Residents of North Brainerd neighborhoods will be able to ride a free shuttle in their area this summer is part of a pilot program to test a route that could potentially lighten the load of Chattanooga's on-demand ride service when the Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority switches to its summer schedule (READ MORE: Under new leadership, a 'revitalized' CARTA makes play for local funds) The circulator is meant to replace some trips on CartaGo At an average of four trips an hour during open times Chief Administrative Officer Veronica Peebles said at a recent meeting of the CARTA board The free shuttle also connects along Brainerd Road with the No which carries an average of nearly 30,000 riders a month the route is set to run at a 15-minute frequency CARTA board board Chair Johan de Nysschen said the free route should free up capacity on CARTA's on-demand services and also funnel more people to its fixed bus routes "So you could have a double whammy," he said The authority has the benefit of extra buses to use over the summer while its free Mocs Express shuttle, serving the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga campus, isn't running. The buses don't have a fare box like other CARTA buses do "Our driver will stop at all of the signs (new or already present) and will also stop at corners if there are riders waiting and it's safe to do so as this is our current policy," spokesperson Scott Wilson said in an email The route will make it easier to get to places that include Brainerd High School It is set to run every 30 minutes between 10 a.m Staff photo by Abby White / The CARTA bus stop on the corner of Brainerd and Germantown roads is seen May 2 CARTA is testing a new route along parts of Brainerd Staff photo by Abby White / A sign for a CARTA bus stop on Brainerd Road along the new circulator route is pictured May 2 Staff photo by Abby White / The North Moore Road portion on CARTA's new circulator route is pictured May 2 Staff photo by Abby White / A sign for a CARTA bus stop is seen May 2 on Wilcox Boulevard along the new circulator route Staff photo by Abby White / A Tunnel Boulevard sign on the new circulator route is pictured May 2 on Tunnel Boulevard along the new circulator route Staff photo by Abby White / The Germantown Road intersection is seen May 2 on Germantown Road along the new circulator route The shuttle goes through the Menlo Park neighborhood neighborhood association head Helena Kelley said — as long as people know about it "There are people that go from our neighborhood to Brainerd Road," Kelley said by phone "It would be a nice little free shuttle for them." 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Another pilot program will increase the frequency of a shuttle running between St Elmo and downtown Chattanooga over the summer The shuttle links Chattanooga buses with the Incline Railway which is still out of commission due to repairs from a late 2024 fire While the Walnut Street Bridge is closed, CARTA is also running two additional free shuttles to help people get across the river in hopes they'll still visit North Shore businesses (READ MORE: Walnut Street Bridge closing: How to cross the Tennessee River on bike, foot or shuttle) we have experienced over 1,200 riders," Peebles said of the Northshore Express which runs every 15 minutes from Thursday to Sunday Starting this month CARTA is also testing a trip planning app which provided the authority with a free one-year trial "This has only been accessible in large metros for years this is the go-to," board member Corey Evatt said at the meeting by showing users metrics like how much they've saved on emissions or how many calories burned Contact Ellen Gerst at egerst@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6319 development and the future of the region for the Chattanooga Times Free Press She joined the paper as a reporter covering crime and local news in October 2022 and previously covered crime and local government for the Casper Star-Tribune in Wyoming She holds a degree in communication from Boston College This document may not be reprinted without the express written permission of Chattanooga Times Free Press Material from the Associated Press is Copyright © 2025 audio and/or video material shall not be published rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium Neither these AP materials nor any portion thereof may be stored in a computer except for personal and noncommercial use The AP will not be held liable for any delays errors or omissions therefrom or in the transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages arising from any of the foregoing Already have an account? Log in here CARTA representatives will be available to provide more details and answer questions Digital Producer/Weekend Assignment Editor The Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority (CARTA) is set to conduct a public hearing to gather feedback on proposed fare adjustments The fare adjustments are concerning the following: For more information on current CARTA fares, visit the CARTA website Email notifications are only sent once a day Your browser is out of date and potentially vulnerable to security risks.We recommend switching to one of the following browsers: Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work We're in over 25 countries with over 80 offices The ability to form connections is accelerated in an in-person environment An Ohio-based company is protecting first responders around the world Fire-Dex is providing protective equipment to firefighters in 100 countries and all 50 states The consistency of health insurance coverage in small businesses: industry challenges and insights Veteran’s Unconventional Path to Landing her Dream Job in Tech  Army Veteran Ashley Wigfall transitioned to a civilian role and charted her path to technologist through mentorship and skills training at the JPMorgan Chase tech hub in Plano We are champions of banking’s essential role in a community – its potential for bringing people together for enabling companies and individuals to attain their goals and for being a source of strength in difficult times 2024 was yet another year of significant challenges from the terrible ongoing war and violence in Ukraine and conflicts in the Middle East to ongoing terrorist activity and growing geopolitical tensions Our hearts go out to those whose lives are profoundly affected by these events a company that historically has worked across borders and boundaries will do its part to ensure that the global economy is safe and secure but it is not immune to the effects of these events Two things are absolutely foundational to the long-term success of JPMorganChase: one is whether we run a great company and two is whether the long-term health of America and the future of the free and democratic world are strong I talk about specific issues unique to JPMorganChase and how we are addressing them with consumers still spending (though with some recent weakening) and businesses still healthy It is important to note that the economy has been fueled by large amounts of government deficit spending and past stimulus There also remains a growing need for increased expenditure on infrastructure the restructuring of global supply chains and the military which may lead to stickier inflation and ultimately higher rates than markets currently expect The recent tariffs will likely increase inflation and are causing many to consider a greater probability of a recession And even with the recent decline in market values These significant and somewhat unprecedented forces cause us to remain very cautious There is much more detail on all of this in section three 2024 was another strong year for JPMorganChase, with our firm generating record revenue for the seventh consecutive year, as well as setting numerous records in each of our lines of business. We earned revenue in 2024 of $180.6 billion1 and net income of $58.5 billion, with return on tangible common equity (ROTCE) of 20%2 reflecting strong underlying performance across our businesses We also increased our quarterly common dividend of $1.05 per share to $1.15 per share in the first quarter of 2024 – and again to $1.25 per share in the third quarter of 2024 – while continuing to reinforce our fortress balance sheet We grew market share in several of our businesses and continued to make significant investments in products people and technology while exercising strict risk disciplines we demonstrated the power of our investment philosophy and guiding principles as well as the value of being there for clients – as we always are – in both good times and bad times The result was continued broad healthy growth across the firm The charts below show our performance results and illustrate how we have grown our franchises how we compare with our competitors and how we look at our fortress balance sheet Please peruse them and the CEO and COO letters in this Annual Report all of which provide specific details about our businesses and our plans for the future we continued to play a forceful and essential role in advancing economic growth we extended credit and raised capital totaling $2.8 trillion for our consumer and institutional clients around the world we move over $10 trillion in 120+ currencies and more than 160 countries as well as safeguard over $35 trillion in assets After we purchased and effectively fully integrated First Republic Bank that bank failure disappeared as a negative issue for the U.S In addition to bringing much-needed stability to the U.S secure home to approximately half a million First Republic customers While we have modified our approach to certain corporate responsibilities to conform to new guidance we remain committed to reaching out to all communities in an effort to create a stronger more inclusive economy – from supporting work skills training programs around the world and financing affordable housing and small businesses to making investments in our people and in cities like Detroit that show how business and government leaders can work together to solve problems Almost all of these efforts are commercial in nature; i.e. “profit seeking” and are no different from what businesses We have achieved our decades-long consistency by adhering to our key principles and strategies (see below sidebar on Steadfast Principles) which allow us to drive good organic growth and promote proper management of our capital (including dividends and stock buybacks) I remain proud of our company’s resiliency and of what our hundreds of thousands of employees around the world have achieved we have never stopped doing all the things we should be doing to serve our clients and our communities we are champions of banking’s essential role in a community – its potential for bringing people together I often remind our employees that the work we do matters and has impact we help people and institutions finance and achieve their aspirations cities and countries in all regions of the world What we have accomplished in the 20+ years since the JPMorganChase and Bank One merger is evidence of the importance of our values Looking back on the past two+ decades – starting from my time as Chairman and CEO of Bank One in 2000 – there is one common theme: our unwavering dedication to help clients communities and countries throughout the world constant investment in innovation and ongoing development of our people have enabled us to achieve this consistency and commitment we uphold certain steadfast tenets that are worth repeating While JPMorganChase stock is owned by large institutions mutual funds and directly by single investors More than 100 million people in the United States own stocks; many our employees also bank these shareholders as well as their families and their companies Your management team goes to work every day recognizing the enormous responsibility that we have to all of our shareholders shareholder value can be built only if you maintain a healthy and vibrant company which means doing a good job of taking care of your customers how can you have a healthy company if you neglect any of these stakeholders As we have learned over the past few years there are myriad ways an institution can demonstrate its compassion for its employees and its communities while still strengthening shareholder value while we don’t run the company worrying about the stock price in the short run in the long run we consider our stock price a measure of our progress over time This progress is a function of continual investments in our people These important investments will also drive our company’s future prospects and position it to grow and prosper for decades whether looking back 10 years or even further to 2004 when the JPMorganChase/Bank One merger took place we have outperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and the Standard & Poor’s Financials Index Fourth, we are united behind basic principles and strategies (you can see the principles for How We Do Business and our purpose statement in my letter from 2022) that have helped build this company and made it thrive These allow us to maintain a fortress balance sheet and serve customers and clients while lifting up communities worldwide This philosophy is embedded in our company culture and influences nearly every role in the firm which rely on and benefit from one another This structure helps generate our superior returns the walls that protect this company are not particularly high – and we face extraordinary competition I have written about this reality extensively in the past and cover it again in this letter We recognize our strengths and vulnerabilities for our clients and the countries in which we operate We must take seriously our role as one of the guardians of the world’s financial systems we operate with a very important silent partner – the U.S that his company’s success is predicated upon the extraordinary conditions our country creates He is right to say to his shareholders that when they see the American flag JPMorganChase is a healthy and thriving company and we always want to give back and pay our fair share We do pay our fair share – and we want it to be spent well and have the greatest impact To give you an idea of where our taxes and fees go: In the last 10 years state and local taxes in the United States and over $26 billion in taxes outside of the United States we paid the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation over $11 billion so that it has the resources to cover failures in the American banking sector Our partner – the federal government – also imposes significant regulations upon us and it is imperative that we meet all legal and regulatory requirements imposed on our company we know the foundation of our success rests with our people determining our investments and driving innovation However you view the world – its complexity risks and opportunities – a company’s prosperity requires a great team of people with guts enormous capabilities and high standards of professional