Monthly Archives: August 2022

I am in the midst of meetings and learning more about how this national litigation will play out, said Mike Bottaro, Founder of The Bottaro Law Firm.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (PRWEB) August 27, 2022

Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune appears to be one of the worst water contaminant sites in history. There are estimations that from 1953 to 1987, millions of American veterans, families, and workers were exposed to this toxic contaminated water at the Camp Lejeune base. The level of volatile organic compounds found in the Camp Lejeune water supply has been reported to cause a wide array of harm and personal injuries to those exposed. On August 10, 2022, President Biden enacted the Honoring Our PACT Act, which gives military veterans and others around Camp Lejeune the right to compensation for harm caused by water contamination.

The PACT Act can help those in our Rhode Island and Massachusetts communities in several ways. The law expands access to health care and health screenings. Additionally, for the first time, it permits those harmed by the contaminated water at Camp Lejeune to file lawsuits against the federal government seeking compensation.

Here are just some of the potential harms for which Camp Lejeune victims could be entitled to compensation:

In preparation to help support the veterans throughout Rhode Island and Massachusetts communities, Attorney Mike Bottaro is attending meetings, talking with veterans, and learning more about how this national litigation will play out.

I am in the midst of meetings and learning more about how this national litigation will play out, said Mike Bottaro, Founder of The Bottaro Law Firm. The new law gives the legal right to monetary compensation to potentially millions of Americans, alive or who have already passed. Veterans, widows, and others now have important, new legal rights. Your case will likely get consolidated into out-of-state federal litigation. If you live in our communities here in Rhode Island and in Southeastern Massachusetts you need a local, trusted personal injury law firm. At Bottaro Law, we offer you the advantage of that local voice so you do not get lost with a nameless, national out-of-state firm

About The Bottaro Law Firm, LLC.

Attorney Mike Bottaro and his team handle all types of personal injury cases including Camp Lejeune cases throughout Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Inside the courtroom, they have been recognized by their peers for their trial advocacy, ethics, and professionalism throughout RI and MA. Bottaro Laws guiding principle is the Golden Rule: Doing the right thing for their clients. Call or text Bottaro Law 24/7 for live help with a free case review at (401) 777-7777.

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Camp Lejeune Toxic Water And How It May Affect Rhode Island And Massachusetts Legal Rights - Local RI And MA Personal Injury Attorney Mike Bottaro...

Taking pictures of food is a fun way to tell beautiful stories. Whether youre sharing a recipe for aculinary blogor want to show off your business or hobby, capturing enticing photos is essential.

Food photographyis a popular social media trend and a great way to get into digital photography.

Shooting food is fun but can be challenging for those who want to turn their hobby into a profession. Check out these 10 tips to help you enter the fascinating world of food photography, whether youre using a smartphone camera or DSLR.

It may seem intimidating, but reading the manual is the best way to learn about your camera. Read, reread and practice. Try snapping photos in manual mode so you can fully control the camera settings.

You can also try shooting in RAW as often as possible. Buy a larger memory card if needed since compressing JPG files can remove the smaller details from your photos.

Privacy, security, the latest trends and the info you need to live your best digital life.

Tap or click here for our detailed guide on the differences between JPEG, TIFF and RAW.

Use a tripod or rest your arms against a flat surface table to stabilize your camera. If you hold your arms away from your body, youll likely have a blurry image.

This tip is vital when you have poor lighting. Weak lighting plus an unstable camera equals an even more pronounced blur.

The Rule of Thirds is visualizing a 33 grid (like a tic-tac-toe board) over an image. You can use these imaginary grid lines to focus on specific aspects of your subject.

Try aligning the edge of your dish with one of the lines that form the grid. Or try focusing the center grid on the middle of a table full of food or a garnish. Stick to the golden rule of thirds and youll get better.

The best pictures are shot in natural light, but that doesnt mean you should snap photos in direct sunlight. Try setting up your food dish by a large window with curtains. The curtains diffuse light, spreading it evenly across your subject.

If youre shooting away from a window with curtains, buy a cheap semi-transparent shower curtain to obtain this look. When using artificial lights, try placing them opposite your subject. Home lighting can alter the white balance, providing an unnatural yellow or red shade.

The best time to take pictures of your food is on cloudy days when the clouds provide great diffusion. But since you cant control the weather, practice with the lighting and different diffusion methods that work best for your subjects.

