Bananas

By Bob Gariano

Last week Sunset Foods in Settlers Square had bananas on sale for 59 cents per pound. Sometimes, when a current shipment reaches a stage of ripening when the bananas are only several days from being unsalable, they are reduced to 39 cents per pound. At this time of year in the frozen temperate zones of the world it seems almost incongruous that this fragile tropical fruit can be easily purchased at our local grocery store for such a bargain price. The supply chain of the bananas at grocery stores like Sunset Foods is a complex choreography of international merchants, wholesalers, and shippers who work behind the scenes of the grocery retailer to bring consumers this product.

Primate favorite

I like bananas so much that my family sometimes suggests that I must have some gorilla forebears in my background. They are somewhat misguided in this thinking. Gorillas are known to be almost exclusively herbivorous, however, they inhabit areas where bananas are largely unknown and most gorillas are unfamiliar with bananas. Humans eat many more bananas than gorillas in spite of the cartoon image of these great apes.

I am not the only one who likes bananas. There are approximately 91 million metric tons of bananas grown each year. Based on an average weight of 130 grams per banana, this equals a total worldwide crop of 720 billion bananas or more than 100 bananas for every person in the world each year. For retailers bananas are a staple. Wal-Mart, the worlds largest retailer with annual sales approaching one half trillion dollars, sold more bananas by unit count than any other single item last year.

International Supply Chain

Getting all of these bananas to market requires a modern supply chain and this starts with the plantations where the bananas are grown. Banana plantations like those in Central America are almost always based on economies of scale. The trees, which are actually classified by botanists as a type of herb, are grown on plantations that can be as large as 100 square kilometers.

The common banana takes about nine months to grow on the tree before it is harvested by manual labor while still green. The bananas are picked in large bunches that weigh up to 150 pounds each. The bunches are then collected into on site packing sheds where they are separated into smaller bunches called hands. These hands are inspected, washed, wrapped, and packaged for shipment.

The inspection process is crucial to the quality of the product. The United Nations Agricultural Organization estimates that 35% of all the picked bananas are rejected at the plantation because they do not meet strict cosmetic requirements set by wholesalers and retailers. We want our bananas to be free of spots and other blemishes and this is a difficult challenge in a product that is easily bruised in handling.

The boxes of green bananas are transported from the plantations in refrigerated trucks or by refrigerated rail cars. The lower shipping temperatures keep the bananas green and unripened for the next leg of their journey. The product is then transferred to ocean going vessels that carry the bananas to warehouses in the country where they are to be distributed and then sold to consumers.

Ethylene Gas

These banana warehouses are special facilities. The bananas are ripened in the warehouses by using a combination of ethylene gas and somewhat elevated storage temperatures. This allows shippers to transport the green bananas which are less liable to be damaged or bruised in their unripened condition and then ripen the product closer to the retail outlets.

Ethylene gas, which serves as a ripening agent and plant hormone, is a simple hydrocarbon molecule made up of two atoms of carbon linked to four atoms of hydrogen. The gas is the most common hydrocarbon substance synthesized by industry and it is also produced naturally by most growing plants. It is an odorless, colorless gas that can be highly flammable in the correct stoichiometric mixture with air, so the banana warehouses are carefully controlled and monitored.

Farmers discovered this capability for ethylene to ripen food crops quite by accident. Shippers noted that lemons stored in warehouses that were heated by kerosene heaters turned from green to yellow much faster that lemons stored in electrically heated space. One of the by products of the combustion of kerosene is ethylene gas and this was catalyzing the ripening process. Today, avocados, citrus fruits, tomatoes, decorative flowers, and bananas all use ethylene as a ripening hormone.

Ripening Fruit

The ethylene gas that is naturally produced by ripening fruits and vegetables can be harnessed by homeowners. Tomatoes, bananas, and other produce can be ripened faster if they are stored in paper bags where the ethylene that they naturally produce is contained. Conversely, the best way to conserve and lengthen the shelf life of produce is to leave it in a space which has free air flow and does not allow the ethylene to concentrate.

The convenient and inexpensive availability of fresh fruits and vegetables in our grocery stores even in the middle of a cold northern winter is almost taken for granted by modern consumers. The colorful displays of high quality fresh tomatoes, bananas, citrus fruits, and vegetables in our supermarkets and local grocery outlets owes much to a sophisticated and unseen supply chain of growers, shippers, wholesalers, and packers who work hard to bring these commodities to our tables.