excellence to ensure its ongoing success Diluted Earnings per Share and Return on Tangible Common Equity 2005-2024 Tangible Book Value1 and  Average Stock Price per Share 2005-2024 Read footnoted information here Client Franchises Built Over the Long Term New and Renewed Credit and Capital for Our Clients 2005-2024 Daily Average Cash Management Volume1 and Value1 Daily Average Merchant Transactions and Settlement Value JPMorgan Chase exhibits strength in both efficiency and returns when compared with large peers1 and best-in-class peers Tangible Common Equity (Average)1 ($ in billions) II. A Compendium of critical domestic policies to drive growth, opportunity and well-being III. Specific issues facing our company IV. Management learnings both as a patriot who cares about America’s and the free world’s future and as the CEO of our company because it may be the most critical factor affecting the future of JPMorganChase itself The success of JPMorganChase has always been predicated on the success of the United States of America and the health of the world particularly the strength of free and democratic countries Whether you call them adversaries or major competitors The brutal invasion of Ukraine and the indescribable terrorist acts on Israel should have dispelled any illusion that the world is a safe place We do not need another Pearl Harbor or 9/11 to shatter any false sense of security based on the hopeful notion that dictators terrorists and oppressive nations won’t use their economic and military powers to advance their aims – particularly against what they perceive as weak incompetent and disorganized Western democracies Global peace and world order are vital American interests We also need to answer the question: What kind of world do we want to live in Our international adversaries and major competitors have made it clear that their goal is to dismantle American hegemony which means dismantling the rules-based system led by America in concert with our allies (essentially the Bretton Woods system and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as well as the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations) this system has brought forth the longest period of peace and prosperity among the great powers it is clear this system needs serious reform and strengthening that is exactly what our adversaries want to happen: Tear asunder the extensive military and economic alliances that America and its allies have forged it will be every nation for itself – giving our adversaries the opportunity to set the rules and use military and economic coercion to get what they want We need to bring the whole of government and the private sector together to build the world we want while dealing with the cold realities of the world we have We face the most perilous and complicated geopolitical and economic environment since World War II Today’s world is more complex and more interconnected than ever before are required to address challenges on many fronts: the war in Ukraine; terrorism in the Middle East and the real possibility that Iran may develop a nuclear weapon; Europe’s potential fragmentation; and ongoing trade disputes and the rise of China many other nations around the world will seek to acquire nuclear weapons presenting us with a catastrophic situation A global nuclear arms race is the worst outcome that could happen to our world – and this may be the greatest threat to mankind’s survival it is extremely important to recognize that security and economics are interconnected – “economic” warfare has caused military warfare in the past Not only is America’s global leadership role being challenged outside our borders by other nations but also inside our borders by our polarized electorate The actions taken in the next decade may prove depending on how our country and our allies perform the most consequential of our lives and may very well determine the fate of the free and democratic world over the next century America has always had an amazing ability to confront enormous challenges – and we did so by facing them head-on with superb leadership from Abraham Lincoln to FDR to Dwight Eisenhower “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” still remains a shining beacon of hope to citizens around the world Here are five things our nation needs to do well in order to secure the future we should want for our country and our companies and I understand that some people may disagree with them – and is the urgent need to face these issues head-on—we should not assume that America will overcome them We have always been a resilient nation and have overcome significant adversity in the past because we faced our challenges and dealt with them properly And the consequences of not dealing with this properly range from bad to catastrophic To be able to attack our problems at home and abroad And our core strength is based upon our commitment to our values as well as our ability to work hard and think intelligently about our problems While we should acknowledge America’s flaws they should not be used to pull apart our country Our values transcend any political stance – libertarian We need to believe in ourselves and get back to work (in the office!) America’s strength is not a divine right – it is earned by citizens committed to a common purpose Many of the blind ideologies being bandied about run counter to our fundamental principles religion and enterprise allow individuals to pursue life as they lawfully see fit Ideologues often adhere to rigid beliefs and seek to impose those beliefs on others; in extreme forms of fanaticism there is no room for individual differences I applaud many traditional Democratic values such as a commitment to try to lift up all of our citizens and to provide more justice and equal opportunity I also deeply respect many traditional Republican values such as a dedication to provide a strong national defense to promote free enterprise and encourage a pro-business environment and to emphasize the importance of the Constitution And we should all support other core values These values are not mutually exclusive and should be embraced and upheld by both parties need to be able to embody all these values would leave their country and move to ours if most people could only invest in one country Our exceptionalism is based on our freedoms all under the protection of the Constitution (and the military) of the United States of America You need only to witness the deep appreciation of new citizens who often made enormous sacrifices to be here to feel what it must be like when they take the Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America – it would bring you to tears It is incumbent on us to educate ourselves our fellow citizens and future generations about American values and our ongoing pursuit of a more perfect democracy This education should start in grammar school – our civic roles and responsibilities need to be taught the elite often insulted traditional values of family lecturing about their superior values from their comfortable perches and imposing all of this on people who believed differently We have implemented many climate policies that do not effectively address climate change and raise the cost of living We have stopped teaching some important parts of American history Instead of acknowledging America’s significant virtues We engage too frequently in class warfare and excessively in identity politics; i.e. And state laws were passed that actually increase crime instead of preventing it Many of these policies hurt the very people they were meant to protect most Many cities that paid a high price for their misguided policies are now returning to obvious policy goals – safe streets more and more people are being disrespectful condescending and unwilling to listen to one another it is quite predictable that the pendulum will swing too far in the other direction let’s hope we can all treat each other with a little more respect but its problems demand that we adjust our strategies America has carried the burden of keeping the world safe and has made extraordinary efforts to improve the lives of the citizens of other nations It is time to rebalance and rebuild but not retreat from the post-world order retreat from international leadership will leave a vacuum that may be filled by China or other actors that seek to promote an alternate set of international rules and norms Both parties contributed to our failures (and the media amplifies it) Many of the grievances I’ve noted existed and grew under both parties’ leadership These grievances are frequently amplified by media that often adheres to only one party’s views which leaves audiences blind to all of the issues and consequences of flawed policies reporters many times reveal their biases whether through subtle support or open skepticism Interview subjects may be discredited because of who they are not because of the content of their argument Much of this is making us meaner to each other – a little more kindness and understanding would go a long way I am a firm believer that we should constantly talk with each other hold each other accountable and try to respect all sides of an argument deliberately worse by using algorithms to manipulate as opposed to educate Networks and platforms could meaningfully improve the quality of discourse on the town square both by offering a menu of algorithms and by requiring all users to authenticate their identities whether they choose to speak anonymously or not we have “know your customer” requirements – social media should have them as well Verifying identities would go a long way toward eliminating foreign influence and bots We also exist in a nation awash with inaccurate and unfair labeling and scapegoating; i.e. Who exactly is Wall Street in this comparison with Main Street Large business and small business are symbiotic Shouldn’t we respect jobs and workers and the companies that create those jobs And some give voice to the view that public sector jobs are more virtuous than private sector jobs Less than 25 million people work in the public sector and we should hold them in high regard – teachers and add to the general well-being of the country It is good to remember that the 135 million people who work in the private sector generate the income that funds the public sector All of these are among the reasons why I believe the body politic may be tired and ready to see bold disruption our adversaries mistake our apparent disarray as a sign that we are lazy innovation and morality of most citizens – knows this is not true We need to address the underlying issues causing the grievances that are tearing us apart and holding the nation back By enacting meaningful policy reforms to resolve these issues I believe our gross domestic product (GDP) would grow by over 3% a year – benefiting all Americans and especially those in our lower-income communities which should be easily achievable with the right policy decisions our GDP per person would be approximately $16,000 higher this year I describe many of the policies that we need to fix – and They run the gamut from improving the supply side all of which are essential to our country and the world comprehensive and coordinated to be successful – how you describe it politically is a separate matter “If you are going to do what you already did you are going to get what you already got.” We have the best economy in the world but we must confront our extensive flaws and fault lines We need to build our own capabilities and stop the constant under- and over-reaction and it’s essential that we unite the entire nation – government and business alike – to achieve it we observe both effective and counterproductive policies as seen in parts of Europe where rigid labor regulations have contributed to persistently high unemployment certain safety net programs may inadvertently discourage paid work streamlined permitting policies show how smart governance can accelerate development and get projects built – in short order and safely Nations that implement sound policies are capable of achieving remarkable outcomes; consider Ireland which used to be Europe’s perennial basket case Good political leaders get both the politics and the policies They are constantly educating the public instead of just responding to it Our country needs leaders who can guide their parties away from catering to the extremes and who can collaborate effectively with our allies to craft integrated policies that address both economic and security challenges – in the short and long term we need lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to commit to the serious work of governing – setting aside partisan divides to develop policies that foster economic growth and expand opportunities for all Americans to succeed governor or president) and running the government are completely different things While a good politician must communicate policies in a clear compelling way that resonates with the American public the policies themselves must be well designed to be truly effective And this is more important today than ever before because the future for both foreign policy and economic policy the Republicans are right to champion business and free enterprise establish an international tax system that has made America competitive for the first time in over 15 years And all of this could be done while still maintaining the proper regulation necessary to prevent market abuses and safeguard the economic environment driven by often-misguided narratives and an often-dismissive tone have left much of the business community frustrated and disillusioned Many government agencies and regulators frequently criticize business by relying on oversimplified and dishonest concepts like “price gouging” to justify their stance They tend to take the isolated missteps of a few companies and use them to paint the broader business community as unethical This fuels rhetoric that undermines free enterprise and leads to regulatory overreach that frequently exceeds the intent of the law Few in the previous administration actually understood business or had any experience running a business – and it showed were laden with virtue-signaling and uninformed rules It would be wiser to properly educate the public about the role of business The private sector is the engine for investing our country’s capital into high-returning areas — it is our most effective tool for promoting innovation There are more than 30 million businesses in America it is large companies that are responsible for 85% of the research and development (R&D) and nearly half of all nonresidential capital investment Big companies generally have excellent healthcare it creates four or five times more jobs in that area Small business and large business are truly symbiotic America’s extraordinary standing in world affairs is predicated on our economic Our exceptional relationships with our allies largely exist both because of the security they receive from America’s military umbrella and our