For your Saturday night entertainment, Akin Breakin' Heart

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Toyota, Rebuild Joplin putting tornado survivors back into homes

Toyota/Joplin home rebuilding from MultiVu Video on Vimeo.

(From Toyota)

Like most residents of Joplin, Tara Johnston’s mind is frozen in time when she thinks back to that late Sunday afternoon on May 22, 2011 – the day a catastrophic tornado destroyed thousands of homes, including her house on S. Jackson Ave.

“Losing my home was one thing; the worst part was I thought I lost my daughter,” she said. “It was horrifying.”

While her daughter and the rest of her family survived the tornado, she was faced with the daunting task of rebuilding her home – made even tougher because she had no insurance. Johnston told her story from the front porch of that very home today at a press conference. The house, which is just weeks away from being completely rebuilt, is the result of many helping hands coming together to get one more displaced family back into their home.

As part of the celebration, a partnership between Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America (TEMA) and Rebuild Joplin, a local non-profit group whose mission it is to get storm survivors back into their homes, was outlined. Toyota has worked with the group the past six months in an effort to reduce the amount of time it takes to rebuild homes and get Joplin residents out of temporary housing. In addition, Toyota donated $100,000 to Rebuild Joplin and its home-building efforts.

“Rebuild Joplin helps people like me who can’t get loans; they help you either rebuild your home, or if damaged, help you fix it up at no cost or little cost to you,” said Johnston, a single mother and full-time student whose two children and grandchild live with her.

The partnership is working.

“This has allowed us to take donated dollars and donated time from volunteers and make it more efficient,” said Jerrod Hogan, co-founder, Rebuild Joplin.

Hogan said that by using lessons from the Toyota Production System (TPS), Rebuild Joplin has reduced construction time by three weeks on average. Bottom line, he said, “these improvements are making an incredible difference in our ability to rebuild homes for families in Joplin quickly and affordably.”

He added: “We are so excited to be partnering with Toyota. Now, one of our biggest challenges is securing enough volunteers so we can get people back in their homes. We not only need corporate support, we need the help of volunteers to get the job done. We still have more than 160 families in FEMA trailers and hundreds of families who don’t have funds to rebuild their homes.”

Toyota, through its non-profit arm – the Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC) – partnered with Rebuild Joplin in May with the intent to help the group make substantial improvements by increasing quality, productivity, safety and reducing customer wait time in the rebuilding of houses.

Rebuild Joplin is just one of 189 companies or not-for-profits that have been aided by Toyota.

“We’ve seen over and over again where our manufacturing techniques can help any kind of organization – whether it’s a manufacturer or a non-profit group,” said Steve St. Angelo, executive vice president, TEMA, and a managing officer for Toyota Motor Corp. “There is a lot of demand for this and we are sharing it free of charge.”

Since Toyota came on board, the time it takes for Rebuild Joplin to reconstruct a home has dropped from an average of 62 days to 41 days – a 34 percent improvement.

This time reduction can be credited to the following:

- Improved processes: the collaboration has consisted of sharing TPS know-how and working closely with Rebuild Joplin’s professional staff, skilled construction supervisors and AmeriCorps volunteer members to improve homebuilding efficiencies;

- Better scheduling of volunteers and construction contractors: while there was no organized system before, today, as you enter Rebuild Joplin’s headquarters, “management boards” track everything from volunteer/worker schedules to inventory to status reports on homes being rebuilt.

TSSC’s Sylvester DuPree, who has worked closely with Rebuild Joplin since the onset, points to another success: “One of our main goals coming into Rebuild Joplin was to reduce the amount of time it took from when a home owner applied to when construction began on their house.

“Couple that with reducing the amount of construction time and we are getting people back into their homes faster.”

NEW ORLEANS CONNECTION
Rebuild Joplin is the first affiliate of the St. Bernard Project (SBP), a non-profit organization that was founded in 2006 by Zack Rosenburg and Liz McCartney, an attorney and teacher, respectively, from Washington D.C., after they saw the tremendous needs in the New Orleans region following Hurricane Katrina. Following a month of service in the area, the pair started the nonprofit, focusing on finding a solution to fulfilling the needs expressed by community members.