Bob Gariano is President of RGA, an executive search firm that recruits senior executives and board members for public and private companies. Bob can be reached at rgariano@robertgariano.com

Air Conditioning

By Bob Gariano

Grainger is the headquartered in the big building on the south side of Route 60 just west of Riverwoods Road in Mettawa. The company’s business is to distribute a myriad of industrial and maintenance products throughout North America. The company has grown steadily and profitability, not by making products, but by being an essential part of the behind the scenes supply chain for commercial customers who need hardware, equipment, and other products to keep their businesses running.

Grainger is a publicly traded company that has revenues of approximately $7.4 billion annually with a market capitalization of almost $11 billion. The company’s shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol GWW. William Grainger started the company in the 1930’s and the symbol is still representative of his initials.

Hot Weather Demand

Hot weather and severe summer storms are good for Grainger’s business. The company’s hundreds of thousands of products include a broad array of equipment and parts for the heating, ventilating, and air conditioning industry. These products include tools and service equipment, motors and engines, air conditioner and ventilator components, and complete HVAC units. The products range from small residential fans to large agricultural units to commercial air conditioning parts and equipment.

More dramatic summer weather conditions, like hurricanes, tornados, and flooding, might require Grainger to supply water and sewage pumps, back up generators, or even chain saws and safety equipment for clean up operations. Supported by over 600 local branches around the country and billions of dollars of stocked inventory, Grainger is always ready to support the crucial speed and convenience purchases needed in such extreme weather conditions.

Willis Carrier and Air Conditioners

It may seem hard to imagine surviving a summer like we are experiencing without it, but mechanical air conditioning was not invented until 1902. American engineer, Willis Carrier, developed the first modern mechanical air conditioner using compressed refrigerant. This started the entire air conditioning and refrigeration industry.

The Carrier business today is part of United Technologies Corporation and still carries that inventor’s name around the world. There is a theory that great achievements were confined to the temperate zones before the advent of air conditioning, simply because places closer to the equator were too hot for hard work. That theory can be dismissed by anyone who has seen the Pyramids, the Parthenon, the Coliseum, or the Taj Mahal, all built within 45 degree latitude of the equator. Nevertheless, air conditioning has dramatically improved modern productivity and comfort.

Earlier, non-mechanical air cooling devices were designed, as people tried to achieve the luxury of a cool environment in hot climates. In 1881, Naval engineers constructed a large device containing rags saturated with melted ice water. The box like structure was used to make the dying President James Garfield more comfortable in his final days. A fan blew ambient air over the rags and lowered the temperature of the president’s room some 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Effective but not commercially viable, the device consumed over 125 tons of ice each month.

Air Conditioning Breakthroughs

In 1922, Carrier had two breakthroughs to his new invention, a technical one and a commercial one. First, he replaced the original toxic ammonia based refrigerants with dielene and then used a centralized compressor to lower the size of the unit. Second, the first commercial building, the Rivoli movie theater in New York City, installed a centralized air conditioner to attract customers in the hot summer months. It has been claimed that the great movie boom of the 1930’s and 1940’s was about people seeking cool air on sweltering summer afternoons as much as their pursuit of good cinema.

In 1928, the US Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court buildings were air conditioned. During World War II, window air conditioners were developed. Air conditioners soon started to be used in office buildings, retail stores, and on railroad cars. Certainly the growth of the American Sunbelt states was aided by the availability of less expensive and reliable air conditioning.

A Ton of Air Conditioning

In spite of the modern development of air conditioning equipment, one notable term continues from the early days of ice making. When water turns from liquid into ice, or vice versa, there is considerable heat energy involved. Physicists call this a phase transition. Such a transition requires latent heat energy and the latent heat of fusion for ice at 32 degrees Fahrenheit is 144 BTU per pound. That means that each pound of water needs to get rid of 144 BTUs of heat energy to turn into ice even though it stays at the same temperature of 32 degrees Fahrenheit as it solidifies.

The early ice house operators used these figures to calculate that one ton (2000 pounds) of water needed to get rid of 288,000 BTUs to turn into ice. If the ice house wanted to make a ton of ice in 24 hours, the ice house operators needed to eliminate 12,000 BTUs per hour for each ton of water to turn that liquid into frozen ice. This is the same measure of how much heat a one ton air conditioner removes from the air, 12,000 BTUs per hour. Of course, how much electricity is required to produce one ton of cooling capacity depends on the efficiency of the machine, however, the unit of cooling capacity remains the same. Some modern technology retains a constant reminder of our early industrial roots.