strong economic ties But we are in a new world defined by shifting power dynamics rapid technological disruption and rising geopolitical tensions This economic competition and conflict will likely go on far longer than the wars on the battlefield would like to see a fragmentation of America’s economic alliances and a weakening of our global economic position including our status as the world’s most powerful economy a leader in innovation and holder of the world’s reserve currency But our long-term strategic goals should be crystal clear: to maintain the cohesion and strength of the Western world If the Western world’s military and economic alliances were to fragment America itself would inevitably weaken over time Economic fragmentation from our allies may be disastrous in the long run The opposite is precisely what our adversaries want the eurozone’s GDP per person has gone from over 75% of U.S While Europe has received some tough messages from U.S what European leaders should do is seize the moment European nations know what they need to do: significantly reform their economies so they can grow; e.g. finish the economic union to make commerce across their countries easier and more efficient and initiate labor reform and tax reform to incent more business growth and more labor participation (see the Draghi report) They also recognize that they need to materially increase their military spend and capabilities but our country’s goal should be to help make European nations stronger and keep them close If Europe’s economic weakness leads to fragmentation the landscape will look a lot like the world before World War II Each nation will need to seek out its own relationships to secure its future and that may very well mean closer relationships with Russia and Iran for energy and China for trade and economics Such moves would ultimately make these countries far more reliant on China and Russia – over time effectively making them vassal states as long as it doesn’t end up being America alone We do not need to fear China – we just need to get our act together Comprehensive economic policy is critical to compete with China There is no more consequential relationship for the world and this relationship will affect the whole Indo-Pacific region China has been executing a more comprehensive economic strategy than we have The country’s leaders have successfully grown their nation and have made China the largest or second-largest economy in the world many people question China’s current economic focus – it continues to be beset by many economic and domestic issues which have resulted in large real estate problems policies that inhibit entrepreneurs in their own country and an urgent need to accommodate a rapidly aging population China has its own national security concerns as it is located in a very politically complex part of the world Many of China’s actions have caused its neighbors (e.g. among others) to start to re-arm and draw closer to the United States It also surprises many Americans to hear that while our country is 100% energy sufficient China needs to import 10 million barrels of oil a day It is clear that China’s new leadership has set a different course with a much more intense focus on national security military capability and internal development America still has an enormously strong hand – plenty of food water and energy; peaceful neighbors; and what remains the most prosperous and dynamic economy the world has ever seen with a per person GDP of over $86,000 a year (this compares with China’s GDP per person of $13,000 in 2024) our nation is blessed with the benefit of true freedom and liberty both business and government should have focused on certain problems with China: unfair trade across multiple dimensions and our reliance on China for critical national security-related components While we may always have a complex relationship with China (made all the more complicated and serious by its actions in supporting Russia in the ongoing war with Ukraine) the country’s vast size and importance to so many other nations (China is the largest trading partner to almost every other nation) require us to stay engaged – thoughtfully and without fear we need to build and execute our own long-term comprehensive economic security strategy to keep our position safe and secure we need to remain competitive with China in the artificial intelligence (AI) race by bolstering our technological advancements and reducing our reliance on Taiwan for semiconductor chips Most of the actions we can take to protect our country are unilateral and do not need China’s agreement strong and consistent engagement would be best for both the United States and China Whether you view China as a competitor or a potential adversary we should work with our allies to firmly negotiate an ongoing relationship Tough but thoughtful negotiations over strategic military and economic concerns – including unfair competition – should lead to a better situation for all China will be better off forming partnerships with a strong Western world than with nations like Russia We should also recognize what critical common interests with China we share in combating nuclear proliferation What China does so well is manage its country as a whole – coordinating government and business so that they are able to further some of their strategic goals We must improve our ability to act in a more organized and strategic way to succeed in this new global landscape if we keep our economy the strongest and maintain the strength of our alliances We should promote healthy economic alliances amounting to approximately $20 trillion a year of which only $2.5 trillion is with the United States And global trade will take place with or without us We should remember that other nations have choices both in the short term and in the long term and they will make these choices in their own self-interest based on economics Many countries need trade to help grow their economies has the largest trade network with 40 individual agreements China has applied for and signed several new trade agreements (e.g. the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) The United States lacks trade agreements with some of its closest allies many of whom have signed trade deals with China We should more actively be seeking free (and particularly with strong allies like Australia the United Kingdom and – we hope one day – the European Union These can be done in a way that is clearly beneficial to both sides We already trade with most nations on the planet – and we should always be trying to make it better and fairer for America Deepening high-standard trade with key trading partners is good economics and great geopolitics And we don’t need to ask many nonaligned nations to align with us – but we can bring them closer to us by simply extending a friendly hand with trade and investment There are many ways to combat unfair trade – industrial policy is one of them countries have used trade practices to get a leg up on other countries This economic competition is often exercised through industrial and trade policy and it comes in many forms: banning or limiting trade (quotas) long-term purchase agreements and capital controls These tools are generally intended to give a company or an industry an unfair competitive advantage they can create unbeatable economies of scale they can be used by countries as a tactic to try to unfairly dominate whole industries There are other unfair trade practices that need to be mentioned; e.g. such as regulations that effectively stop specific types of trade and various unfair tax policies that range from value-added taxes to a particular country’s tax schemes Many countries use some of these tools in various forms (including the United States) So trade agreements have many flaws and need to be carefully negotiated Practices such as permitting countries to circumvent trade restrictions imposed on them – for example allowing China to use agreements that it has with other nations to bypass tariffs on Chinese goods – can and should be stopped where the United States is treated unfairly we should demand that those agreements be fixed It would also be good to acknowledge that we have sometimes treated others unfairly (for example parts of the Inflation Reduction Act unfairly favor American business) should be as targeted and as simple as possible The cleanest of these is tax credits in various forms two rules should not be violated: (1) there should be no social engineering and (2) markets should allocate capital not the government – lest the result is a buffet where corporate America gorges The government is simply not good at allocating capital in a free market One example should suffice: In our attempt to create a more competitive chip manufacturing industry in the United States (it costs two times more to manufacture these chips in America our manufacturers would fail if they tried to compete) the government could have given land grants for the land accelerated depreciation and lowered taxes or offered tax credits for an extended period Then the companies and the capital markets would have competed to decide how best to do this we need to acknowledge that there have been real negative job impacts as a result of trade (in 1990 manufacturing created 18 million jobs in this country versus 13 million today) which are usually concentrated around certain geographic areas and businesses So any new trade policy should be combined with a greatly enhanced and effective Trade Adjustment Assistance program income assistance and relocation for those workers directly impacted by trade America already trades with more than 200 countries the most fair trade agreements that we can And we should do this while maintaining our close economic relations with our allies Even if our country had no net trade deficit it would likely be running deficits with some countries and surpluses with others Sometimes a high trade deficit results from a country’s extraordinary attractiveness as an open investment destination and these investments help that country grow and prosper This may be true for part of America’s trade deficit trade deficits for pure consumption may mean a country is slowly selling parts of itself to someone else Our trade deficit over the last 20 years has totaled over $12 trillion The other side to the trade deficit is an investment surplus which has resulted over the years in foreign investors owning $30 trillion of U.S investors own only $16 trillion of foreign securities these numbers were $6.3 trillion and $4.3 trillion foreign investors have come to own an increasing share of the United States It is good to remember that our trade deficit is also driven by our large government deficit it is perfectly reasonable for us to focus on our “twin” deficits: our $2 trillion fiscal deficit and our $1 trillion trade deficit While the numbers in the above paragraph highlight the attractiveness of the American economy they also reveal certain underlying risks: If America becomes a less-attractive investment destination dollar and the economy could suffer if foreigners sold their U.S Our extraordinary energy position is a massive competitive advantage The United States has a huge competitive advantage in that it is essentially self-sufficient on energy – and will be for decades This reduces the cost of so many things in our country (e.g. up to 40% of the cost of food is related to energy) and makes it much easier for American companies to compete It’s also an enormous geopolitical benefit for us to be able to export safe secure liquefied natural gas overseas to our allies gives them greater security and is economically beneficial for the United States It also has the virtue of being good for the climate – as cleaner liquefied natural gas replaces dirtier coal America should lead the way in generating more energy to meet greater demand And we need an “all of the above” strategy for developing renewable energy as well as tapping conventional energy sources We should not forget that to make energy ever more efficient and cleaner investment in the grid and access to critical minerals our innovative capabilities will make energy cleaner and solve the carbon emissions problem we have made many mistakes around climate policy – and I believe a lot of money will ultimately be wasted we failed to build the pipeline that would bring gas from Pennsylvania to New York – this would have replaced coal (in a cleaner way) and dramatically decreased the cost of energy for New Yorkers It’s also important to remember that pollution in the United States was significantly reduced because we effectively outsourced the production of “dirty” manufacturing to other nations that have lower emissions standards than we do One last point: Billions of people around the world still lack access to affordable and reliable energy a fundamental driver of higher and healthier living standards Meeting this demand improves lives on a global scale There are many other critical foreign economic policies that could be used to promote the American economy and protect our allies International Development Corporation and the Export-Import Bank of the United States) are generally used to develop projects in and support exports from developing nations Our development finance is very small relative to the size of our country – in total America’s development finance investment is approximately $60 billion We are virtually absent compared with China China’s government-led Belt and Road initiative has lent or invested $1.4 trillion in 155 different countries China does this to promote its business expansion overseas and to enhance its own energy In addition to the Belt and Road initiative China has foreign direct investment of approximately $3 trillion in the rest of the world This investment was virtually zero in 2000 America’s foreign direct investment totals $6.7 trillion the absence of American business or government investment is palpable African and Latin American nations want more of America but they are getting what they need from China America could dramatically increase its development finance – it is not a giveaway and it has the virtue of promoting America and its businesses overseas America’s strong economy plays a critical role in preserving the U.S Some say this makes the dollar purely a matter of trust Treasuries) supporting each dollar it issues Those assets carry the full faith of the U.S backed by its taxing power on the most prosperous nation the world has ever seen you are essentially free to do with them as you see fit – that is not true in many autocratic nations dollar is the world’s reserve currency because of America’s open markets the strength of our economy and our rule of law upholding property rights – all protected by the U.S These are also the reasons why the United States is such an attractive investment destination for anyone wanting to invest their money A well-functioning international monetary system is good for the United States and for our allies