Thomas H. Spreen is currently professor and chair of the Food and Resource Economics Department at the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL. He has been on the faculty at the University of Florida since 1977.

Dr. Spreen was born and raised in a small town in central Indiana. His family was in the banking business. He graduated from high school in 1969 and went off to college with no idea what direction his life might take. After 1 year at Rose Polytechnic Institute, he transferred to Purdue University, where he earned a B.S. degree majoring in Mathematics and Statistics and a minor in Economics with highest distinction and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in 1973. He enrolled in the graduate program in Statistics at Purdue and earned a M.S. degree in 1974 while being supported by a university fellowship. He moved to the Agricultural Economics Department at Purdue in the fall of 1974. He received his Ph.D. degree in 1977 under the supervision of Bruce McCarl.

Upon his arrival at Florida, he taught courses in mathematics for economists and mathematical programming and began a research program in livestock marketing. His research at that time dealt with price analysis of livestock markets and the feasibility of expanded feeding and slaughtering of cattle in Florida. He developed an interest in bioeconomic modeling, which led to an edited book published in 1986.

In the late 1980s, he supervised a Ph.D. student who developed a mathematical model of the world orange juice market. This model was modified in 1992 to assess the impact of the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement on U.S. citrus producers. This work led to a shift in his research interests to citrus and other high-valued crops. He made his first visit to Mexico, which also opened up an avenue of research in collaboration with the University of Veracruz, in 1993.

He has authored or coauthored several publications on the economics of the world market for citrus products. These papers include collaborations with citrus experts from Brazil, Cuba, and Mexico. He has also worked as a consultant to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations regarding forecasts of citrus production and consumption on a worldwide basis.

He has been active in the graduate program of the Food and Resource Economics Department, having served as the primary supervisor of 50 graduate students, and has served on a total of 106 graduate supervisory committees. Several of his advisees hold prominent positions at academic institutions in the United States and overseas, in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in other government agencies, and in the private sector. He twice served as graduate coordinator of the Food and Resource Economics Department, overseeing major changes in the doctoral program of the department and the establishment of a Master of Agribusiness degree program.

In the last 10 years, Dr. Spreen has been widely sought as an expert on the economics of citrus production and marketing. He has given presentations at numerous industry meetings in Florida as well as lectures on citrus related topics in California, Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Belize, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and China.

He was appointed Chair of the Food and Resource Economics Department in 2002. Under his direction, the department has maintained its excellence in undergraduate programs, with enrollment nearly doubling over the past 3 years. The department has also partnered with the College of Business Administration to offer a M.S. degree specializing in entrepreneurship.

Success in reaching sales goals can depend on a leader's reaction to employees' questions

Editor's note:

This new column, to appear periodically, will offer guidance on a wide variety of management issues affecting top-line and bottom-line growth. Demmie Hicks, president and CEO of DBH Consulting, whose work with independent agencies was profiled in our March 2006 issue, will direct the column. This month the column is written by two of DBH's consultants.

What are the various ways in which you serve as a leader in your organization and in your private life? Leadership is not something that only a few at the top engage in; individuals at any level of an organization can assume such a role. When you don't wait to be told what to do, but think about what needs to be done; when you think outside the box and influence others to do the same; when you think creatively and bring others on board with your vision of how something should be done; when you look into the future and think about possibilities as opposed to obstacles, and inspire others to see the future in a similar manner, you are engaging in leadership no matter where you are in the organizational chart hierarchy.

So, do you see yourself as the leader that you have the potential to be? Have you embraced and given voice to the leader within you? The task is hardly to become a leader; the task is to learn to bring out the leader within you.

Leadership is often denned as the art and practice of achieving desired results through others. What are those qualities that make a leader an influential leader?

To begin with, let's focus on the word influence. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, influence has to do with "the act or power of producing an effect without apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command; the power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible ways." Influential leadership, then, is the type of leadership that relies on influence as opposed to coercion. It is the type of leadership that creates followers who want to follow as opposed to followers who believe that they have to follow.

The DBH Consulting Influential Leadership Model breaks down the components of influential leadership so that it can be utilized by everyone who is interested in being a more effective leader.

