I'd like address those in or aspiring to be in management positions, especially students working on their MBA this semester.  Behind many of America's problems is we don't turn out business and political leaders like we used to. Part of the problem is America's ethical decay (no consequences to politicians, managers and companies that make gigantic mistakes or even illegal acts) and part is due to believing a promotion to an important job means more rewards -- without accepting more responsibility. In America's heyday of greatness, the primary result of a promotion was increased responsibility. It meant more hours and more work; not less. You were judged by results, not by what the country club crowd thought or the results of opinion polls. Now, the fat cats are far fatter than ever while the ordinary joe often no better off than 50 years ago .  The great author, Homer Hickam, Jr. ( Rocket Boys, The Coalwood Way ), recently published the written instructions his f...

What do others say about Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather ? Here are the comments from Homer Hickam, the author of Rocket Boys upon which the movie  October Sky  was based: And, from the man the New York Times  called "The Weather God of Oklahoma City,"  Books make great gifts. Please consider Warnings  for this Father's Day. 

When the movie October Sky  was released in 1999, I couldn't wait to see it. It is the autobiographical story of Homer Hickam, Jr and his friends building rockets in a small West Virginia coal town (Coalwood, to be exact). As a "science geek" in junior and high school (meteorology and, yes, two friends and I built rockets one summer), I certainly empathized with the story.  October Sky  exceeded all of my expectations; so much so that I later read and loved the book upon which it is based, Rocket Boys  (The reason the movie had a different name is because there was a low-budget movie about Elton John in process. The the producers of Sky  thought there may be confusion). I loved the book, too.  At the end of the movie, it is revealed that Homer became an engineer for NASA training astronauts. Homer also became a prolific best-selling author. But, there was a hole in Homer's story: what happened in his life after high school? Now, we know the answers. They ar...