particularly since the rules are set by us and our allies (although some reform is needed) dollar is foundational to a healthy global economic system and it’s the cornerstone of America’s commanding global influence The strength of our financial system gives America considerable clout not only in allocating capital efficiently but also in creating a huge informational advantage for our country financial system writ large is the best in the world – with extraordinary knowledge and capabilities it is a critical flywheel of the American economy To protect the status of our global economic influence and of our reserve currency America also needs to be broadly trusted and reliable Sanctions are a powerful tool (against not just financial corruption but global bad actors) – but they should only be used judiciously and for the right purpose and In addition to the benefits mentioned above being the reserve currency saves the United States $100 billion a year at current interest rates People around the world actually carry approximately $2.5 trillion of paper U.S There is a correlation between the strength of our economic and military alliances and our status as reserve currency: The stronger our alliances History has shown that as countries become weaker their currency loses reserve currency status we’ve seen several stark reminders that national security is and always will be paramount even if that idea seems to recede in tranquil times America remains the arsenal of democracy and the bastion of freedom for the whole world how Ukraine and the terrorist activity in Israel It is our hope that these terrible events have awakened all of us to the fact that the world is never safe As President Ronald Reagan once wisely said “The only way to stay safe is peace through strength.” Having the best military is expensive but it is not nearly as expensive as dealing with what would happen without it We must maintain the world’s strongest military it is reasonable to expect allies to pay their fair share of global military expenses – but we should also recognize that it is in our own strategic self-interest to keep our allies together military presence around the world should not be viewed as mere protection for hire – it’s a critical pillar of global stability and a reflection of our leadership We hope one day there will be a lasting and permanent peace for Israel and the Middle East Ukraine needs a proper resolution – one that provides it with sovereignty stability and security – putting their country on a path to healthy growth Sovereignty means that they are a free nation left to make their own decisions If Ukraine is left in a weakened position (meaning we will see a fracturing of America’s military alliances as countries One more point about military security: There was always a thought that America was far from European wars even though we have been dragged into them many times the world has changed; other countries’ military capabilities are already on our doorstep We need to employ all instruments of national power The exercise of power isn’t measured by military force alone but also includes other instruments of national power: diplomacy foreign assistance (all done in a strategic efficient and accountable way) and constant education about the benefits of freedom It’s fragile; it needs protection.” Fundamentally we need to realize that power is also based on trust: trust that we will do the right thing that we can do the right thing and that we are not just strong but reliable We need to immediately change certain policies to secure and enhance our military capabilities Sustaining America’s position of power requires major changes in the funding and planning of our military production capacity and supply chains to make our military as resilient and capable as possible Protecting our country goes way beyond just the military and includes communications and cybersecurity in general America’s alliance system is the foundation of our geopolitical advantage and is the special sauce of American leadership Foreign policy must be grounded in realpolitik – a pragmatic approach that prioritizes national interest over ideological considerations Realpolitik means that many decisions are properly subordinated to national security such efforts should not overshadow the strategic imperatives of our foreign relations We need to bring our allies along and help them build their own capabilities A weak Europe is ultimately very bad for America secure and affordable energy – or they will be in a terrible position are a critical part of maintaining these alliances While we should educate other nations about the virtues of our values we should stop lecturing – we don’t need them to have all our values We should do everything we can to drive healthy growth in the economy we create the resources to constantly reinvest in our country and we create the conditions to promote greater opportunity and well-being for all our citizens I describe nine critical policies that I believe are essential to making our economy strong – putting us in the best position to deal with any issue in front of us and guaranteeing our ongoing military and economic predominance I tried to look at the United States as I would any large complex company that we might acquire our country is much more complicated than any one company.) A full assessment of all critical issues allows you to develop a game plan The issues I’ve highlighted – and there may be more – are those that I believe are holding us back and causing much of the “grievances” I wrote about in the first section I tried to look at this without regard to how positions might be labeled; i.e. it is critical that we start to fix that which is broken Government as a whole needs to demonstrate to the American public that it is effective competent and principled – as any institution should do – in developing policies that are conducive to maximizing long-term growth competitiveness and fairness – without micromanaging the economy should continuously prioritize and allocate resources to streamline its operations and reduce red tape to improve service delivery enhance responsiveness and achieve cost efficiencies Every department should focus not just on the amount of money spent but on what it expects the outcomes should be what the outcomes actually are and how it can deliver more at a lower cost we have a broken bureaucracy that fails to fully acknowledge or effectively deal with our biggest problems the power of the government over the years has been used to attack parties particularly those not in favor by the party in power It begins by always reminding the American public about the founding principles of the United States of America – the principles embedded in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution – liberty The economic machine is extraordinarily complex We need to focus on proper policies that are conducive to growth ill-informed policies not based on reality and pragmatism often have huge unintended consequences People frequently twist accurate data with bad logic to kill good policy than to formulate good policy or spend money appropriately to help the supply side such as those promoting job creation and infrastructure development are critical to achieving productivity and While innovation is the cosmological constant always driving growth sometimes its downside is used to block it We should foster innovation and then create policies that help those who are negatively affected binding mechanism to achieve fiscal responsibility similar to a Simpson-Bowles type of commission – but with real congressional authority have implemented a fiscal policy framework with specific guidelines Sweden’s framework establishes a debt-to-GDP ratio of 35% plus or minus 5% This allows the country to run deficit financing at the same rate as its economic growth and still maintain a debt-to-GDP ratio of 35% Adhering to this kind of consistent fiscal standard makes it easier to manage the country in general The United States should eventually establish similar guidelines that would make it easier to run this “ship of state” and reduce the uncertainty that results from constant flip-flopping between sometimes radically different fiscal policies The debt ceiling is essentially a “weapon of mass destruction” that can be misused by politicians who don’t understand the damage it can do It’s hard to even contemplate the harm that would be done to the trust in America and in our economy if we actually failed to meet our debt obligations We must learn to account for investments differently from the way we account for expenses particularly in areas such as infrastructure government is astounding and is almost laughable the practice drives terrible decision making the government treats investments in infrastructure (roads ports) the same way that it treats expenses But we should put them in completely different budgetary categories Good investment spending has long-term productivity benefits that many expenses do not The United States now spends only 0.55% of its GDP on infrastructure We need to spend more money on productive infrastructure Borrowing to invest is fundamentally different from borrowing to consume but it doesn’t have to account for them in the same way that a bank does – which makes bad lending easy to do the government continues to extend a significant amount of student loans with improper or no underwriting When the student loan system was taken over by the government in 2010 Through the magic of government accounting the government actually forecasted more than $60 billion in profit from when they took over the program the outstanding debt from student loans has more than doubled to $1.6 trillion and we estimate that the government has lost Yet the government continues to make many of these bad loans The stakes are even higher regarding the government’s control of two of the largest financial institutions in the world whose combined assets of $7.7 trillion largely represent mortgages these organizations have guaranteed It is incumbent on our government to properly manage institutions like these to protect U.S taxpayers from tremendous losses (they lost $265 billion in the great financial crisis) and to shield U.S tax system conducive to economic growth and job creation we should incorporate these overall objectives: The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) took significant steps toward achieving these goals by (1) broadening the tax base (2) reducing the federal corporate rate to 21% (which is approximately the OECD average) and (3) reforming the international tax rules The first point is sometimes forgotten: While the reduction of the headline tax rate from 35% to 21% was projected to reduce corporate taxes by $1.4 trillion (over 10 years) the broadening of the base offset $1 trillion of that reduction a key part of that reform was the removal of gimmicks that allowed U.S corporations to indefinitely defer tax rules on their overseas earnings our international tax system strikes about the right balance between recognizing the importance to U.S companies of serving overseas markets while not incentivizing them to move capital Although there is certainly room for improvement the changes made by the TCJA recognize that reducing and rationalizing taxes on business income are critical to spurring economic growth and producing more “bang for the buck” than cutting taxes on individual income In the first two years after the TCJA went into effect we saw real median income rise more than in the previous 10 years and the lowest unemployment rate for adults without a high school diploma we also saw GDP growth of 3% and a 20% increase in domestic investment for affected firms Corporate taxes paid have risen to record levels – not because the tax burden on corporations was increased but because corporations were more profitable; they were doing more business None of this would have been possible without a competitive corporate tax rate Our Internal Revenue Code can be further amended to incentivize growth and ensure a fairer tax system overall our tax system should provide effective incentives for growth and innovation to support entrepreneurs and small businesses Two such examples were in the tax code for decades before Congress recently phased them out: (1) recognizing the importance of capital investments and (2) increasing expenditures for R&D Both are proven ways of growing the economy and creating jobs there are still numerous provisions for Congress to go after the rules intended to prevent artificial shifting of taxable income outside the United States need strengthening and a number of specific industry tax breaks need eliminating there are also many tax breaks that primarily benefit a certain segment of the population: the wealthy the ability to deduct up to $10,000 of state and local taxes and too many creative estate tax planning techniques These tax breaks not only cost revenue but also have the additional stigma of being perceived by the American public as just another example of institutional bias and favoritism toward a special interest group And consistent with ensuring a fairer system tax code should incorporate the “Buffett Rule” so that high-income earners pay a minimum tax on realized income would benefit enormously from the increased growth that would follow if we amended our system the right way I think many people would have fewer objections to paying a slightly higher tax rate if they thought the money was being used wisely to attack America’s biggest problems the tax code plays an important role in helping to raise up those at the bottom of the economic ladder This includes incentives to ensure an adequate and affordable housing supply such as the credit provision for building affordable housing It’s important that any tax credit and social benefit program be properly phased in so that it doesn’t dis-incent work One way the code could incentivize labor force participation is to expand and reform the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) The EITC gives an individual earning $14,000 a year with two children a $5,600 tax credit (and with no children a $350 tax credit) I would almost double this tax credit and remove the child requirement It would give those with lower income far more money to spend on what they and their families need – education Jobs not only bring dignity but better social outcomes in terms of less homelessness and crime improved health outcomes and more household formation that first job is just the first rung on the ladder of a career I have little doubt that this plan would more than pay for itself over time Many Republicans and Democrats support this program as it helps create the American Dream for many people Much of our education system no longer truly meets our country’s promise that its students graduate with the skills they need to attain a good job The American Dream itself rests upon our providing Education and jobs are still the best way to achieve this That certainly can’t happen