The base of the model stresses that a leader needs to possess content knowledge and expertise. Such expertise may include knowledge of the business and industry, mergers and acquisitions, management discipline, and function. Followers would be hard pressed to follow a leader whose technical expertise and knowledge they don't trust.

A leader also needs to possess complementary skills. Fundamental among them are the skills of delegating, conflict resolution, energy awareness, system thinking, self-care, management of diversity, organizational culture awareness, stakeholder balance, collaboration, process thinking, and timing. While knowledge, expertise, and skills are fundamental necessities for any leader, the heart of influential leadership comes from the leader's core values, such as authenticity, integrity and service.

Influential leaders believe in the value of authenticity. That is, they are who they are; what they do is reflective of their personality and character. In his Authentic Leadership, author Bill George, the former chairman and CEO of Medtronic, says that "authentic leaders genuinely desire to serve others through their leadership. They are more interested in empowering the people they lead to make a difference than they are in power, money, or prestige for themselves. They are as guided by qualities of the heart, by passion and compassion, as they are by qualities of the mind."

Another core value of influential leaders is integrity; that is. being consistently honest, forthright, and ethical; doing what they say and saying what they do. They walk their talk. Followers need to be able to trust the leader, and without that trust, influence is impossible.

Influential leaders believe in humility; they are willing to acknowledge that they don't know everything; they are open to learning from others.

Influential leaders also hold service at a high value. They want to be of value to others, contributing to the benefits of others, whether it is their employees, their business, their industry, their family, or their peers.

Leadership skills

Along with the above values, influential leaders develop a set of fundamental influencing skills that appear to be deceptively simple. Those skills include listening, reflecting, dialoguing, modeling, and use of self.

There is an art to listi'iiinfj and engaging in dialogue. Think of the last time someone challenged you in a conversation. Were you truly listening? We often listen only half-heartedly. For example, if you have a tendency to formulate your rebuttal while someone is talking to you, you are not fully listening. Many problems in business occur because of poor communication, and good listening is the first step toward better communication.

There's something about human nature that wants it both ways. We like it when some simple technology, something supposedly overlooked, succeeds wildly. It's a bit cultural too: The less educated especially like it. It's like poking a stick in the eye of megabucks PhD research and development.

Conversely, we are suspicious of anything that's too cheap, too easy. Surely, we think, the "big boys" with all their money and know-how, didn't overlook this simple idea. They probably looked into it, and deemed it unworthy.

All too often, the inventor or practitioner of the technology is unwilling to allow the technique to be critiqued, examined or make any attempt to prove its utility. "Why should I? I'll find all the oil and make all the money!" they would say. (But that doesn't stop them from asking me to publish them!) In such cases, it is fitting that their technology should remain largely unused.

Finally, there's the disruptive effect that such technology, especially when it's cheap, could potentially have on the status quo. Sometimes, the disruptive effect is real, such as when railroads and automobiles replaced wagons and horses. Sometimes, it's just logic with a touch of paranoia, such as when people believe that technology breakthroughs are being bought and squelched to prevent them from encroaching upon billions of dollars of current investment. Such conspiracy theories are almost always wrong.

What follows are technologies that the author neither endorses nor ridicules, but out of the large number of unconventional, even maverick, technologies, these, in the author's opinion, have the potential to reduce exploration risk.

SURFACE EXPRESSION

In many ways, the expression of an oil or gas reservoir can trigger anomalous readings across many technologies. Structurally tilted strata that form deep traps can become shallow or outcrop, possibly resulting in anomalous readings that relate to the formation, such as mineralogy, radioactivity or electrical conductivity, and only coincidentally relate to hydrocarbon pore fluids.

Surface expression of seepage along transmissive faults, bedding planes or directly upward (microseepage) is often related to a deeper reservoir. This expression, in turn, can be revealed in alteration of microbial communities and the presence of soil gases, such as methane, ethane, butane, etc.

Sometimes, you can see the surface expression with your eyes, either as an early or late seasonal color change caused by stress in vegetation, plant species distribution (Fig. 1), crown density or vigor (dwarfs or giants). More subtle changes due to seepage are shown in spectral reflectivity, sometimes called hyperspectral analysis. Even early versions of Landsat, with a relatively small number of channels, showed field outlines.

