On My Mind
NASA’s newest rover named Perseverance landed on Mars on February 18, 2021. It is the fifth rover in NASA’s Mars Program. The four goals of the current Perseverance mission are the following: (1) Goal 1: Determine whether life ever existed on Mars, (2) Goal 2: Characterize the Climate of Mars, (3) Goal 3: Characterize the Geology of Mars, and (4) Goal 4: Prepare for Human Exploration. Perseverance will perform complex work on Mars and collect and send back to earth tons of data using extremely advanced instruments. If you want to be inspired and learn about the current science and exploration activities on Mars, then check out the NASA Mars website: https://mars.nasa.gov/.

Interesting Stories
The Sage of Omaha – also know as Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway – published his famous Annual Stakeholder Letter on February 27, 2021. Mr. Buffett is 90 years old and still leading one of the largest companies in the world in terms of market capitalization. Once asked how he wanted to be remembered, Buffett replied: “Here lies the oldest man who ever lived.” He continues to partner with legendary investor Charlie Munger who is 97 years old and the Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. The 2021 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting will be held on May 1, 2021 in Los Angeles, CA. It will be live streamed on Yahoo Finance at 12:00 p.m. CST. If you want to learn from one of the greatest investors of all time, then read Buffett’s Annual Stakeholder Letter and watch the live stream on May 1, 2021. Happy investing!

Company News
I presented on Big Data Techniques & Tools at the MN ASQ session the evening of February 9, 2021. There are several upcoming public SIS events: the virtual Strategic Improvement Yellow Belt course on March 8 & 12, 2021; the virtual Strategic Improvement Black Belt course which starts April 13, 2021; the Shaping Organizational Culture webinar on April 16, 2021; the virtual Multivariate Data Analysis short course on April 27, 2021; the Strategic Improvement Green Belt course which starts May 4, 2021; and the Managing a Project Portfolio webinar on May 6, 2021. The brochures are available on the PUBLIC SEMINARS page of this website.

Intriguing Reads
I’ve been wanting to read the book titled, The Mars Project by Wernher von Braun for a long time and the recent landing of NASA’s rover named Perseverance inspired me to purchase and read the book. What is amazing about the book is that it was first published in German in 1952 and then in English in 1953. I especially liked the section on Interplanetary Radio Communication. Wernher von Braun was a German rocket scientist and visionary who migrated to the United States. He was instrumental in developing the rockets for NASA’s Apollo program which eventually placed the first humans on the moon in 1969. If you want to learn about contemporary human Mars activities, then visit NASA’s excellent Mars website. In addition, if you want to learn what a visionary in 1952 imagined regarding Mars exploration, then read von Braun’s book.