when so many of our schools are not working In a number of our inner-city high schools and those who do often don’t have the skills they need to hold a well-paying job The growth of America was always driven by productivity that matched capital investment with skills which is also the driver of individual incomes all we need to do is reorient what we do today It is essentially free; we just need to redirect existing resources (the United States spends almost $1 trillion a year on K-12 education) into better outcomes Let’s begin with a refresh of our country’s workforce training system Effective workforce training systems that align education training and the private sector are necessary for securing well-paying jobs teaches its students not just the basic high school curriculum but also how to maintain small aircraft; i.e. Some students travel several hours a day to get to school and often parents are the driving force behind their child’s enrollment The school graduates about 450 students annually many of whom go directly into the aviation field These young people are currently earning in the range of $80,000 a year (not including overtime) from major U.S airlines who are in desperate need of these types of skilled workers Schools like this are the template we need to follow modernizing education and workforce development programs to be responsive to current workforce needs The advent of AI and technological change will require lifelong learning and re-skilling Career and Technical Education programs and alternative pathways earn-and-learn programs and work-based learning Reforms to credentialed programs could also increase access to careers with a future and reward experience There are millions of jobs available for which training could be done in high school community college or special programs outside of school there are training programs lasting 12-24 weeks in coding These trainings should be certified and counted as credits for undergraduate or graduate education Many unions run excellent apprenticeship and training programs that certify workers for badly needed high skilled jobs like welding These jobs can pay well in excess of $100,000 a year which are government grants awarded to students to help pay for eligible two-year or four-year colleges should be available for work credential programs the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act should be reauthorized to support Second Chance initiatives that give returning felons an opportunity to receive training to re-enter the workforce Higher education costs too much and is insufficiently linked to outcomes Many people who graduate from college are successful not solely because of their college degree Their opportunities stem from their socioeconomic circumstances – how and where they grew up – which offer them knowledge and often internships and relationships within the workplace that give them a leg up over 30% of those who obtain college degrees face underemployment; i.e. digital marketing or engineering can lead to jobs making $80,000+ a year Some portion of higher education funding should be linked to outcomes focusing less on graduation and employment rates and more on income levels of graduates The federal student lending system needs to be reformed to help ensure that the borrower’s education is leading to a good-paying job would reduce future loan losses and would discourage simply driving education costs up Early childhood education is critically important (it’s a long-term investment so start now) Early childhood education is a long-term investment so it is important to start now Universal pre-K and other early childhood programs enhance educational outcomes and increase parent labor-force participation Almost every study I have seen shows the tremendous return on this investment (some even showing two to four times for every dollar invested) even though it appears as a cost in the early years Included among the positive outcomes for both the parent and the child are early childhood education and higher levels of income All students should receive a basic financial education Financial education should be taught as part of the K-12 education system should understand the basics: the need for a rainy day fund the value of a checking account (versus payday lending) the importance of saving for retirement and other basic principles Specific financial coaching delivered simultaneously with opening a first bank account would also be very effective Teaching health and well-being in grades K-12 would benefit all our citizens exercise and nutrition would be a huge benefit for our society Ninety percent of our nation’s $4.5 trillion in annual healthcare expenditures are for people with chronic conditions (certain cancers musculoskeletal disorders and mental health) Preventive medicine and early interventions to manage these diseases especially those directly related to behaviors (smoking poor exercise and nutrition) can have significant health and economic benefits One small but meaningful example: Cigarette smoking costs the United States more than $240 billion in healthcare spending This could be reduced every year if we could prevent young people from starting to smoke and help those who do smoke to quit America has among the best and worst of healthcare and our costs are double those of our global competitors (17% of GDP versus 9% in other countries) Our healthcare system also lacks transparency around costs pricing and proper incentives since the user never effectively pays the full price A few simple policy changes would go a long way toward improving all of this: Better data and more consistent standards across Medicare Medicaid and commercial markets are needed with transparency and elimination of fraud and waste being key to stabilizing markets and portability being important for empowering patients Engaging employees by prioritizing health education and literacy can help make them informed consumers of healthcare and wellness Addressing the significant problem of medical bankruptcy in the United States is crucial and medical bills should not be calculated as part of credit scores individuals should be responsible for purchasing their own healthcare Healthcare should not be an annual purchase – you should be able to make a long-term buy which means you would be the beneficiary of taking care of your own health the health of our citizens and our workforce has played a significant role in increasing productivity for American workers Some studies show that over the last 25-30 years this may have accounted for as much as 45% of productivity growth over time Healthier workers and the participation of older workers (due to their accumulated knowledge and wisdom) are the main reasons We have gotten to the point where we barely talk about improving our regulations We only talk about adding more – contributing to endless Studies show that the cost of our regulations (which do have some productive outcomes) is over $3 trillion annually Morgan Global Research estimates that relative to the United States more restrictive regulation reduces long-term growth in the five largest European Union economies by 0.8% per year and they affect every industry and business They range from permitting and licensing to employment rules and tax compliance (and much more) should be forced to approve projects sequentially Some countries (Singapore and Canada) have rules to reduce permitting timelines substantially to two years or fewer (ours can take over 10 years) Regulations shouldn’t be like concrete (immovable) – they should be constantly improved law already requires major rules and regulations to have a cost-benefit analysis done – this needs to be fully enforced Often these regulations are targeted at the financial and technology sectors whose industries help drive our dynamic economy The cost of our tort system is over $500 billion a year While the tort system plays an important role in compensating victims and deterring irresponsible behavior there is a great incentive for someone to sue and for the person being sued to settle Much of the compensation never even gets to the victims These costs are two-and-a-half times the average level of eurozone countries One example of a major improvement would be Florida’s recent reforms which seem to have both reduced the excessive cost of torts to the system while giving people better odds of proper recompense These excessive regulatory and litigation costs result in higher costs across the whole economy are necessary to reduce delays and litigation cheaper and faster to build infrastructure such as roads One last point: Excessive regulations make it much harder to start a new business And they almost always hurt smaller companies more than larger ones Small businesses power job growth in America – they account for two-thirds of new jobs and employ nearly half of the American workforce Our entrepreneurial ecosystem has been the envy of the world for generations and it is essential to create a policy environment that facilitates small business creation Business starts have been above-trend for several years but the failure rate remains high – 50% fail in the first five years Public-private partnerships can help fill the capital gap in the white space between venture funding and bank lending Small business owners in low-to-moderate income areas face more headwinds than those in wealthier communities so tax benefits and community education programs play an important role in helping communities lift themselves up through commerce While banks will remain a critical supporter of small business in their growth phase the Small Business Administration’s role is crucial and agency modernization must remain a priority including reforms to the Small Business Investment Company program and the National Technical Assistance program Finding qualified talent is the #1 challenge facing small businesses owners and nearly 40% of them have job openings that they can’t fill Public partnerships with trade schools and community colleges can increase the supply of skilled labor there are many ways to increase the supply of skilled labor Innovative healthcare legislation can reduce healthcare costs and help small businesses compete with larger employers for talent there is a need for predictability in tax policies litigation processes and the EITC – over 15% of small business owners cite these issues as their most pressing problems Many small businesses face a heavier burden from state and local regulations than from federal ones so seeking best practices from multiple jurisdictions to streamline requirements can support business operations and growth we must prepare for the coming “silver tsunami” in small business – 75% of business owners would like to exit their business in the next decade representing trillions of dollars in business wealth at stake There will be substantial turnover in small businesses in the next decade and we must prepare the next generation with the skills and passion to take the baton Local communities can help protect their tax and employment base by investing in succession and transition education programs city and municipality should have multi-year infrastructure plans Improper planning and ineffective execution are rampant Waiting for bridges to be near collapse or airports to be overly crowded is a bad idea This planning could include manufacturing sites it is important to increase funding for effective This can be partially and easily achieved by expanding the already successful Low-Income Housing Tax Credit programs incentivizing investments that increase economic opportunity in disinvested communities is crucial and making the New Markets Tax Credit program permanent would support this goal reducing unnecessary regulations would decrease homeownership costs Streamlining loan origination and servicing standards reducing capital requirements and simplifying securitization rules would reduce the cost of mortgages without making them riskier These simple reforms could lower the cost of mortgages by 70–80 basis points The costs of unnecessary regulation go beyond price — they impact the availability of credit and who can qualify for a mortgage The Urban Institute estimates that a reduction like this would increase mortgage originations by 1 million per year and help lower-income households This would specifically help individuals buy homes in the $150,000–$300,000 range is simply the best way for individuals to start building household wealth Good and consistent local zoning requirements – that are executed with a sense of urgency – are essential in building more affordable housing particularly lower-income housing (it’s generally more economical to build denser housing than detached housing) would help people move out of rental properties sooner and reduce rents for those who do continue to rent While we have the best financial system in the world our financial system should have good consumer protections to prevent Americans from being tempted to purchase bad products or being misled as well as strong regulations to protect the country from the failure of financial institutions Since the great financial crisis (the financial system deserved a lot of the negative attention it received) we’ve made many improvements to regulations we need a dynamic regulatory structure that facilitates growth and innovation rather than one that continuously imposes top-down mandates or promotes the constant demonization of corporations and financial services Shortsighted and misguided policies often sound good politically but usually have unintended consequences that frequently hurt the very people those policies are trying to help Healthy financial systems are the lifeblood of a healthy economy You only need to look at many countries around the world to see the damage done to their economy by misguided financial policies and regulations I’d like to suggest a few ways we can make our regulatory system better for all Americans It is a completely false narrative that there has been any type of looser regulation on the largest banks since the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) was passed Capital requirements and other regulations have been on a relentless march upward even as banks have become proportionally smaller within the financial system (see chart below) All of this makes banking and banking services (loans) not only more expensive but less available; these costs eventually will be passed on to the consumer and businesses and result in a slower-growing economy Required Amount of Risk-based Common Equity Tier (CET1) Capital for US GSIBs ($ in billions) mostly by improving capital and liquidity requirements and by creating resolution mechanisms for failed investment banks Dodd-Frank set up a balkanized and dysfunctional regulatory system with too many cooks in the kitchen This is hard for the regulators as well as the banks – not only does it result in excessive and duplicative regulations but it also makes it more difficult for regulators to be