Brokers report market & pricing problems within 100 miles of coast; softness elsewhere

By Phil Zinkewicz

Property and casualty insurance agents and brokers these days are probably feeling a bit Dickensian in that, in terms of the availability of carrier markets, it appears as though these are the best of times and the worst of times.

As for the best of times, consider a recent property and casualty insurance market index survey conducted by the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers (CIAB). For the second quarter of this year, the survey found that 51% of brokers responding said average premium rates for small accounts were down between 1% and 20%. An additional 28% of brokers registered no changes in small account rates compared with renewals in the first quarter of the year.

The drop in renewal rates was even steeper for medium and large accounts, according to the survey. Nearly six in 10 of the brokers reported that medium and large accounts were down 1% to 20%. An analysis of the Council's survey data by Lehman Brothers said commercial premium rates declined by an average of 3% for all sizes of accounts during the second quarter of 2006. Among individual property/casualty lines, all experienced a decrease except commercial property, which increased 9.3% during the second quarter.

So, now we come to the worst of times. It appears that the reason insurers are chasing after this segment of the marketplace is that they have to make up for premium dollars lost as the result of their overall shunning of the areas most susceptible to catastrophe property losses.

The CIAB survey showed brokers and agents reporting that premium rates for coastal properties were up 300% to 500% - and some even by 600%-and that the impact was being felt as far as five miles inland.

Brokers said that higher property rates and deductibles and lower coverage limits were the industry standard during this year's late spring and early summer months, with significant differences in the way catastrophe-exposed risks were being underwritten. "The market is changing daily," said a broker from the Southwest. "Capacity is scarce, and it's a great concern that later in the year, there may not be any capacity left." The broker was referring to the Southeast Gulf Region and Texas in particular.

Another broker from that region said, "Rates are up 300% to 500% on commercial property and builders risk. Deductibles increased 200%, and it is also deductible by location, not by occurrence."

That broker also reported, "Carriers are fighting insureds on all aspects of storm claims, business interruption, property, equipment and marine. Any large claim gets delayed through carrier claims reviews and sign-offs for advance payment."

A significantly larger number of agents and brokers cited concerns about capacity as one of their top three market worries in this survey. More than half-55%-listed capacity, compared with 40% who identified it as a top concern in the first quarter survey.

Capacity and pricing problems were not confined just to at-risk properties along the coast, the survey showed. Commercial earthquake insurance is increasing 50% to 100% for renewals, several brokers reported, and there are also significant increases in deductibles.

One independent insurance wholesaler based in New York has experienced first hand the problems of brokers in the current catastrophe insurance market. In an interview with Rough Notes, J. C. Sparling, executive vice president of Mercator Risk Services, said that risk managers and business owners recently had to swallow a bitter pill during annual insurance renewals for properties that are exposed to catastrophe, including steep price increases and new limitations on policies, pointing to a severe shortage in the total amount of commercial and multi-family property insurance available.

"Property coverage for tier-one wind and flood is near capacity," Sparling said. "Ratings agencies are scrutinizing many insurers for 'cat' exposure, auditing their surpluses to make sure they can cover possible losses from this year's hurricane season."

Sparling said that catastrophe capacity shortages no longer affect just Florida. "Underwriters for the Gulf Coast, especially Houston and the Carolinas are also feeling the pinch," he said. "As a result, some underwriters are now redefining 'coastal' as any property within 100 miles of the coast. The standard benchmark is within 50 miles of the water."

The wholesale broker said also that revised catastrophe modeling systems are showing higher probable maximum losses from wind and flood, causing property underwriters to reassess their exposures on renewals and perhaps increase their attachment points on cat risks.

"In the midst of this crisis, retail brokers for owners of smaller middle-market coastline properties are facing a steep challenge in placing coverage," said Sparling. "The smart retail brokers are explaining this market climate to their insureds far in advance, putting the wholesaler and the client together in terms of expectations and goals. In an environment where risk managers and business owners are firing retail brokers because they were unprepared for the capacity shortage fallout, and hiring new ones, retail brokers that triple-check valuations and design submissions that underwriters will take seriously are going to keep their clients and probably attract some new ones," he said.