SBP believes that by sharing lessons learned and best practices, disaster recovery in America will be more effective in reducing human toll. Through St. Bernard Project’s Disaster Recovery Lab, a community hit by a natural disaster can get a head start by using these lessons learned and utilized in New Orleans, and, now, Joplin.

“We have seen the toll of delay in post-disaster recovery; clients have died waiting, seniors have had their ‘golden years’ irreparably tarnished, and young people have spent their formative years in untenable living situations,” Rosenburg said. “Understanding the urgent need for a new model – recognizing that disaster recovery in America is broken and that families in other parts of the country impacted by disaster yearn for home as strongly as families in New Orleans – St. Bernard Project decided to share its model with other disaster-impacted communities.”

Developed in collaboration with skill-based corporate partners, Disaster Recovery Lab is an answer to reduce recovery time and minimize the devastating impact of delayed recovery on businesses, government and the social and civic fabric of a community.

Communities at-risk will be trained to develop resilience by understanding and mitigating risks, by learning SBP’s model, understanding challenges that they will face and by developing an initial recovery plan.

Disaster-struck communities will learn SBP’s model, receive a playbook/framework for action and will benefit from technical and on-the-ground support.

“We are a one-year-old organization operating with four-plus years of experience,” said Hogan, the Rebuild Joplin co-founder. “It makes an enormous impact on our ability to serve families.”

About TSSC:
The Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC) is a not-for-profit corporation affiliated with Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc. (TEMA).TSSC was established by Toyota Motor Corporation in 1992 as the Toyota Supplier Support Center to share TPS knowledge with North American manufacturing companies and other organizations that have a true desire to learn and adopt TPS. In 2011, TSSCbecame a not-for-profit in order to share its know-how more broadly to nonprofits and other community organizations. Since its inception, 189 companies and organizations have used TSSC’s services. TSSC’s team is comprised of team members from Toyota manufacturing affiliates in North America and from TEMA headquarters in Erlanger, Ky. To learn more about TSSC or inquire about its services, please visit www.tssc.com.

Dave Spence kicks in another $1 million to his campaign

Wouldn't it be nice to have that kind of money?

Dave Spence has invested another $1 million in his campaign for governor, according to a 48-hour report just filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission.

This makes $2 million he has contributed to his campaign in the past two weeks and $2.75 million since the August primary.

In the weeks just prior to the August primary, Spence put another $3 million into his campaign, so he has spent nearly $6 million in about three months.

Freeman Hospital honors Gov. Nixon for work following Joplin Tornado

Tim Jones: Todd Akin is peachy keen

In this video, Speaker of the House Tim Jones, R-Eureka, says the following:

-The left (of course) is focusing on outside distractions instead of the issues (as Todd Akin is doing).

-Claire McCaskill has "attached herself to the hip" to Barack Obama.

-It is Barack Obama and Claire McCaskill who are "waging a war on women."

Spence: The idea of the career politician has to go

Sinquefield: I am coming after teacher tenure

Retired billionaire Rex Sinquefield tells the Wall Street Journal that he is planning a full-fledged attack on teacher tenure in Missouri in 2014 and warns that he is about to come into much more money than he currently has:

In 2014, Mr. Sinquefield is planning his most ambitious ballot initiative to date: abolishing teacher tenure in Missouri. He says the initiative polls very well, particularly when tied to merit pay. But he knows that "teachers unions would come in from across the country to oppose it. This will be a brutal battle."

Citing Milton Friedman, Mr. Sinquefield says: "In every business, in every industry, consumers have almost complete choice, except for the one that's most important, which is education." He has funded 2,000 scholarships to private schools for public-school students, through a voucher program run by the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

He is always looking for new ideas. In 2005, he launched the Show-Me Institute, a free-market think tank based in St. Louis. Motto: "Advancing liberty with responsibility by promoting market solutions for Missouri public policy." Mr. Sinquefield's eyes light up when he cites the institute's findings on matters like tax policy and school vouchers. He may have been bored with the fund business, but he isn't bored now.

And liberals should know that there's much more to come. "When Dimensional gets sold," he says, "that's when I'll really be able to give money away."

Wall Street Journal: Sinquefield meets with Karl Rove

Where is an FBI agent when you need one?