 As the hot summer days continue into August, air conditioners around the country will continue to make our living conditions more comfortable and productive. Supported by distributors like Grainger, who provide the parts and equipment to keep these machines running, modern air conditioning technology has brought comfort and productivity to people throughout the world.

Bob Gariano is President of RGA, an executive search firm that recruits senior executives and board members for public and private companies. Bob can be reached at rgariano@robertgariano.com

Northwestern University School of Music

By Bob Gariano

In 1971Thomas Miller became the fifth dean of Northwestern University’s School of Music, now called the Bienen School of Music. The school had built an enviable position in the world of music education since it first started providing instrument and vocal lessons to women in 1855 as the Northwestern Female College. The program rose to become one of the premier music schools in the world. But Miller had a problem. Every time the student orchestra wanted to assemble to practice or give a concert, they had to pack up their instruments and move to a local high school gymnasium. The acoustics were more suitable for basketball than Beethoven, but the gymnasium was the only local facility with sufficient space to accommodate such large groups and their instruments.

Miller realized that a new concert hall would be costly. More important, there was little space on the campus to construct a new building. But he also knew that the University was in the process of adding some 84 acres of useable property by reclaiming lake front land and expanding the campus footprint to the east. The innovative reclamation project was called the J. Roscoe Miller Campus after the benefactor who had helped pay for the expansion. Perhaps, Miller thought, he could lay claim to a piece of that new land for a concert hall. Still, the cost of a modern building was beyond the school’s budget, even if a piece of the new land could be secured. That is when a most remarkable benefactor came to the rescue.

Corinne Frada was born in 1898 in San Francisco. Early on her family recognized her talents as a piano prodigy. She was giving public concerts when she was in elementary school and was well enough known in the Bay Area to appear in Pickering Piano advertisements when she was five. By her early teens, she had performed with both the Seattle and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras. She came to Chicago in 1913 at age 15 for a concert with the American Symphony Orchestra. Miss Frada decided to stay in Chicago to continue her music studies at Northwestern.

While she was working and studying in Chicago, Miss Frada met Albert Pick, Jr. a young businessman who was involved with his family’s land and hotel businesses. Albert was a confident and ambitious young man who was working his way up through the business. The romantic attraction was immediate and after a formal courtship, Albert Pick proposed. The couple were married in 1917 at the Standard Club in the Loop.

Even with the difficulties of the great depression, Albert’s business acumen and energy became the foundation for one of the largest hospitality companies in the country. In the 1930’s, the family’s original Randolph Investment Company was renamed the Pick Hotels Corporation and Albert was named its president. Albert led the company through five decades of growth eventually owning and operating 41 hotels and motels in 36 cities. The Pick Hotels flag ship property was the Pick-Congress Hotel in downtown Chicago.

In addition to his role in his own company, Albert was active throughout the nation with various philanthropies volunteer boards and commissions. Meanwhile, Corinne never lost her love for music and the arts. She and Albert continued to support music education at all levels. In 1957 the couple established the Corinne Frada Pick Music Scholarships for piano students at Northwestern.

On December 27, 1967 Albert and Corinne celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary in the Gold Room of the Pick-Congress Hotel. Albert had been planning a suitable gift for the occasion. He decided to join resources with his brother in law, Charles Staiger, to provide a leadership gift for her alma mater. The gift to Northwestern would provide the funds for a new concert hall. The building would honor Corinne’s accomplishments as a pianist and recognize her love of music.

On July 25, 1973 Albert and Corinne attended ground breaking ceremonies at Northwestern for the new building. The Pick-Staiger Concert Hall held its dedication concert on October 26, 1975. The soloist that evening was Ralph Votapek. Votapek was not only a prominent Northwestern alum and winner of the prestigious Van Cliburn competition, he had also been the first recipient of the Corinne Frada Pick Music Scholarship. Dean Miller stood tall that evening as he watched his students perform in their new world class concert hall.

The Pick-Staiger Concert Hall today stands as an architectural jewel on the Northwestern campus.  The design by Edward Dart carefully balances classical visual impact with the acoustical requirements of a fine concert hall. The acoustic design is contemporary and effective. Thirty sound cloud reflectors control the sound intensity and projection throughout the building. The 1003 people who can attend each performance walk through a lobby decorated with Chinese art work from Charles Staiger’s personal collection.

