Field+Trip

Field Trips

October 28, 2011

Asahi/America:



When we arrived to Asahi/America, we were kindly greeted by the staff and the CFO, Stephen Harrington. The parent company of Asahi/America is Asahi Organic Chemicals Co., Ltd., which is also known as "AOC" within the company. Asahi/America imports raw materials, and manipulate them/change them into new parts regarding the customers' requests. The CFO of Asahi/America said that the annual profit of the company ranges from 45 million to 47 million a year. Although their profit is a significant number, 12 million of the profit is inventory. The longer the inventory remain untouched, the more money the company has to pay for the expenses. CFO Stephen Harrington told us that the company has inventory coming from Tokyo, Austria and South America. The main export of the company is plastic piping and valves. I think the trip to Asahi/America allowed me to see that an international company does not have to be in a huge building with lots of works who barely know each other. Since Asahi/America is located in Malden and they have about 100 employees it does international trade. The company has great achievements and the staff was wonderful. I would love to be able to learn about the company more in the future.

Chamber of Commerce:

At the Chamber of Commerce, we met with the director, Ted Coates. The Chamber of Commerce is an association of businesses, non-profit organizations, and civic organizations. Mr. Coates told us that it was important to give back to the community and understand the roles we play as students and citizens of Malden. Mr. Coates also told us that the Malden Chamber of Commerce has no affiliation with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Malden Chamber only works for the local benefits. Mr. Coates told us that the more money we are spending in the businesses affiliated with the Chamber then there is a portion of the money spent that is given back to the city. The members of the Chamber are local business and international business including Asahi/America! The Chamber is in charge of many events in Malden and finding different ways to make newcomers feel more comfortable as they are assimilating to the life in Malden.

The Mayor's Office



After serving as the Mayor of Malden for 16 years, Mayor Richard Howard is leaving office. Once the Mayor is out of office, his new job is Town Manager for the town of Winchester. Mayor Howard knows a lot about our city and he has contributed to our community greatly. The Mayor grew up in Malden and also graduated from Malden High School. The Mayor told us that as he was growing up, he had a hard time in school. Once he graduated from MHS, he did not attend college right away but he went to work for a year. After the year of work Mayor Howard realized that he was ready to continue his education and attended community college and later Suffolk University. This opened my eyes to see that everything is possible if you really believe that you can do it. Even the Mayor accomplished what he wanted at his own pace. Mayor Howard has made endless changes to the city hoping that all students are given equal opportunities to accomplish their goals. Thank you Mayor Howard for making this a great city to live in for the past 16 years and good luck at your next job!

January 4, 2012 Conley Terminal - Massport



Today we were fortunate enough to travel to the Conley Terminal and see what happens when goods are imported and exported by containers and cargo ships. Boston has one of the ports that are located in the North East. Our tour guides, Lynn and Meg told us that special escorts are needed in order for us to enter the port and those escorts have to be cleared by the federal government and by Massport. During our time there we got to speak to Kevin, who was one of the operators who reviews the transaction and tells the driver where he (or she) can drive their container to. There are cameras surrounding the waiting area for the trucks to be cleared to help the operators view the codes more efficiently. I have to say, I think those people are really dedicated because I would not be able to sit at a computer all day, looking at the back of containers and punching in numbers. Once we finished talking to the operators, we went for a drive in the port. There were cranes that were lifting containers to be loaded onto the trucks and this was a really amazing thing to watch. The precision that the crane drivers had were spectacular and this shows how much dedication they had. Lynn told us the crane drivers were men because this is a well paid occupation and the union is quite difficult to get in. The drivers work four hour shifts and there is no bathroom, that is probably why the drivers are men. Massport was smaller than I had expected because when I watched NCIS, a show about naval officers, the port that they went to was incredibly large. Massport was relatively small but it makes a large amount of money in order to maintain and continue business with others. This was an eye opening experience and where the port was located was absolutely beautiful even on a 25-degree, cold winter day.

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston



Coming into the FRB we all had to go through a metal detector. I knew that the security in the FRB but I didn't know that even the employees had to go through the metal detectors every time they entered the building. The staff has to be cleared by the federal government and our tour guide was Mrs. Bloomsberg. She was a kind lady who talked a lot about entrepreneurship with us. She said that an entrepreneur takes his or her idea and puts it into action. We learned about lots of different entrepreneurs and how technology has changed ad improved since then. I think this portion of the tour was interesting but I wanted to know more about the currency at the world level. The tour was not what I had expected it but it was valuable information. I wanted to know who developed our paper money, when was the first dollar bill created, why is the money green, why does some countries use plastic to print money, how does the fluctuation of currency affect trade on a global level, and how would we deflate the value of money? These were some of the questions that I hoped would be answered but unfortunately they were not. I thought that the FRB was a beautiful place and I appreciated the bag of money that they gave us, too bad it was shredded to tiny pieces!