responsive and nimble in a rapidly changing environment You might ask why has it taken 10 years to finish Basel III The enormous rules and regulations by multiple regulators that make up the Comprehensive Capital and Analysis Review (CCAR) stress test and examination are tens of thousands of pages long; our most recent Resolution and Recovery plan was 80,000 pages long; and the regulations around global systemically important banks (G-SIB) trading and operational risk have proved to be absurd and even harmful Many of the tests we are required to perform are not even remotely accurate in measuring true risk – and this causes distortions on how and when capital is allocated and creates large opportunities for unnecessary arbitrage While it essentially repeats the conditions during the great financial crisis it does not take into account any of the structural improvements to regulations underwriting and product offerings since then The reported results of the test do not come close to anything that would actually happen if the hypothetical scenarios were to happen – they unfairly misled the true strength of the banks It would be far better to perform accurate testing and then if the regulators wanted to add conservatism on top of that they should do so prudently and transparently I have mentioned many times before that we conduct hundreds of stress tests a week to protect ourselves from a wide range of possible bad outcomes – not just the CCAR scenarios The supplementary leverage ratio and G-SIB capital rules also treat U.S Treasury securities and repurchase agreements as far riskier than they actually are And the liquidity coverage ratio treats all other securities and loans as riskier than they are These rules effectively discourage banks from acting as intermediaries in the financial markets – and this would be particularly painful at precisely the wrong time: when markets get volatile So now is a good time to go back and ask basic questions that should have been asked before and were required to be asked by legislation: What is the cost/benefit of these rules What do you want the expected outcome to be do you want mortgages and leveraged lending outside the banking system Many of these rules incent capital and even companies to be private as opposed to public Financial risks have grown dramatically outside of the banking system where there may not be the same liquidity or transparency We have created large and sometimes leveraged arbitrage opportunities Similar products now have completely different rules and requirements The chart above shows the extraordinary growth in nonbank institutions and in private credit and private companies we have not adequately understood how the extensive changes that regulations had on loans and liquidity affected money supply and monetary policy and Banks used to lend out nearly 100% of their deposits banks had less than 15% of their assets held as liquid assets could be put to better use driving the economy without creating additional risk we can create more liquidity in the system and more clarity in resolution eliminate most bank runs and reduce the cost of any bank failure increase the amount of credit while lowering its cost simplify regulations and improve access to banking for the unbanked – all the while maintaining a safe and sound banking system One final point: If all these rules ended up being properly modified JPMorganChase would be in a position to extend hundreds of billions of dollars in extra lending annually Many other banks would be in the same position 84% of our country’s private workforce had access to defined benefit plans versus 15% today 85% of the private workforce has access to defined contribution plans only Defined benefit plans give individuals a known and guaranteed income that supplements their Social Security benefits while employers invest the pension funds’ capital to generate long-term returns and manage asset-liability risk many people are not prepared to deal with self-directed retirement plans such as 401(k)s: They don’t necessarily know how to invest the money; and they don’t know how long they will live in retirement Defined benefit plans address these concerns by transferring the investment risks and the mortality risk from the individual to the company significant progress has been made to enhance the defined contribution system’s effectiveness for individual savers Enrollment is now the default option while employer matching has become the norm and professionally managed target date funds offer a simple age-based model of investing A young worker today will have a much better chance of reaching a successful retirement outcome than previous generations 401(k) plans still have room for improvement They should become more cost-effective and simpler to use for both employers and individuals 401(k)s should be portable when workers change jobs and offered in a standardized form that can be used by multiple small businesses these plans should be designed with features that make them more like defined benefit plans We can learn some valuable lessons from how other countries balance adequate contributions Australia has an excellent retirement system in which employers effectively contribute 12% of ordinary pay into an account that is invested by professionals; the funds are available to the employee upon retirement an investment savings account is available that simplifies the investing process with favorable tax treatment Account holders can deposit and withdraw funds at any time and there is no capital gains tax – just an annual tax of 1% on the balance This has dramatically increased investment by retail investors into the Swedish stock market The decline of the defined benefit pension system was fueled by funding rules that can affect cash flow and sometimes credit ratings along with accounting changes for corporate plans that can create huge volatility in a company’s earnings and balance sheet America’s critically important retirement policy should not have been undermined by accounting rules For the defined benefit pension system to remain a viable component of our retirement system we should return to a model that does not penalize pension funds for taking some investment risk Guardrails are necessary: We need clear rules that ensure pensions are properly funded and transparent so that participants have confidence in the system and the burden isn’t transferred to taxpayers (roughly $70 billion has been paid to struggling defined benefit plans under the American Rescue Plan’s Special Financial Assistance program) A well-funded pension plan offers an investment-supported tax-advantaged mechanism for employers to deliver retirement benefits cost-effectively Our public markets have been shrinking dramatically The number of public companies has gone from 7,300 in 1996 to 4,000 today – it should be 15,000 today of a combination of factors: costly regulation and listing requirements; litigation; frivolous shareholder meetings; interference by non-governmental organizations; irresponsible not-shareholder-friendly and misguided proxy advisors; lack of research for smaller companies; and cookie-cutter compliance requirements for boards We can achieve a more active market for small companies by allowing investment banks to sponsor smaller companies with research and market making This could be accomplished by reducing the cost of listing enacting tax policies that favor equity investment and allowing more flexibility in listing (e.g. Litigation would need to be kept to a minimum to allow this to take place Sweden is an example of a country with a thriving stock market due to reforms made along these lines these changes would not only make it easier for companies to be public but would also improve capital access and create more innovation and And great investments would be available to the average retail investor The last five years have been a period of significant growth for us – as evidence we added more than 60,000 people to our workforce While we have been very successful during this time Working from home exacerbated the situation by hindering innovation and creating more politics and bureaucracy and in the letter by our Chief Operating Officer we talk about various ways we seek to keep our company healthy and some specific efforts we are making to maintain our grit our edge and our efficiency – all while keeping a keen sense that our competition around the world is always gaining Here I outline how we are dealing with particular business challenges Depending on what happens with all future regulations we have somewhere between $30 billion to $60 billion in excess capital it does require some explanation on how we plan to deal with it We aim to maintain a very secure dividend of 30% to 35% of current earnings our first priority has always been to invest in organic growth – as growth with good returns is the greatest value driver Our second priority would be to use that capital for acquisitions we find it hard to imagine a sufficiently compelling large-scale acquisition at this time Our last priority would be to buy back stock We believe that buying back stock should benefit ongoing shareholders rather than simply returning cash to exiting shareholders which might be a no-brainer at one times tangible book value becomes a stretch above two times the tangible book value This explains why our stock buyback program has not used up all of our capital generation and why our equity capital has grown and don’t believe that there is any magic to the next 12 months we look at excess capital as earnings in store or reserve – waiting to be used After reading the first section of this letter about the state of the world and the many risks facing the global economy we hope you can see why we also believe that now is a good time to retain lots of extra capital and liquidity We are very fortunate to be able to drive organic growth in virtually every part of our company – and at healthy returns You can read about many of these initiatives in the CEO letters of this Annual Report services and countries virtually everywhere (we opened two new branch offices in Africa this year: in Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire) I had the privilege of visiting Kenya in 2024 with two of our senior executives who grew up there – it was quite moving to meet their families – both to see how important it is for Kenya to have JPMorganChase in their country and to see the great American story of how America can attract You couldn’t help but be moved to see the pride on the mothers’ faces for their son’s and daughter’s achievements and the tears of joy in their eyes The CEO letters cover our new affluent client drive following the acquisition of First Republic private credit and our huge new efforts around the growing Innovation Economy Our great economies of scale allow us to invest and compete—with much of our growth driven by technology builds of new products and services We are constantly assessing the landscape and do expect lots of competition from existing competitors and fintech companies We need to be as nimble as they are and use our skills and capabilities to stay ahead You have already read about the high and growing geopolitical and global economic risks We constantly evaluate various potential outcomes (tabletop exercises) to ensure we can handle a range of scenarios One of the largest risks we face is cyber attacks both directly on our bank and on critical infrastructure; e.g. We also look at other potential large risks energy disruptions and ongoing global threats we try to analyze and make sure we can handle not just the immediate effects on our company but also the secondary and tertiary impacts: effects on clients and potential dramatic repercussions on markets and the global economy While we are not predicting or even expecting some of these terrible events we believe that it is our job to be a source of strength The United States has had a rather healthy and steady economy for years although it was already weakening as I began writing this letter — and that was before the recent tariff announcement The economy is facing considerable turbulence (including geopolitics) with the potential positives of tax reform and deregulation and the potential negatives of tariffs and “trade wars,” ongoing sticky inflation high fiscal deficits and still rather high asset prices and volatility there is a really big “BUT” about what is considered America’s exceptional economic performance: Part of this performance has been driven by extraordinary deficit spending and the quantitative easing that took place the federal government has borrowed and spent almost $11 trillion and the Federal Reserve bought over $4.5 trillion in securities creating huge liquidity in the financial system Some of the results are exactly what you would expect: strong growth inflation and higher corporate profits due to all the spending deficit remains very large at just below $2 trillion which is the highest peacetime level ever not driven by recessionary needs (as deficit also is associated with large trade deficits and is happening while our debt-to-GDP ratio is already over 100% The rest of the world has elevated debt levels and high fiscal deficits as well although few as large as those of the United States These large deficits are not sustainable—I do not know whether it will cause a real problem in six months or six years—the sooner we deal with it Tariffs and non-tariff barriers have always been hotly contested in trade negotiation Non-tariff barriers come in many forms and have been growing over time (regulatory barriers value-added taxes (VAT) have entered this debate Economists generally see VATs as a tax on domestic expenditures that does not discriminate on the source of spending some see them as a non-tariff trade barrier their effect on trade may not be very large Whatever you think of the legitimate reasons for the newly announced tariffs—and there are likely to be important short-term effects we are likely to see inflationary outcomes not only on imported goods but on domestic prices as input costs rise and demand increases on domestic products How this plays out on different products will partially depend on their substitutability and price elasticity Whether or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains in question There are many uncertainties surrounding the new tariff policy: the potential retaliatory actions the impact on investments and capital flows the effect on corporate profits and the possible effect on the U.S the better because some of the negative effects increase cumulatively over time and would be hard to reverse I see this as one large additional straw on the camel’s back the long-term effect will have some positive benefits for the United States My most serious concern is how this will affect America’s long-term economic alliances as I have written about in the first section Our economy also faces the unknown effects of quantitative tightening—you must remember we have never had