In 1989 Mrs. Pick died in her Highland Park home some 70 years after she married Albert. She was 90 years old. Albert had passed away in 1977. In sixty years of marriage, the couple had built one of the preeminent hotel companies in the world and had used their resources to generously support their love of music and the arts. The Pick-Steiger Concert Hall stands as a magnificent legacy to their support of Northwestern University and to musical performance and scholarship.

Medical Wastes

By Robert Gariano

In 1987 vacationers on New Jersey and New York beaches were horrified to observe medical wastes like used hypodermic syringes and used surgical supplies being washed onto the shore by the thousands. Vacationers fled the contaminated beaches in droves.

The episode was characterized in the media as the Syringe Tide. State and local officials reluctantly closed the beaches while the source of the waste was identified. The materials were eventually traced to the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island. The event cost the shore communities billions in lost tourist revenues. Pushed by public outcry over the desecration of some of the busiest and best loved seashores in the country, the next year the US Congress passed the Medical Waste Tracking Act of 1988. While this placed stringent regulations on the disposal of such infectious wastes, there were no commercially viable solutions to meet those requirements.

In 1989 a small group of North Shore Chicago investors decided to start a company that would fulfill these market needs. In particular, the group wanted to offer a service to hospitals, blood banks, and other medical waste sources to help them safely handle and then dispose of their medical waste. They called the new company Stericycle.

The company would not only treat the waste and render it noninfectious without deleterious air pollution, it would also provide safe and reliable collection methods. The new company would even help train their clients how to safely handle biohazards and contaminated instruments. A crucial development in those early years was the invention of a thermal method for disposing of infectious waste without generating dangerous pollution as is the case with other incineration methods.

The enterprise was not an immediate success, but the investors were tenacious. In 1991 the company had sales of $1.9 million from 12 clients and was still operating below breakeven. That year the board hired Mark Miller as CEO. Miller had a successful career as an executive at Abbott Labs and he knew that the market requirements for the new company’s services were vast.

All during the early half of the 1990s the company struggled with cash flow and the need to invest in new facilities. The investors provided unfailing support and Miller pressed on by installing waste treat facilities in Washington State, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, and California, providing a footprint that would serve customers across the country. The company’s commitment to their customers and to the environment did not waiver throughout these early, lean years.

Meanwhile, Stericycle continued to invest in new technologies and in facilities even as the customer community expanded. Outpatient facilities, urgent care centers, drug treatment centers, medical laboratories, dentist offices, and even ambulance companies and police departments were looking for responsible ways to dispose of bio hazardous waste and infectious materials.

By the end of 1996 company sales had reached $25 million annually and the company was listed as on NASDAQ. This infusion of capital turbocharged the company’s strategy. That same year, Stericycle purchased Waste Management’s medical waste treatment business. In 1998 alone the company acquired 12 other waste treatment companies. In 1998 the company also expanded internationally setting up operations in Mexico City and Brazil.

In 1999 Stericycle purchased Browning-Ferris Industries’ medical waste business. BFI was the largest medical waste treatment company in North America. The BFI acquisition added 120 locations to Stericycle’s network, while reinforcing their market position in Canada and Puerto Rico.

One of the advantages of an acquisition strategy goes beyond market share and facilities purchases. An acquisition is a chance to bring compelling new talent into an organization. Charles Alutto was part of such a management team that the company acquired in 1997. Alutto quickly distinguished himself both with his leadership skills and business acumen. He ran the company’s European business during a period of rapid expansion. In 2011 he was named President of Stericycle USA. In January 2013, the board of directors elected him President and CEO of the company. 

At age 48, Alutto runs one of the largest and most successful public companies on the North Shore. Stericycle’s market capitalization passed $10 billion early this year with revenues of $2 billion. Visiting the company’s headquarters in the far northwest corner of Lake Forest, a visitor is struck by the modest facilities. The company is just west of Interstate 94 and in the parking lot traffic noises compete with the gentle fragrance of popcorn from a nearby confectionary plant. Stericycle is not a company that regales itself in fancy offices. It is a company that takes its social responsibilities and its investment stewardship seriously, to help provide safe treatment of medical wastes and to educate its customers about how to accomplish that goal.

But Stericycle is also a company wrapped up in the excitement of creating a new business and in developing value for shareholders. Miller said it perfectly when he was interviewed by Chief Executive, an online business magazine in 1993. “I realized that part of what I enjoyed was a team of people who are charged up to create something,” says Miller, an affable and easy going former high school football star. “It is that buzz of creating something new.” The Stericycle team has certainly been successful in achieving that goal.

