Every Day is Magic: Ada Limón
In her 2015 collection, Bright Dead Things, a National Book Award finalist for poetry, Ada Limón writes of moving to Kentucky: “Confession: I did not want to live here.” It’s perhaps not a surprising sentiment coming from a coastally oriented person who was raised in Northern California, attended college in Seattle, and then spent over a decade in New York City.
But Limón and her husband, Lucas, have been in Lexington for seven years now and the effects of settling into this place are noticeable in her new book, The Carrying (Milkweed, Aug.). It’s a phenomenally lively and attentive collection replete with the trappings of living a little closer to nature. While Bright Dead Things is marked by a preponderance of light, such as images of fireflies and neon signs, The Carrying features numerous appearances by various trees, birds, and beetles. Limón also demonstrates a greater willingness to be explicit in naming colors, particularly green. “It’s crazy green, the whole book,” she says. “Lexington is the greenest place I’ve ever lived.” Similarly, where in Bright Dead Things, Limón tells a lot of stories and anecdotes, in The Carrying she is very present in her thoughts and experiences.
As it turns out, these shifts in focus have another, altogether unexpected source. While putting Bright Dead Things together, Limón was diagnosed with chronic vestibular neuronitis, which can cause bouts of vertigo. “If I’m really having vertigo, it’s pretty intense and I really have to focus,”
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3rd Annual HOWTO Super Mixer | The Austin Times
MAES (Mexican American Engineers and Scientists)- “To promote, cultivate, and honor excellence in education and leadership among Latino engineers and scientists.â€� NAHREP (National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals) – “ To …
The Austin Times – http://theaustintimes.com/
Dr Gayle Peterson has Joined Kasamba’s Team of Professional Counselors
On Monday, September 18, 2006, The 5a8 Mexican American Task Force of The Chicago Council of Global Affairs, released the Task Force’s report: A Shared Future: The Economic Engagement of Greater Chicago and its Mexican Community. …
COMMERCIAL INTERIOR DESIGNER WINS AWARD
Commercial interior designer earns award
Honored
David Burge / El Paso Times
Posted: 08/25/2009 12:00:00 AM MDT
Patty Holland-Branch, founder and CEO of Facilities Connection, stands inside her West Side office which showcases some of the office furniture and commercial design elements sold by her 22-year-old interior design company. (Victor Calzada / El Paso Times)
EL PASO — Patty Holland-Branch knows how to put together space, furniture, and color to make an office a nice place to work and also convey a company’s preferred image.
Those design skills have made Holland-Branch and her 22-year-old El Paso company, Facilities Connection, succeed in commercial interior design. But other skills have made the company click and grow.
“We always have to be re-creating ourselves. That’s how our business has survived,” said Holland-Branch, founder, owner, and CEO of the West Side company she started in 1987 in a West Side condo she shared with her children.
The company now has about 30 employees, including three other interior designers, and is headquartered at an acre site at 240 E. Sunset on the West Side.
Through the years, the company has diversified its services beyond traditional interior design. It now also sells, installs, and maintains furniture; provides move management, and offers information technology services. In the past few years, it also has shifted its customer base from mostly private companies, including the maquiladora industry, to a large focus on the military and other government agencies.
That shift, which required spending years learning the ins and outs of federal contracting, is responsible for the company’s revenues growing 411 percent from 2003 through last year, Holland-Branch said. She did not provide revenue numbers.
The success caught the attention of the Texas Association of Mexican American Chambers
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of Commerce, which earlier this month named Holland-Branch, 65, a native of Chihuahua City, Mexico, as Texas Hispanic Business Woman of the Year.
Cindy Ramos-Davidson, CEO of the El Paso Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said the local chamber nominated Holland-Branch for the award because of her company’s longevity, and growth, but also because she figured out how to “re-engineer” the company to find new opportunities with the federal government. She also is focused on knowing her clients and how best to meet their needs, Ramos-Davidson said.