When you place a delicious meal over a neutral background, anyone looking at your image will focus on the food. Cute or attractive backgrounds might sound appealing, but the subject isnt your new kitchen backsplash or seasonal tablecloth. Its the fantastic meal you cooked.

Looking for pro photography shots or inspiration, tips and advice to drive your own photography goals? Check outDreamstimefor all the pro images and inspiration you need.

A neutral background is not the same as a bland background. Place ingredients used in your dish or eating utensils in the background to add visual appeal without taking away from the food.

Create a story with the ingredients you used. Sprinkle chocolate chips or fan out thinly sliced fruits. Play with these props or try choosing a color palette.

Another way to create a story is to reveal where you like eating that particular food. Use a laptop or desktop computer in the background to indicate you enjoy the food or drink while working.

Include a vintage cookbook to reveal your recipe inspiration or set the dish in the foreground with a full banquet table in the background to tell your audience this food is perfect for parties.

Bring your pictures to life by revealing all the different textures your meals, snacks, appetizers, or desserts have to offer.

You can show different textures by sprinkling spices on your food, especially fresh herbs, bread crumbs, or coarse salt. You can also provide volume by layering or overlapping different dish elements.

Take a bite of the food and leave the utensil on the plate, complete with crumbs or sauce. Add drops of water or brush melted butter onto the food to create a juicy, glistening surface.

Certain foods should be photographed as soon as theyre out of the oven. This ensures cheese is melted enough to capture that impressive stretch seen in pizza commercials and reveals textures that vanish once the food has cooled.

Some ingredients lose their color once theyve gone cold, so be sure to have your lighting and background ready before the food comes out. As a bonus, freshly made food can reveal rising steam and other elements you wont see with cold meals.

Flat foods like pizzas are best photographed from above, while layered foods like cheeseburgers reveal those tasty ingredients when captured from the side.

Start photographing drinks at a 45-degree angle to highlight the cups height, but play with different angles to ensure you get the most attractive image.

Where are you going to showcase your food pictures? Social media images are best taken vertically since this orientation is easier to crop and garners more attention.

Horizontal images are perfect for banners, posters and other print media, so your viewers can see everything.

Now that youre equipped with 10 amazing food photography tips and tricks, go out and start practicing. Take your time, try one technique at a time and dont forget to have fun.

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10 food photography tips that will have your followers asking for seconds - Komando

A tiny tropical paradise known as Contadora Island is a blip in the Gulf of Panama. Here, two disgraced dictators, brutal men who fled from certain death when their people turned against them, lived in exile. Reza Pahlavi, the last shah of Iran, and Raoul Cdras, the military dictator of Haiti, both once called Contadora home.

It was a fate better than both men deserved. Life in the tropics is not exactly punishment. But given that the U.S. and its allies are losing the global battle against autocracy, and that past strategies to rid the world of dictators havent worked, we should take the Contadora option seriously, imperfect and indeed odious as it may be. Every once in a while, the least-bad, realistic option may be to coax dictators into exile, letting them escape the justice they deserve so that the broken countries they leave behind can have a democratic fresh start.

A top foreign-policy priority for any democratic government should be reducing the number of autocrats and their influence. Look around and you can almost always trace global crises back to an autocrat. The war in Ukraine and global inflation lead back to Vladimir Putin. To avoid funding Putins war requires buying oil from Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia or Nicols Maduro in Venezuela instead. Theocratic tyrants in Iran are trying to get world-destabilizing nuclear weapons and Kim Jong Un in North Korea already has them. World War III could be triggered in the Taiwan Strait by Chinas Xi Jinping, who changed the constitution, allowing him to become president for life.

Why dont dictators just quit while theyre ahead? Most of them have millions or even billions stashed away in untraceable bank accounts. Many have yachts on several seas and villas on multiple continents. They could cash in for a few years while tasting the thrill of absolute power, then sip sangria into old age.

From the December 2021 issue: The bad guys are winning

Most dictators dont have that choice, however. To stay in power, autocrats develop complex networks of elites whom they pay off, a phenomenon that political scientists sometimes call patronage. Despots are the linchpin of those networks; if they go, the money may dry up, or worse, go to rivals within the elite, which means that many oligarchs and generals would fight back against any proposed retirement scheme. More significant, dictators must be ruthless and make enemies to stay in power. The second an autocrat loses power, those adversaries will pounce.