Designing Metals

by Bob Gariano

The Hittites of Asia Minor perfected the smelting of iron 3500 years ago. The new material provided a military advantage that allowed them to rule over an empire that rivaled the Egyptians for 1000 years. Even though early iron was not as hard as bronze, it can be hammered and worked with heat to produce a variety of shapes. The Hittites considered iron to be more precious than silver and, when discovered that it fell to earth in meteorites, they were certain that it had magical properties bequeathed directly from heavenly sources.

Iron's utility was enhanced when Andrew Carnegie brought modern steel making technology to the United States in the late nineteenth century. Steel became as fundamental to the industrial revolution as semiconductors are to the information age. Inexpensive high strength steel allowed the design of sky scrapers, metal bridges, automobiles, and railroads. As a network, railroads and modern highways changed human connectivity with an impact that rivals contemporary internet and wireless communications.

North Shore resident, Dr. Greg Olson, is a professor of materials science at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering. He is a world recognized pioneer in the field of computational design of new materials, especially iron based metals and alloys used for the most demanding applications. The company that he co-founded, Ques Tek Innovations LLC, is based in Evanston and develops new materials for companies that need ferrous metals that reach high levels of performance.

"I knew that I wanted to be a scientist when I was in third grade. I was always collecting rocks and minerals. I especially liked crystals." The crystal that particularly attracted Dr. Olson in his later research and commercial career was iron.  Olson was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for 23 years earning his undergraduate and graduate degrees and then doing research on metals. In 1988 he came to Northwestern where he is co-director of the University's Material Research Center and director of the Steel Research Group.

Iron, with its various alloys and grain configurations, combines the most attractive properties and economics of any modern material. Iron can be alloyed, heat treated, and formed in a wide variety procedures that alters the molecular and granular structure. These alterations involve thousands of different alloys and an almost limitless configuration of the larger metal crystals or grain structures. The complexity of these different forms results in both the utility and the challenge of iron and steel technology. Over the last three millennia, metallurgists have discovered different formulations purely through experimentation. Dr. Olson's research has changed this approach to developing new materials.

"Computational design means that we can create new materials on the computer instead of in a lab or foundry. We use our chemical and thermodynamic knowledge to predict the performance of new metals before we go into the lab to make samples." It is an approach with substantial advantage in materials that are alloyed and homogenized at 5000 degrees Fahrenheit and which are heat treated at more than 1000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Olson went on, "We still take our new materials into the laboratory to confirm our predictions through testing and analysis. But using an iterative design approach on the computer first means that we can use the information in our data bases to model new metals without the expensive and time consuming process of physical experimentation."

The market implications are distinct. "In space craft, a pound saved is worth $10,000, in aircraft design a pound is worth about $100, and in automobiles a pound is worth $3 or $4. That is why steel technology is so important to automotive manufacturers. Even though the performance of materials like titanium would be useful to automotive companies, its use is limited by its $40 per pound price tag." Computationally designed metals can be the economic answer, providing high performance alloys that meet the market need for performance at lower cost. Olson's company, Ques Tek, is the world leader in developing and licensing such new high performance materials.

Computational material design technology is being proliferated at Northwestern to a new generation of scientists and engineers. "We have a masters program at Northwestern for students who want advanced training in integrated computational materials design. We also have a program for freshman engineers called Murphy Scholars. It teams our most talented freshmen with graduate students to develop expertise in these new techniques."

Dr. Olson is an unusual combination of businessman, scientist, teacher, and engineer. In examining the bare chassis of a new McLaren sports car, he noted, "Using adhesives to bond high strength metal structures has an advantage. You don't have to compromise the alloy by making it suitable for welding. That's how they have been making aircraft for twenty years, so we know it has the properties for other high performance applications like race cars."

He stopped to examine the McLaren's exhaust manifold. "You know the bird cage Maserati of the early 1960s was the first car to use a welded space frame. It was designed for competition at the 24 hours LeMans race. But it failed because the welds on the exhaust manifold tubing kept cracking. Chassis vibration and flexing caused the failures. Today we could help them by designing an alloy to prevent the failures."

Computational design is a modern technology that is changing the way that scientists and engineers design new metals for demanding applications. Integrating computer technology with the most modern testing and analysis procedures provides metals that make high performance products possible.   