“There’s a difference between those who service their customers and those who really care about their customers,” as Holland-Branch does, Ramos-Davidson said.
Holland-Branch said her husband, Dave Branch, 62, president of the company, gets credit for helping the company move into the federal contracting arena.
Dave Branch said he focuses on much of the business management side of the company while his wife focuses more on the creative, and client-services side.
Holland-Branch, who said she’s always had a creative streak, said designing some homes and a restaurant years ago convinced here that interior design was her forte. She received a degree in interior design technology from El Paso Community College, and worked for an El Paso interior design company for three years before going into business for herself in 1987.
Cindy Bilbe, president of Stewart Title, which hired Facilities Connection to design and furnish the interior of its 12,000 square-foot Downtown office and three branches, said Holland-Branch has “an extremely good eye for space planning and color selection,” and also delivers what she promises. Holland-Branch was involved in all aspects of the Stewart Title project, including talking to the Downtown office’s 20 employees to find out their space and desk needs so the interior and furniture worked for them, Bilbe said.
The design featuring Southwest colors has increased employee morale, and has received great customer reviews, Bilbe said.
Facilities Management also recently designed and furnished the interior of the new JDW Insurance offices on the seventh and eighth floors of the Chase Bank Building. That design features more muted tones to convey a more “classic” executive style, Holland-Branch said.
“You see a lot of designers where everything looks like them (their tastes). For Patty, everything looks like the customer,” Dave Branch said. “She can take the personality of a person and turn it into a work space where everything works.”
Vic Kolenc may be reached at vkolenc@elpasotimes.com; 546-6421.
Personal file
# Name: Patty Holland-Branch
# Job: Founder, owner and CEO of Facilities Connection Inc., a 22-year-old commercial interior design company, which also sells, installs, and maintains office furniture; does move management; and provides information technology services.
# Background: Born in Chihuahua City, Mexico. Moved to El Paso at age 6 when her father, an engineer for Asarco, was transferred here.
# Family: Married 21 years to her second husband, Dave Branch, 62, Facilities Connection president. Five children and nine grandchildren.
# Education: Austin High School graduate. Associate’s degree in interior design technology from El Paso Community College.
# Quote: “I love creating things. I also like solving problems. I have a passion to work with my customers.”
Award winners
TheTexas Association of Mexican American Chambers of Commerce gave these awards to El Paso area business people at its recent state convention:
# Texas Hispanic Business Woman of the Year: Patty Holland-Branch, CEO and founder of Facilities Connection.
# Texas Hispanic Business Man of the Year: Ray Hernando, owner of RHO Logistics.
# Texas Corporate Hispanic Business Advocate of the Year: Maria Mendez, vice chair of corporate relations, Aetna insurance.
# Large Hispanic Chamber of the Year: El Paso Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
Source: El”Paso Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
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Media Professionals adopt charter
Latin American Media Professionals Adopt the Charter of Guadalajara
21-06-2005 (Paris)
More than 200 media professionals gathered in Guadalajara (Jalisco, Mexico) on 14-16 June 2005 to analyze the current audiovisual landscape in the region and come up with concrete proposals for action in 2006/2007.
The Conference, jointly organized by UNESCO and the University of Guadalajara with the sponsorship of numerous Mexican media, was the culmination of a one-year process at the beginning of which UNESCO launched a call for “good ideas and best practices” in local audiovisual production and distribution in the region. Thirty of the one hundred fifteen innovative proposals received were retained and presented in Guadalajara. The initiatives included cultural, scientific, community television channels, community radio stations, itinerant movie theaters, festivals and thematic and local news agencies. They all had in common their success in reaching important publics and delivering to them public service oriented contents.