Transitions dont generally end well for the autocrat. In sub-Saharan Africa over the past 50 years, for example, close to half of autocrats who lost power have ended up in prison, in another country for the remainder of their life, or in a casket. Most therefore cling to palace life, rigging elections, killing opponents, and crushing dissent. The more likely they are to face jail or death if they leave office, the stronger the incentive to fight to stay in power forever.

Waiting autocrats out isnt a good option. After all, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, of Equatorial Guinea, took power in 1979 and, more than 40 years later, is still ruling. Kim Jong Un is just 38 years old. He could plausibly be ruling in 2072.

For decades, hawks in Washington and London pushed for a military solution to democratize dictatorships. They got their way with the Iraq War. Now Afghanistan is back in Taliban control, Libya is a disaster, and the notion of regime change by force has few advocates. Economic sanctions, which often squeeze vulnerable civilians more than the elites (who can take the hit), rarely live up to their lofty expectations.

Outside actors can help amplify the consequences of an autocrats miscalculation (as the West has done by arming Ukraine and putting pressure on Putins enablers). And once a dictator has fallen, external forces may succeed in imposing hard-nosed punishment: a one-way ticket to the International Criminal Court or extradition to a jail cell that doesnt have easily bribed guards or a revolving door (as with the warlord Charles Taylor, whos now serving time in northern England).

Short of that, the best window for action comes when a dictatorship is already fragileduring mass protests, coup attempts, or an uprising. Dictators, in these moments, tend to consider their options, and may be willing to accept permanent exile. Putin is not going to be coaxed from power, nor is Xi. But for many autocrats who run small and midsize powers, a sweet enough offer in a moment of crisis may be the most realistic route to peace and a shot at democracy.

Yascha Mounk: Dictators arent pretending anymore

In September 1994, Washington was engaged in a tense standoff with Cdras, Haitis dictator. President Bill Clinton anchored gunboats off Haitis shores while trying to convince Cdras to leave power without a fight. Ultimately, money and safe passage were enough. American negotiators, including former President Jimmy Carter and General Colin Powell, bargained with Cdras and reportedly gave him an exit package worth about a million dollars. (Cdras also reportedly insisted that the United States government rent out his mother-in-laws villa for the fee of several thousand dollars a month.) Cdras went to Contadora Island; as of 2008, he still lived in Panama.

More recent was the peculiar case of Yahya Jammeh, the Gambian dictator who had pledged to rule for a billion years. In 2016, a shocking election result was announced: The dictator had lost. Jammeh, in a rambling but jovial phone call broadcast live on television, congratulated his opponent, Adama Barrow, on his victory. Soon thereafter, Barrows party made clear that Jammeh would be prosecuted for his crimes, and that the government would claw back his stolen millions.

Immediately, Jammeh changed course. He rescinded his congratulations, rejected the election results, and pledged to stay in power. Jammeh also began to amass a mercenary army in the capital, ready to stay in power by force if necessary. After years of horrific crimes and corruption, justice was sorely needed but looked like it was going to come at a very high price for the people of The Gambia, in the form of a bloody conflict that might have left them with the same regime in the end.

But then a regional bloc of West African states came to the rescue. They gave Jammeh the choice between the carrot and the stick. Leave on your own terms or face invasion. Jammeh left The Gambia willingly, reportedly carrying bags of cash and loading some of his favorite luxury cars onto a cargo plane. He now lives in Equatorial Guinea, under the protection of Obiang. The Gambia got its fresh start.

Neither Haiti nor The Gambia is a beacon of democracy, but life is certainly better than it would have been if Cdras and Jammeh were still in charge. Both countries were given a fresh start, a chance for lasting reform, and the hope of a future without a dictator. In both instances, the costs were comparatively minor: some cash, cars, and monthly rent to stave off mass violence while pushing a dangerous megalomaniac out of power.

Anne Applebaum: America needs a better plan to fight autocracy

Exile is not the only flexible approach to luring dictators away from the palace. The Ibrahim Prize gives $5 million to African heads of state who leave power in accordance with their constitutional mandate (for nine of the 15 years that its been offered, no candidate has met the criteria). A program also used to exist at Boston University that would appoint former African heads of state to a prestigious fellowship, laundering their reputations if not their millions. It was reportedly offered to Laurent Gbagbo, the former president of Ivory Coast, who had previously been a university lecturer. Rather than head to Boston, Gbagbo tried to cling to power, launched a civil war, and ended up at the International Criminal Court instead. (Boston probably sounded pretty good from his jail cell in The Hague.)