Bike Trails and Compasses

By Bob Gariano

One of the pleasures of Chicago’s North Shore communities is our network of bike and running trails. The 18 mile Green Bay bike trail connects Wilmette with Lake Bluff. At Lake Bluff the rider can turn west onto the 16 mile North Shore trail. This trail is the longest east west route in suburban Chicago and runs parallel to Route 176 all the way to the Des Plaines River trail. Alternatively, a rider can continue north bound out of Lake Bluff onto the Robert McClory trail and then onto the Kenosha County trail as it crosses the state border into Wisconsin.

Experienced riders often carry a compass as routes can be confusing and it is easy to get lost. This reminds the rider of a question encountered years ago on a Northwestern University physics examination. Two astronauts get lost on the moon when they wander out of sight of their landing module. One remembers he brought his Boy Scout compass and begins using it to plot a return before their air supply runs out. The two wander aimlessly for sometime and are finally saved when they catch sight of their space craft. What went wrong?

It is a trick question. Compasses are useless on the moon. Unlike our earth, the moon generates no magnetic field and so there is no magnetic north pole to attract the compass needle. Actually, the north pole of the compass needle is attracted to the earth’s south magnetic pole, but that is another story. Back to our exam question, none of the other planets in our solar system generates a magnetic field like we have here on earth, so why the apparent anomaly?

Geologists have determined that the earth is about 5½ times as heavy as water and this in spite of the fact that rock and soil is only about 2 to 3 times as heavy as water. Our planet must be made up of something heavier than rocks. Scientists are now convinced that the center of our planet is largely made up of iron. If one were to drill towards the center of the earth, after going through a relatively thin crust, the drill would travel about one third of the way to the center through the rocks of the mantle.

Then the drill would enter a denser layer of molten iron, heated by both residual heat when our planet was formed and from continuing radioactive decay within the core. This molten layer was discovered by scientists in 1936 as they were studying seismic waves from earthquakes. Finally, the drill would transition into yet another layer. About one third of the way from the earth’s center the drill would hit the planet’s iron inner core, kept solid by the enormous pressures at that level.

As the outer core of molten iron circulates around the solid iron inner core, a magnetic field is generated just like what happens in an electric motor. The earth generates this magnetic field as these two electrically conductive regions of iron pass each other. Even more, as the molten iron swirls around and changes direction, the north magnetic pole changes position. This has been shown to have happened repeatedly in prehistoric times. Compared to the cold, rock like moon, the earth is a seething cauldron of molten metal with shifting properties and uncertain orientations.

The bicycle rider enjoying an afternoon ride on the quiet trails of Chicago’s North Shore is not aware of these hot turbulent changes going on thousands of miles beneath the pavement. But the dynamics of our planet make a difference. Naturalists theorize that magnetic sensitivity helps guide migratory birds on their yearly trips. The little compass needle on the bicycle handle bar that points the way home is also indicating a magnetic field produced from gigantic and cataclysmic movements deep inside the planet.

Drinking Water

By Bob Gariano

This year Illinois colleges and universities will graduate more than 1000 civil engineers. The title does not have to do with proper etiquette or social poise. It describes a course of study that involves designing buildings and infrastructure projects like roads and bridges. One of the most popular of the civil engineering specialties is environmental engineering. These graduates will often be employed by municipalities and private companies that manage the sanitary systems and water supplies of our towns and villages. A strong case could be made that this profession has done more to ensure the health of Americans than all of the medical and pharmaceutical industry combined.

Municipalities in northeastern Illinois have a water supply advantage because of the proximity of Lake Michigan. In 1866, Chicago’s Board of Public Works, under the direction of their chief engineer, Ellis Chesbrough, completed a tunnel under the floor of the lake. The tunnel connected the city’s water supply system to an intake crib two miles from shore. By 1900 there were multiple tunnels and these were integrated into what is today the largest single water supply system for any city in the world. The use of chlorine to disinfect our drinking water began in 1916. In 1930 Chicago completed installation of a modern filtration plant to reduce turbidity in the drinking water supply.

As Chicago’s need for water increased in the last century, so did the demands in the northern suburbs. Kenilworth, for instance, installed their first village pump house in 1890. The system used a suction well which drew water through the lake bed sand as a natural filter. The suction well was powered by steam driven pumps and these fed water to the first water mains. In 1926, Kenilworth switched to electric motors to power the pumps and also installed their first chlorination system. In that same year, Kenilworth completed a 200,000 gallon water tower that allowed for steady water pressure in the village, a necessity in a water systems built on flat terrain. Kenilworth today is served by one of the most modern water plants in the country. Located at the end of Kenilworth Avenue, the plant supplies water for water mains and fire hydrants through the village. In addition, Kenilworth has a modern water storage tower located at Exmoor Road and Roger Avenue.