The Wall Street Journal reports that retired billionaire Rex Sinquefield and former George W. Bush chief of staff (and currently pumping more money into political campaigns than just about anybody) were seen lunching together in a New York restaurant:

"By my engagement, as well as others like me," he says, "voters are provided with more choices, not less." He won't say how much money he has donated to political causes in general, or specifically to Mr. Rove and his Super PAC, American Crossroads, but it's safe to say it's more than a pittance. Mr. Sinquefield is forthright in opposing campaign-finance limits and says, "Our system works when all voices are heard."
His own voice is heard in particular in Missouri. The state ended limits on campaign contributions in 2008, and public sources show that Mr. Sinquefield has since spent more than $21 million on various causes and candidates (nearly $7 million in the past two years). He says that's merely the start of what he'll spend to promote his two main interests: rolling back taxes and rescuing education from teachers unions.
"I care deeply for my state," he says. "In order for it to grow, we need to restructure our tax and education systems."

Joplin's Humphreys gives $100,000 apiece to Schoeller, Martin

David Humphreys of Joplin's TAMKO cut two more big checks Thursday, according to Missouri Ethics Commission documents.

The oversized contributions, which were posted today on the Ethics Commission website, show Humphreys gave $100,000 to Republican secretary of state candidate Shane Schoeller and another $100,000 to Republican attorney general candidate Ed Martin.

Schoeller has now received $525,000 from two sources- Humphreys and retired billionaire Rex Sinquefield. Sinquefield has contributed $400,000, according to Ethics Commission records, while Humphreys put $25,000 into the Schoeller campaign in April.

Martin has now received $350,000 from Humphreys, since the Joplin businessman contributed a quarter of a million to his campaign on May 31.

Hartzler: American people deserve honest answers about Benghazi

In her latest newsletter, Fourth District Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler demands answers about the attack in Benghazi.

It has been more than a month and a half since the September 11^th terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya – a terrorist attack that killed four U.S. citizens, including Ambassador Chris Stevens – and the Obama Administration is still refusing to give the facts about this tragedy to the American people. Strikingly, most of the information the public is learning is through media reports. It is the responsibility of those in charge to tell us what they know about this sad event.

We learned this week through leaked emails that officials in Washington knew within hours of the assault on the U.S. Consulate that a terrorist group was claiming responsibility for the attack. It is astonishing that with this new information, the Administration’s first response was to blame a video clip for inciting the attack rather than acknowledging the role of radical terrorists intent on killing our people.

Now the revelation of new correspondence between the Administration’s national security team and on the ground officials adds to the lingering questions that remain after the September 11^th attack. As a Member of Congress, I hold a responsibility to exercise oversight over the actions of government agencies. Obtaining answers to these questions is absolutely vital as we seek to understand how four lives could be lost through apparent inaction by the State Department. We still need frank answers from the Administration on the following:

• What happened that day?
• What did the Administration know about the nature of the attack while it was happening?
• Why did the State Department fail to supply more security forces despite repeated earlier requests for protection throughout the summer?
• Why did the President and his national security advisers fail to order in nearby military forces to come to the aid of the struggling Consulate staff members while they were under attack?
• Why did it take three weeks for the FBI to go into the compound to investigate, yet it only took days for reporters to get in and take photos of sensitive documents left exposed?

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee convened earlier this month to investigate why the State Department had failed to increase security at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi prior to the terrorist attack. Additionally, Chairman Darrell Issa and Congressman Jason Chaffetz sent a letter and 166 pages of supporting documents to President Obama on October 19^th demanding answers about the Administration’s course in Libya prior to the attacks. So far, they have received no answers from the White House. This is unacceptable.

Four American lives have been lost. Sensitive and classified information has been stolen by looters sifting through the rubble of the unsecured Benghazi Consulate. U.S. property has been damaged throughout the region. Our diplomatic officers continue to endure protests and threats. We desperately need clear and firm leadership in the Middle East.

If this matter has been mishandled by the Administration, as it appears it has, the American people have a right to know. The truth about this and other acts of terrorism must not be suppressed. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee I remain committed to ferreting out answers. The American people deserve honest answers and a deep commitment to protecting our people and our property throughout the world.