The Charter of Guadalajara includes a set of recommendations addressed to the media, governments, civil society, universities and UNESCO. Among the most concrete ones addressed to UNESCO is the setting up of an Audio-Platform which, inspired by UNESCO’s E-platform, would gather under one single portal different audio archives for the use of radio stations in search of public service oriented content. To overcome the language barriers, the portal would be divided into different linguistic blocks
Michigan State launches new Ph.D Chicano Studies Program
MSU offers Midwest’s first Ph.D. in Chicano/Latino Studies
Contact: Andy Henion, University Relations, Office: (517) 355-3294, Cell: (517) 281-6949, Andy.Henion@ur.msu.edu
Published: Sept. 26, 2007
Story
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Michigan State University has launched the first doctoral program in Chicano/Latino Studies in the Midwest – and only the second in the nation.
The interdisciplinary graduate degree, which grew out of MSU’s undergraduate Chicano/Latino Studies program, is offered by the College of Social Science. Like many doctoral programs, it is starting small; five students are enrolled for the 2007-08 academic year.
Dionicio Valdes, program director and MSU professor of history, said the Chicano/Latino population is simultaneously the fastest-growing and least-studied major ethnic group in the United States. Hispanics are also the largest minority group at nearly 43 million people.
“This program is important for many reasons,” Valdes said. “But the biggest single reason is that it offers a much different approach to knowledge and an understanding of our increasingly complex society that academia has not yet come to terms with.”
Doctoral candidates will explore the historical and contemporary experiences of Chicanos and Latinos in social, cultural, political and economic contexts. Doctorate courses range from “Latina Feminisms” to “Globalization and Mexican Immigration to the United States.”
The University of California, Santa Barbara, offers the only other doctorate focusing specifically on Chicano studies.
Valdes said Michigan State’s relatively large number of Hispanic students and reputation for Chicano/Latino scholarship make the new doctoral program a logical fit. According to the provost’s office, 1,309 students are enrolled at MSU this fall – a 34 percent increase over 1997.
MSU also has the Cesar E. Chavez Collection, one of the nation’s largest library holdings representing the life and philosophy of the late civil rights activist and the Chicano/Latino community.
In addition, the Julian Samora Research Institute is located on campus. The institute, named after the former MSU professor and pioneer in Mexican-American studies, conducts research and projects targeting the needs of the Hispanic community in the areas of economic development, education, families and neighborhoods.
Rubén Martinez, who became the institute’s director on Sept. 1, said a deeper understanding of Chicano and Latino groups “will contribute to the betterment of the nation as a whole as it moves forward into the 21st century.”
“Previous scholarship has argued that the flow of Mexican and Latino immigrants into cities and states has coincided with their development and prosperity – both the people and the economies have benefitted,” Martinez said. “We see this in many communities in the South today, even though local institutions struggle to meet the educational and health needs of their newest community members.
“The scholarly work of doctoral students in the new program,” he added, “will enhance our understanding of these dynamics and ultimately contribute to the betterment of intergroup relations in this country.”
For more information on MSU’s doctoral program in Chicano/Latino Studies, visit www.msu.edu/~cls.
For more information on the Julian Samora Research Institute, visit www.jsri.msu.edu/.
For more information on MSU’s Cesar E. Chavez Collection, visit: www.lib.msu.edu/coll/main/chavez/.
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UTEP awarded $13 million
GEAR UP awarded $13 million
The University of Texas at El Paso has been awarded more than $12.9 million from the Department of Education GEAR UP Program to help more than 3,000 area middle school students prepare for college.
Now in its fourth year at UTEP, the program is expected to receive $2.15 million each year during the next six years.
The award will fund UTEP’s Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Program (GEAR UP) where students from 11 Ysleta Independent School District middle schools are enrolled.
GEAR UP is a federal program that helps youth from low-income communities obtain a postsecondary education through tutoring programs, standardized testing preparation and other programs. The course was enacted as a result of Congress’ passage of the Higher Education Amendment of 1998 where students in grades 6-12 are encouraged to stay in school and apply for college.