Similarly, Lake Forest has invested in their town’s water system. The system serving the City of Lake Forest draws water from the surface of Lake Michigan through 42 inch pipelines and into a modern ultrafiltration membrane system. Lake Forest’s water plant, located at 1441 Lake Road, is open for visits each week day during normal business hours. Staffed by nine full time operators, the plant runs 24 hours a day every day of the year and treats one and one half billion gallons of water for city residents each year.

Municipal drinking water quality is closely monitored by state and federal officials. Northshore communities are known for their efficient and clean water systems. They all exceed the federal standards for safe potable water supplies. Interested citizens can visit their local municipal websites to see the annual published reports of water quality. This vigilance of safe drinking water has increased with technical advances. For example, some of these water quality reports indicate contaminant levels down to parts per billion (PPB), a level of detection unheard of even two decades ago. This level of analytical protocol is impressive when one considers that one ppb is equivalent to a ratio of in time of one second every thirty two years or in volume of one small drop of water in an Olympic size swimming pool.

Most of the time we give little thought to the engineering professionals and modern systems that supply the water that we use every day. That is not the case in other parts of the world. Water borne diseases like cholera represent one of the world’s most significant health problems. Water borne diseases kill more that 3 million people each year around the world, many of them children or the elderly. It is good reason that we should appreciate the American civil and environmental engineers who work to constantly improve our drinking water quality while expanding supply capacity to meet new demands.

The Other Information Technology

By Bob Gariano

Much has been made of the development of digital information technology over the last two decades. Cell phones, internet connectivity, massive centralized data bases, and satellite communications have all changed our world. During the same twenty years another information technology has rapidly emerged. It is, if anything, even more complex and revolutionary. It is molecular rather than electronic and its invention was natural not man-made. The emergence of genetic engineering and research has revealed a natural system that sometimes makes our own digital management of information look somewhat primitive.

In the mid 1990s Craig Venter and his team of researchers at the Institute for Genomic Research completed the first entire genomic sequencing of a free living organism, the rather mundane microbe known as H. influenzae. This microscopic rod shaped single cell bacterium was mistakenly considered to be the cause of human influenza until 1933. A member of Venter’s research team had been studying the genetics of the organism and it became a natural subject for their enquiry.

In spite of its tiny scale, each H. influenzae was found to have a genome that consisted of almost 2 million base pairs of DNA in a single circular chromosome. This chromosome contained 1740 protein coding genes, 58 transfer RNA genes, and 18 other RNA genes. This genome is a complex and comprehensive chemically encoded data base of information that allows the bacteria to pass on its characteristics to succeeding generations while adapting to new influences in the environment. Venter’s team used a sequencing protocol known as whole genome shotgun and the results of their work were published in Science in 1995.

The 1990s brought other historic progress in genetic research, these discoveries occurred in diverse fields. Early in the decade, the human genome project was initiated to map the entire human genetic code. In 1993 genetically engineered crops were first introduced as commercial products for agricultural application. Later in the decade, DNA began to have wide spread use as a tool for criminal investigations. In 1997, the media reported that the first mammal, Dolly the sheep, had been cloned two years earlier from a single adult somatic cell at the Roslin Institute in the United Kingdom. It raised a firestorm of conjecture and debate.

During the late 1990s, medical researchers at Northwestern University were planning a major genetic research center here in Chicago. The Center for Genetic Medicine was founded in 2000 and it has emerged as a global leader in the field. The Center is a collaboration among Northwestern University, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and the Lurie Children’s Hospital. The center includes more than 140 faculty members from 19 university and hospital departments across these institutions.

Northwestern’s Center for Genetic Medicine is known throughout the world for innovative and practical research into the fundamental genetic mechanisms of human disease. For instance, one initiative, the NUgene Project, has established a collection of genetic and medical records from 20,000 volunteers to provide researchers with a bank of information about diseases and their genetic causes. Another resource, the Transgenic and Targeted Mutagenesis Laboratory (TTML) offers services to study the cryo-preservation  and recovery of mouse embryos.