this much quantitative easing and This introduces another element of uncertainty in my view—particularly in conjunction with the restrictions put on market making by primary dealers—will likely lead to much higher volatility in the treasury markets This higher volatility is not necessarily bad for JPMorganChase but it is not particularly good for the capital markets there are many regulatory changes now being discussed that could ameliorate the situation most of what I see in the future is inflationary: continued high fiscal deficits the remilitarization of the world and the need for infrastructure investment including the green economy and the restructuring of trade and tariffs Another critical point: All these factors will impact interest rates While the Federal Reserve essentially controls short-term interest rates it does not effectively control 10-year interest rates The Fed can take actions that can affect the 10-year interest rate in the short run the 10-year rate will be based upon inflation economy and expectations of the future value of the dollar and the supply and global demand for long-term treasuries but it’s good to remember that in the stagflation of the 1970s recessions did not stop the inexorable trend of rising rates While interest rates have come down recently due to the weakening dollar the risk off trade and the prospect of slower growth it is worth noting that we enter this time of uncertainty with high equity and debt prices equity valuations are still well above their historical averages And credit spreads are still near the low end of these same ranges Markets still seem to be pricing assets with the assumption that we will continue to have a fairly soft landing All of these cross currents and turbulence may take years to play out It is almost impossible to confidently put them into a quarterly or even annual forecast but we are prepared for a full range of outcomes—lower or higher rates and potentially lower asset prices all of which could be driven by different factors I would like to close this section by reiterating that I still have an abiding faith in America—the exceptional strength of our innovative economy and our resiliency There is a lot of misunderstanding about the value and cost of a consumer checking account Our consumer bank serves nearly 44 million customers and just over 60 million accounts It costs approximately $225 for us to maintain an account Included among these costs are all the branch expenses the people expenses and the cost of onboarding accounts (including verifying customers’ identity and meeting Know Your Customer and anti-money laundering requirements) They do not include certain litigation costs or the cost of capital which would add another $1.5 billion or essentially $25 per account Our consumer accounts also come with an extraordinary number of services access to cash from branches and ATMs nationwide Consumers “pay” for these accounts by the bank retaining net interest on deposits which has averaged around 2.25% or approximately $275 a year per account which on these accounts is usually around $100 a year our costs to maintain and operate them are far greater than what we make from them which is paid by the third party receiving the payment rather than the consumer was cut in half due to the ill-conceived Durbin Amendment (the average revenues from debit went from approximately $130 to $60 – this had been a large share of the revenues from smaller accounts) the government looked only at the cost of the debit card swipe which is illogical as that assumes a debit card is a separate and distinct product from its underlying checking account Debit cards are a feature of the checking account that enable consumers to access their funds to pay merchants the true cost of providing debit cards should also include the costs associated with operating checking accounts (e.g. causing approximately 1 million more individuals to become unbanked The Durbin Amendment is the only case I can think of where the government determined the pricing between two big industries Retailers now pay banks like ours that are subject to this government-mandated pricing 47 basis points (0.47%) This is far cheaper for retailers than debit card alternatives while debit cards also provide retailers immediate guaranteed money and are preferred by consumers All retailers bear a high cost of processing cash (including defalcation counterfeit funds and higher insurance because of robberies) It is unfortunate that retailers and banks have been in a battle for years over who should bear the cost of processing money – and that retailers continue to use “lawfare” to get their way This also makes it ironic that retailers are now adding “buy now-pay later” features as another payment option for their customers which usually cost the retailer considerably more than processing a debit or even credit card transaction Our Consumer Bank lost $500 million from fraud last year – $300 million from losses as a result of customer fraud committed on us (for example counterfeit deposited checks) and $200 million from reimbursements to customers who were victims of fraud (it is our policy to reimburse 100% of valid fraud claims) we must also process thousands of scam claims where customers authorized transactions but should not have done so (for example buying nonexistent products or sending money to fake websites) often because they were misled by bad actors The loss rate to scams for our customers is amongst the lowest in the industry That is because we have made significant investments in fraud and scam detection and believe that our efforts have prevented Chase customers from losing $12 billion telecom companies and others to work together to stop these crimes at the source Now a new battle is brewing: Third parties want full access to banks’ customer data so they can exploit it for their own purposes and profits we have no problem with data sharing but only if it is done properly: It must be authorized by the customer – the customer should know exactly what data is shared and when and how it is used; third parties should pay for accessing the banking system and payment rails; third parties should be restricted from using the customers’ data for purposes beyond what the customer authorized and they should be liable for the risks they create when accessing and using that data and it’s time to defend ourselves – in the public realm or in court if need be JPMorganChase has helped to drive economic prosperity job creation and business growth in Texas for more than 155 years we contributed over $1 billion to the Texas economy through goods and services purchased With over 31,500 employees in the state – the highest number by state in the country – we bank businesses of all sizes From Dallas to Austin to Houston to El Paso we have the largest market share of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation deposits in the state including over 8.5 million consumer banking customers and government and community leaders thrive and achieve their goals We also know Texas is a great place to do business that values the power of free enterprise and partnership across sectors We have shown up for Texans in good times and bad and we will continue to do what it takes to keep growing From creating or preserving 7,000+ affordable housing units since 2020 and helping large energy clients to supporting local community colleges we’re continually exploring ways to help create jobs and develop business and policy solutions to drive growth Our work with traditional and new energy technologies is a great example of how we help empower industry leaders in the state We provided more than $219 billion in credit and capital to energy companies headquartered in Texas between 2019 and 2024 reliable energy that bolsters American energy independence corporate and middle-market banking clients: At a recent annual senior leadership conference I led a type of “master class” focused on management lessons for 400 of our top executives I held this session because we cannot afford to be complacent if we want to continue as one of the great companies in the world Leadership should always be about learning and questioning ambition and discipline while discouraging complacency Here is a slightly streamlined (I did speak for 90 minutes) and edited version (to protect clients former colleagues … and myself!) of my actual remarks to our team: and I’ve tried to organize it thoughtfully and intelligently I just want to start with: What a great company and how much they want us in cities and countries around the world – it's extraordinary That’s based on the things that you do and how you do them Part of what I'm always asking is: How do we make sure we stay innovative ambitious and disciplined while eliminating complacency None of this is out of anger; it's just thoughtful consideration about reinforcing some basic disciplines if you already have 100 people on your team can you live with 100 people – or fewer – and make that work don't say that applies to someone else: “That's not my unit Because all of you are responsible for this company that's worth around $700 billion including all the clients you've seen who depend on you around the world when you talk to people and when you manage what you do means that you know more than you think we've been asking people to achieve a 10% efficiency target Think about what you yourself can do to make things better This is basic business: Can you do more with less What are your units doing that can be streamlined Or maybe you are doing things you don't need to be doing at all I’ve just got to get some things off my chest about what we need to do and some of the things I've seen recently or over my career I’m going to ask each and every one of you personally – and I'm going to track it – to send me an email We’re going to have a little team to take these issues you raise and follow up I kind of like bureaucracy busting to get things done We're not trying to limit you to any specific category I'm going to follow up personally with each and every one of you in this room I'm just asking you to sit down and have a little fun thinking about the stupid stuff we do the bureaucratic stuff we do – about things you would change if you were able to change them – and you all can be very helpful I think we should all be thinking about this And I’ve written down some examples of winners and losers from just the last 20 or 30 years that didn’t adapt Remember when everyone used to have Nokia phones where companies can manipulate numbers and over-leverage and stuff like that The S&L business – the whole business – got wiped out Whole parts of the mortgage business disappeared Silicon Valley Bank’s interest rate mismatch It's arrogance – it’s being slow to adjust Complacency allows a lot of negative things to set in: dishonest numbers politics – and these things are all the cancers that kill companies We all have to be very cautious when we see this happening And things are faster and more complex now coordinate better and do things at a faster speed Accounting can lead you to the wrong answer Regulatory rules can lead you to the wrong answer Regulatory capital can lead you to the wrong answer Or your own echo chamber can steer you the wrong way you need to know your numbers: You need to get your numbers right McKinsey used strategic business units as a way of segmenting businesses Always remember that when you have big companies it’s important to break them down to look at the component parts because the game is fought in the specific units it’s not fought in the consumer franchise as a whole You must have an actual budget as your barometer you can't always compare yourself with the forecast because then you're always very close You’ve got to show any deficits or progress against the budget Another thing I hate is comparing yourself with the peer average You should always compare yourself with the best Remember that the peer average includes some really crummy companies You have to – we have to – always understand that a rigorous review of allocated expenses is needed You have to question them because seeing through the BS that gets involved in allocating expenses – and then causes misallocation of capital – is really critical if I start with 100 people doing the same thing Understand that a P&L is not an assessment of a business – you’ve got to do the full assessment with customer metrics the P&L could be the most deceptive thing of all – telling you and giving the wrong answer every project was on course – but from the last forecast “Show me where it is from the beginning,” and now every single project was a year or two late It's just an honest assessment – not to blame yourself or get mad about it the project often morphed without any discussion And what happens inside those companies is people start running their businesses that way I want to honestly show how we compare with competitors the bad and the ugly makes you get better versus the competition the practice of stop-starting investments is a bad idea Constant transformation in technology and conversions means you can't have stop-start strategies almost anywhere Make proper assumptions: What do you do when your spread on deposits is zero That's why I always talk about “through-the-cycle” investments Think very carefully about the assumptions that go into your budgets because and sometimes they stop you from doing good stuff This involves comparing yourself with what the competition is doing today But you always need to show how you’re going to catch up to where things might go “What are the competitors going to do next?” because that shows when you’re getting to the puck and where the puck is going to be – not where things currently stand Sometimes great expenses become great investments The fact that it’s something called an expense means nothing to me a lot of businesses capitalize these expenses You don't start expensing it until it's producing but after approximately four years when it breaks even Chase wealth managers – our investment in them pays off over time we must do the full analysis – as I’ve said Looking at only the positives is dangerous We all know there are good revenues and bad revenues We can make a big loan and book lots of revenue in the short term but those will turn out to be bad revenues if we didn’t do the proper analysis at the beginning I hate the concept of cutting costs; instead the concept should always be cutting waste If costs are investments that drive healthy growth The company used to be dominated by the investment bank – because the people on the executive floor cared mostly about the investment bank Everything was skewed toward the investment bank expats – all these costs lumped together – and they charged them out based on headcount across the company Executive comp was 100% in the investment bank but their expenses were spread across the whole company We subsidized capital for the trading floors subsidizing the investment bank cost $2 billion a year but it was a huge