Whenever possible, accountability and justice should be paramount, the twin goals of post-dictator transitions. The International Criminal Court is still a worthy ideal. Torture victims, the families of dissidents who have disappeared, and the millions of families who suffer under ruthless dictators deserve to see real accountability from their oppressor.

Im making an argument rooted not in ideals or even basic fairness, but in realism. For many of the people Ive spoken with in The Gambia, the choice they faced in 2016 was not between justice and injustice, but between spending more decades under Jammehs oppression or watching him leave with some fancy cars. Better that hes gone, several told me. A golden parachute is too generous, but golden handcuffsof house arrest in a safe place to live out the remainder of lifemight be an injustice they could stomach.

Some might argue that the golden-handcuffs option would create a moral hazard, encouraging dictators to believe that they will never face justice for their crimes. But most dictators escape justice anyway, dying of old age, or at the hand of a rival or an angry mob. A policy of safe passage would more likely increase transitions of dictators who otherwise would have fought to the bitter end to stay in power, rather than decrease the amount of justice served.

And the option wouldnt be available to everyone. Nobody could stomach amnesty and exile for the worst of the worst, like Charles Taylor or Bashar al-Assad or Vladimir Putin. But most despots dont kill tens of thousands, or millions, of people, and the less-monstrous tyrants are the ones who are most likely to be tempted by exile anyway.

In a world lurching toward authoritarianism, how much should we hold our nose to give innocent civilians a shot at liberation from a dictator? There may be a place for exile in fighting for democracy.

Read more:

The Realist's Weapon in the Fight for Democracy - The Atlantic

A&M graduate David Cordani 88 has run in dozens of races as a guide with Achilles International, an organization that enables people with physical and mental challenges to participate in mainstream athletics.

Cigna Global Health Service Company

Matias Ferreira, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and double amputee athlete, was close to quitting the race. Sitting on the side of the road, struggling with his prosthetics, the young man got frustrated and chucked one leg into the nearby woods. His running guide, David Cordani 88, wasnt having it. What are you doing? Cordani asked Ferreira before calmly retrieving the mans limb from its swampy resting place, wiping off the mud and reattaching it to Ferreiras body. It was a low point, but it was not the end. With Cordanis reserve of patience and persistence to draw from, Ferreira got up and finished the half-marathon.

This was Ferreiras first race after stepping on an IED in Afghanistan and losing his legs a year before. A seasoned athlete, it was Cordanis first race as a guide with Achilles International, an organization that promotes personal achievement and enables people with all types of physical and mental challenges to participate in mainstream athletics.

Crossing the finish line was a significant milestone for both men. For Ferreira, it confirmed that he was still capable of greatness despite his physical limitations. For Cordani, theeuphoria he experienced in helping someone achieve such an enormous goal was intoxicating. He was hooked. After that race, I volunteered wherever they needed me or whenever I could be of help to safely guide a veteran from the starting line to the finish line, Cordani said.

Cordani has run in dozens of races as a guide with Achilles International, an organization that enables people with physical and mental challenges to participate in mainstream athletics.

For both men, the finish line was only the start of a much greater race. Utilizing the lessons he learned from Cordani and Achilles about goal setting, training and dogged determination, Ferreira later became a police officer in Long Island, New York, making history as the first double amputee to serve as a full-time officer in the United States. Cordani, the chairman and CEO of health service company Cigna, went on to run dozens more races as a guide. He also co-authored a best-selling book on leadership based on his experiences with Achilles athletes titled The Courage to Go Forward: The Power of Micro Communities.

Today, Cordani is bringing the life-changing lessons of his Achilles experiences to bear in his leadership of Cigna and finding new ways to make an impact in the lives of wounded athletes, as well as the 70,000 employees and 190 million customer relationships Cigna serves around the world.

Since 2009, Cordani has served as president and CEO of Cigna; in January 2022, he was named to the additional role of chairman.

Cigna Global Health Service Company

Family Values, Aggie Vision

Cordani grew up in Connecticut in a multigenerational home, where he and his two brothers were raised by parents, grandparents and a network of relatives in the neighborhood. He credits his family with instilling in him three essential life lessons: hard work, the Golden Rule and giving back. We were raised to make a difference in peoples lives and to give our time, energy and commitment to do it, he said.