The Center for Genetic Medicine is also committed to improving public understanding of these new technologies. The Silverstein Lecture Series, made possible by grants from the Herman M. and Bea L. Silverstein Medical Research Fund for Genetic Medicine, twice a year brings experts from around the world to speak here on the North Shore. This year, Marc Williams, the director of the Geisinger Health System Genomic Medicine Institute, will be at the Northwestern Evanston campus to discuss personal genome sequencing and how it can change the future of healthcare. Dr. Williams will speak at 6:00 pm on January 16, 2013 in the McCormick Tribune Center. The talk is open to the public and is offered without admission charge. Reservations can be made and more information is available by visiting the Center’s website at www.cgm.northwsetern.edu .    

St. Leo’s Campus

By Bob Gariano

Owing to the ethnicity of the communities that it serves to the north of the store’s location, the Wal-Mart on Waukegan Road just north of Lake Bluff offers a wide range of hot pepper plants and other ethnic vegetables for spring plantings. Even though it is located in Waukegan, the store gets a fair share of spring gardener shoppers from the prosperous North Shore communities of Lake Bluff, Knollwood, and Lake Forest.

One warm day last week a tall gaunt figure, dressed incongruously in a heavy overcoat and woolen knit cap, was stationed in front of the store, serenading shoppers, most of whom walked by without acknowledging him. It was hard not to. He sang a Jamaican folk song in a strong baritone voice that seemed a perfect match to the poetic rhythms of that Creole language. His voice could be heard across the parking lot.

Stopping to light a stub of a cigarette and taking a puff, he declared to no one in particular that he had served in the United States Army for 31 years before retiring two years ago.  He then put down the two tattered shopping bags that he carried and offered an old cup to solicit charity from people passing by.

“I have travelled all over the world and I speak four languages. My friend taught me to speak Jamaican. I wrote this song to celebrate. I used to have an apartment near the police station but now I am looking for another place to live.” He jingled the few coins in the cup. “I am hoping that someone will come by soon to give me a ride. If not, I guess I will just have to walk.” The man’s woolen cap bore the insignia of a US Army unit.

There are more than 25,000 United States armed forces veterans in the greater Chicago area who are homeless. More than half served in Vietnam. These veterans, many of them in the later years of their lives, live on the edge of our communities, sleeping in shelters or on the streets and under bridges, anywhere where they can find some protection from the elements. Many of these individuals are infirm and suffer from post traumatic stress syndrome or substance abuse problems. Many are disabled or are afflicted with physical diseases or emotional and mental issues. Most are unaware of even the limited governmental benefits available to them.

Catholic Charities began working with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in 2004 to help remedy a small part of this problem. Located about 40 miles away from the North Shore in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood of south Chicago, the St. Leo Campus for Veterans provides housing and medical care for homeless veterans. The facility houses more than 40 veterans and also includes a clinic and treatment center. In addition, the Pope John II Residence provides affordable housing on campus for veterans with physical disabilities.

The St. Leo Campus was originally designed as a pilot facility to prove the merit of a joint effort between private charities and government funding to provide for these veterans. The plan was to install a score of such campuses across the country. Even though this plan did not materialize because of lack of government funding, the Catholic Charities continued to keep the St Leo Campus functioning with donated funds and volunteer effort.

While many of these homeless veterans are located in urban areas far from the North Shore, these prosperous communities make a difference by being the most important contributors to the Catholic Charities, especially during the annual spring philanthropic drive that is held by local Catholic churches each year. The charity is now in the midst of their 2013 campaign.

Catholic Charities serve our needy veterans in other ways as well. From its inception in 1917, Catholic Charities have provided veterans with social services through a variety of clothing rooms, food pantries, evening supper programs, and transitional shelters. The Catholic Charities run low cost apartment buildings for veterans in Des Plaines and Summit where 18 residential buildings provide low cost housing for elderly veterans where they may live in safety and with dignity.  Working with the Office of Veterans Affairs, the Catholic Charities also runs Cooke’s Manor, a clinic designed to help veterans battling addiction problems.

In 1890, the poet Rudyard Kipling wrote “The Last of the Light Brigade”. The first two lines of his poem were a stinging post script to Alfred Lord Tennyson’s patriotic poem written 40 years earlier. Kipling wrote:

“There were 30 million English who talked of England’s might; there were 20 broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.”

These words inflamed a public who had largely ignored the problems faced by their retired veterans. Catholic Charities, through their charitable programs, are making sure that our veterans are not forgotten. To learn more about the St. Leo Campus for Veterans visit their web site at www.stleoveterans.com