Just a few days before I caught a nasty cold, I created this great, wonderful plan to get back on track (and looking a little more svelte) before my birthday in May.

I aimed in my "Birthday Challenge Manifesto" to "really change how I'm doing things, because the one thing this (yoga teacher) training has taught me is that somewhere between my heart, brain and this body I sometimes hate, I do have the answers."

The goals included physically practicing yoga five to six times a week, daily meditation, incorporating an intense fitness activity such as CrossFit, and writing about it every day.

Then I got sick, and there was no way I could do anything. I had to rest, drink lots of fluids and be nice to my body, because that's the only way it would get better.

You can't control where wisdom unexpectedly pops up: I recently found some in a tissue box.

Despite being cooped up on the couch and congested, I found that my shoulders were less tense and, in a way, I was happier.

Why? Because I was being really, really kind to myself. I let go of the expectations for the challenge at the moment because there was no way I could do anything. And that drill sergeant living in my head kept quiet because no amount of, "Can't you get yourself together, you lazy bum?" would make me get better faster. Only kindness would.

Some days, the drill sergeant and I are at war. But it's much better when we're at peace.

Daniela Velzquez is a breaking news producer at TBO.com. Her yoga column appears every other Saturday in 4you. She can be reached at dvelazquez@tbo.com or on her blog, TheDailyEpiphany.com.

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Philosophy

Saturday, April 17, 2010

“Possum Philosophy: Gazing into the universe” plus 2 more

“Possum Philosophy: Gazing into the universe” plus 2 more

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