Cordanis family temporarily relocated to Houston during his high school years, prompting his older brother John to enroll at Texas A&M University. Cordani visited campus often and fell in love with Aggielands unique culture. When the rest of his family moved back to Connecticut, he followed his brother to College Station, drawn to the university communitys emphasis on respect, leadership and service. The environment to me was palpable, he recalled. I chose Texas A&M for the school spirit and the universitys values.

In the classroom, faculty members encouraged Cordani to learnhowto think instead ofwhatto think. He appreciated that integrating real-life experiences into academic pursuits was paramount and that the other education was valued. He majored in finance in Mays Business School and enjoyed competing with his classmates in national stock market game and performance events.

It was real-life learning that took classroom theory to practice, he said. He didnt realize at the time just how useful these events were to his career training, as the team had to collaborate todevelop a strategy, pitch ideas and compromise while working toward a goal. The experience taught him how to research, merge analytics with intuition and lead in dynamic situations.

You could come up with a brilliant plan as a team, but you had to be flexible and willing to modify the plan due to changes in the market situation, he explained. Collaborating with people of diverse backgrounds and viewpoints to find a consensus was a valuable experience that led directly to his success in the workplace.

As the president, CEO and chairman of the global health service company Cigna, Cordani has guided the company to reach No. 13 in the Fortune 500.

The stock market crash in 1987, known as Black Friday, was a pivotal moment in Cordanis life. At the time, he had ambitions of going to Wall Street to start his career the following year. I loved the challenge of the complex finance environment, he said. Cordani recalled a faculty member canceling class on that significant day. History is being made, he told students. Youll learn more by watching the news right now than what I can teach you.

Standing in the lobby of the Blocker Building, watching the headlines scroll across multiple TV screens, Cordani decided to adjust his personal action plan. I realized there wouldnt be a lot of jobs on Wall Street in the foreseeable future, he said. That day, he added an accounting major.

It was the right move.

After graduation, Cordani secured a position at Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers), the highly esteemed accounting firm. His clients were primarily financial services and health care companies. The financial clients were in his wheelhouse of expertise, but he was surprised to discover how the health care companies captured his interest.

The health care industry was on the brink of significant and innovative changeand change creates opportunity, he said. For the generous-hearted Cordani, health care was also appealing because it focused on helping people and creating social positives. When I saw those things line upchange and opportunity and human impactI fell in love with health care, he shared.

Three years after starting his career in public accounting, he was approached to consider a position in the leadership development program at Cigna. The program allowed him to take a deep dive into finance, operations, investments and human resources within the health care industry. It fascinated and motivated him, so much so that he spent the next 30-plus years moving through progressive positions of influence within the organization. Since 2009, he has served as president and CEO of the global health service company; in January 2022, he was named to the additional role of chairman.

And since 2009, Cigna has grown its customer relationships from 30 million to more than 185 million today, increased shareholder returns annually by 17% and increased its overall revenue 10 times over, thanks to Cordanis effective leadership.

In 2021, Cordani celebrated his 30th year of participating in triathlons.

Cigna Global Health Service Company

Athletic Excellence

As a young man, Cordani wasnt a great athlete, but I was scrappy, he said. He also loved to eatand it showed. During his freshman year at Texas A&M, he decided he needed to get in shape. Instead of gaining the proverbial freshman 15, he took up running and intramural basketball and shed 55 pounds within a year. I saw the health effects of being more physically active. I had a higher energy level and felt better physically, he said. The exercise made him feel so good that it has become an essential part of his daily life.

I get centered every morning by exercising and watching the business news. Its a healthy means of keeping the mind and body in check, he said, noting that exercise also helps manage stress.

In 2021, Cordani celebrated his 30th year of participating in triathlons. Racing is a great metaphor for work and life, he reflected. In racing, you set a goal, you have a strategy attached to pursuing that goal, you prepare, then you get to the starting line and you execute. Some unintended things will happen. The ocean could be choppy, and you get physically beat up in the swim. Your bike could malfunction. You could have nutrition problems on the run. It could be unbelievably humid, and you have hydration problems. But you must adapt and adjust.

Cordani co-authored a best-selling book on leadership based on his experiences with Achilles athletes titled The Courage to Go Forward: The Power of Micro Communities.

He hopes to pass on this perspective to the veterans he works with through Achilles, as well as to Cignas thousands of employees. In The Courage to Go Forward, Cordani lays out six steps he calls The Recipe that sumup the philosophy: define the vision, create a strategy, attract the right resources, execute the plan, overcome obstacles, then expand and grow. Whether youre training for a marathon or steering a health care company through the uncharted waters of a pandemic, the recipe applies, he said.

Seeing this strategy transform lives has been rewarding for Cordani. These veterans think, There is no way I can run a half- or full marathon without two legs. I couldnt run a half-marathon when I was able-bodied. How am I going to run it on prosthetics? Cordani and others work with veterans to set the goal, train and account for curveballs. When we cross the finish line and that soldier says, I achieved this, its an eye-opening moment. Then they can ask themselves, What other goals do I want to set? knowing they can do just about anything.

That confidence goes beyond the racecourse, he said, noting the personal and professional goals achieved by Achilles athletes. Goal setting, peer support, goal pursuit and goal achievement is a powerful elixir for a lot of life.

A Virtuous Cycle

Working with wounded veterans, Cordani has experienced firsthand how many who return home injured have lost more than a limb; oftentimes, their sense of self is forever altered. So much of a soldiers identity is tied to physical capability, he explained. Injuries can be debilitating both physically and psychologically as the veteran is confronted with a new vision for their future.

Cordani works closely with Achilles Freedom Team, which serves wounded veterans predominantly of Iraq and Afghanistan. Training for and completing strenuous physical events and regaining a sense of physical capability is not just life changing. For some, it is lifesaving, as the rate of veteran suicide is twice as high as that of the civilian population. Connecting veterans with the right resources to restore mind and body can be a matter of life or death.

Cordanis first real exposure to the military was through Texas A&Ms culture. His Aggie ring, with stars, stripes, eagle and shield, reminds him daily of that military history and the values of his alma mater. His passion for serving veterans has come full circle back to the university, where he has created two endowments for student veterans. The Sherry L. and David M. Cordani 88 Aggie Veteran Freedom Scholarship supports Aggie veterans or their spouses attending Texas A&M. Similarly, the Student Aggie Veteran Enhancement Fund created through the Cordani Family Foundation with matching funds from Cigna is an emergency fund that assists student veterans in circumstances of outstanding financial need.

These men and women served to protect the freedoms of our country, Cordani said. To me, it is a privilege and a responsibility to try to reciprocate some of that service. Its a way of saying thank you.

The Power of One

Cordani has led Cigna through significant shifts in health care, from the Great Recession and the introduction of the Affordable Care Act to the global COVID-19 pandemic. With each new challenge comes new opportunities to increase the organizations impact. The constant point across these challenges is a brutally clear focus on whats most important. When faced with uncertainty, its important to rely upon the values system of the corporation, he said. We are guided by our mission. We exist to improve the health, well-being and peace of mind of those we serve.

Under his leadership the last 12 years, Cigna has seen continuous growth, climbing the Fortune 500 to reach No. 13. The company has led the industry in addressing some of the most pressing health care concerns of the day, including the opioid crisis, lowering the cost of insulin and the loneliness epidemic.

Inspired by his time in Aggieland and his experiences with Achilles athletes, Cordani and his wife have created two gifts that benefit student veterans at Texas A&M University.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a prime example. In March 2020, nobody knew what would transpire, but one thing was certain: It would have a significant impact on peoples health care needs. As chair of the board of directors of Americas Health Insurance Plans at that time, Cordani convened the board to take bold action. They coordinated with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and, within hours, developed a plan to ensure that every American, regardless of their health insurance provider, had access to COVID-19 diagnostic testsat no cost.

Cordani sees Cignas willingness to embrace change in the dynamic and shifting marketplace as a key indicator of its strength and success. We live in an environment of perpetual change, he stated. Our culture and our company come closer to thriving if we can embrace a change environment, rather than tolerating it or resisting it.

While Cordani leads a huge and ever-expanding corporation, he stresses that a position like his isnt necessary to change the world. A lot of well-meaning people assume that the only way you can have an impact is to have a massive infrastructure, he said, but I believe you can turn that on its head and start from the power of one. All of us can make our business or our community a little bit better every day. Marginal improvements, compounded by time and teamwork, generate a flywheel effect that magnifies the action. So many times, we convince ourselves that it has to be big to matter. But harnessing the power of smallthe power of one, the power of an individualis just as important.

The rest is here:

Going The Distance - Texas A&M University Today