misallocation of capital The big loser in all this was the consumer bank Here’s another example: Capacity in the computer center was charged out to everybody was required for only certain businesses but not others It is not a waste of time to get expense allocation right We need payment systems to be paid for by the payment businesses It’s important to be vigilant when you analyze expenses because things always morph Businesses sometimes get credit for things they shouldn’t get paid for we paid the treasury salesforce based on estimated revenue going forward Bank One hadn’t opened a branch in five years Chase hadn’t opened a branch in five years Bank One was making $1 million-plus profit on each branch every year: 2,300 branches partially because of its allocation practices and partially because no one seemed to care about them But these branches should have been hugely profitable We don't give a branch credit for credit cards when they create a credit card account that's worth $600 even though branches create 1.5 million credit card accounts a year We do this NPV (net present value) analysis about why we should close a branch Sometimes banks will say they’re going to close a branch because it's kind of small This happened to me recently with our Old Greenwich branch and I just looked at some of the numbers .. And it’s six miles to the next closest branch Eighty percent of the revenues will move elsewhere – to the Wells Fargo down the street along with most of the local small businesses Now would you rather have $500,000 a year profit or $1 million in cash in your pocket And why does someone want to drive six miles in the winter on those icy roads And is the branch more profitable than it looks this wasn't thinking about the NPV; it was the pawn blocking the queen I also did something unusual in 2008: I opened the partners' dining room This is just how I think about what you should do The partners' dining room is going to cost a lot and it will look like we are spoiling ourselves with good food." And I was like but we don't actually know each other after the merger – and if we don't do it now it'll be years before we get to know each other.” I call it a good expense You do the right thing and then explain it Sometimes people don't do things because they think it'll look bad for them or hurt morale a little bit customers and employees if we only open our eyes and ears I want a full and constant assessment of our competition including many organizations outside of financial services assess and evaluate – stringently monitoring market trends and engaging with whoever does something better than us When you talk with clients and they tell you that you’re making a mistake write it down and send it to the person who’s responsible leave your office and talk with everyone you can – be constantly learning and assessing Don’t be afraid to admit if you’ve made a mistake or were late to the game on something Just do a postmortem and identify what you’d do differently next time I mentioned learning from those outside our industry I read they're using drones to figure out how to move people through the drive-thru line faster We should always have that mindset of making something easier for our customers “I’d like our senior team from the consumer bank to go to China.” I wish I had done more things like that sooner This goes back to why it's important to get on the road – to really understand your business and the competition And it changed the way they thought about digital banking super apps and other technology advancements Honest numbers are critical to having great controls Make a practice of continually reviewing financial operational detail It’s a discipline like exercising – it should be frequent and rigorous And little things can add up to big things I bought one of those big Xerox copy machines for 2 million bucks and the guy there showed me his Xerox copy machine Let's do that a little bit every now and then always examine new products and new credit underwriting standards these new products have not been fully tested and haven’t been used over a long enough period of time they were looking at equity markets down 10% and credit spreads gapping out 40% I said let’s look at what would happen if equity markets were down 50% high yield went to 20% and credit spreads gapped out to the worst ever That is real stress testing and risk management One of the biggest things that can kill a company – or make it slow to adjust or admit problems – is bureaucracy and you have to continuously weed that garden Take Home Depot: When you walk into the Home Depot global galactic headquarters the sign above the main entrance says “Store Support Center.” It reminds corporate employees every day that they are there because they support the workers in stores around the country particularly corporate staff – that we are here because we have a customer a branch or an investment banker in front of a client Then you can use things like war rooms and review customer complaints to hone this thinking and when I know the policy behind the complaint woulda.” But I don't give a damn whether we're technically responsible or not You’ve got to do the right thing; you’ve got to change your mindset I tell the people on the ATM side of the bank “My wife called me and says it's not working.” He replies “Do me a favor – get in your car and drive out there.” Then he drives out there – and it's not working we had an outside vendor tracking this stuff So I told the guy that we were firing the vendor and wouldn’t pay him for the last six months You all know the black car story never happened at J.P It did happen when we took over Shearson though People were waiting to go home until 7 o’clock so they could take a black car home They were supposed to take them to the closest train station And they would pick up their dinner – no one paid attention to it There was one woman who took a car to Glen Cove or somewhere and back every day I can get her a full-time car and driver for one-third the cost.” And I changed a bunch of rules and stuff like that all our branches were receiving tons of stuff and they'd complain about things they didn’t know about “We sent you a memo that was full of information.” And one of the men in the branch showed me a FedEx box “This box is what we get every week from you guys.” He had no idea about all the stuff that was in it "Since We Last Met" or "You Must Read This." It had a summary page and listed the important stuff people needed to know Little things like this are important to get right It’s important for leadership to always question what their company does and why “That’s the way we’ve always done it.” Lots of times bad habits form and people get lazy A good example is from when I came to JPMorganChase more than 20 years ago Really?” Our Operating Committee was slightly annoyed by my question and wondered whether I was going to micromanage every single decision Of course I said that I wasn’t – and that it was their decision – but the issue really bothered me and on Monday I told the Operating Committee I want all coaches out by the end of the week.” I didn’t take that step to save money I did it because it’s a leader’s job to coach and we basically had outsourced management I told the committee they could bring back a coach at the end of one year if they truly thought it was necessary and if they personally vouched for the coach’s capabilities I’ve rarely seen this kind of outsourcing of responsibility succeed Here's another example of what slows us down: meetings they have to start on time and end on time – and someone's got to lead them There should also be a purpose to every meeting and always a follow-up list Sometimes we think we’re just being nice by inviting people to a meeting who don’t have to be there One annoying example of bureaucracy is the meeting after the meeting where an executive tells me what they didn’t want to say in front of their partners it’s different if it involves a private matter I also recognize that I don’t always get everything right and that I have made plenty of mistakes myself and that’s why I want to candidly share some of them – as lessons I underestimated the importance of cloud technology I’ve sometimes left the wrong person in a job for too long and I failed to recognize some early signs of risk I always reflect on the anatomy of mistakes and emphasize the need to acknowledge and learn from them Mistakes happened for a variety of reasons – we didn't have the right people in the room we didn't have a thoughtful decision-making process is another mistake that’s good to reflect upon The mistake there wasn't the complexity of the portfolio; it was that it didn't get the proper oversight The idea emerged in a supposedly non-risky part of the bank and the team overseeing the trades played it close to the vest and didn’t go through our normal risk controls the traders wanted to avoid oversight because it was risky This reminds me of another sin that promotes mistakes in companies – hoarding information And here is one of my big mistakes when I got to Bank One and I realized that the branch across the street’s hours were 9 a.m we're different – we're not that kind of bank.” I asked them to do me a favor: Let's find out for all of our branches – we had about 1,800 at the time – what are our hours compared with the average competitor and ask them for their hours of operation.” And and it just so happened that the whole branch management team was there And here's what I said to them: “I apologize I should have recognized this much sooner.” However not one district manager noticed this or mentioned it I told them all that we must change our hours and everyone went on and on about morale because we had to change our work hours – and it was difficult and complicated I care about morale – but morale sucks because we suck Morale will get better when we're better as a company.” I struggle with this one a little bit because I think it's a lot of the things I'm speaking about here A great culture is created by what you do and not by what you say When we talk about the culture of our company we include the hundreds of thousands of people who work for our company and what they believe in as well as the role of our company in society we work hard to foster an environment that enables them to thrive as curious hard-working and empathetic individuals who care not only about each other but about our customers as well – to be people who want to do the right thing – and it’s very important we get this right but I like to think we're almost all good people there can be people you don't trust: Sometimes you don't trust them because they lie – or they shape the truth Or you can’t trust them because you don’t trust their judgment sometimes the bad people are our customers There used to be a wealthy guy who would come into a branch yelling and screaming He was verbally abusive to our staff multiple times I finally heard about it and called him and said “I want you to take all your business out of the bank you’re not going to treat our people that way.” If we have a client who is disrespectful to our people and the way we operate Recognition says someone did something that you didn't I was never particularly good at recognition But I’ve learned lessons about recognition by watching “Ted Lasso” and observing David Novak They taught me that recognition is a form of humility and acknowledgment And this directly aligns with our company's values and Organizations build a great culture by recognizing people’s actions day in and day out – not by serving up platitudes Creating a good culture is possible only if everyone understands a company’s purpose – in our case employees and shareholders who count on us I learned that the company’s security guards had been outsourced – to save money the same guards continued coming to work every day at the same salary this was brought to my attention by the head of a large union who came to see me personally over the objection of my management team.) The reason we were saving money was because the benefits were cut in half for the guards and their family members (currently worth more than $19,000 a year) This was a heartless thing to do – and the second I found out JPMorganChase’s success will not be built off the backs of our guards – it will be the result of fair treatment of all of our employees – and we’re thankful that many of those guards are still with our company today It’s very important to have regular business reviews and to attack problems by putting all the dead cats Make it fun and foster a collaborative environment when you’re facing tough subjects Share all the facts and recognize that disagreement is a good thing Loyalty is earned when people receive full input and know that they’ve had a chance to offer theirs review the facts and then make decisions – but not before that colleagues urge others to “stay in your lane.” Absolutely do not stay in your lane Our biggest mistakes happen when people think something is kind of a problem but they are afraid to raise it in the right room where it might be provocative it's our job to have fun in life and make everything we do fun Just do it all the time in your unit and ask others to do the same I invited two of our senior executives from Kenya who now work for our company in the United States to join me – and we invited their mothers to attend the client reception in Nairobi It was quite moving to meet their families – what a gift to see what those women had accomplished with those wonderful kids when you take the management teams to dinner and you learn a lot about each other on the team Testing and learning are important – there’s nothing that can’t be improved by testing and learning You can kill innovation with too many resources and you’ve got to really think through what you are trying to accomplish it’s important to evaluate innovative ideas through testing and learning rather than rote analysis Companies that want to foster growth through forward thinking need to nurture that effort and support innovation Morgan/Chase and Bank One are good examples But there were approximately seven loan systems five deposit systems and 25 general ledgers that all needed to be consolidated to develop the best systems And then what happens when you get these consolidations done is you make the company better at it over time Transformation is a constant effort to improve expansion is fought – and it’s most often fought from within the existing ranks The current workforce is often resistant to grow the team because they think it’s going to come out of their compensation That’s not right – the company pays for the additional bankers I confronted this resistance years ago when we wanted to grow the Global Corporate Bank – again there was pushback from our current bankers I saw the same resistance from within when we were growing Chase Wealth Management But we looked at how big the opportunity was in each of these cases to grow expand and be able to compete more effectively And each of these efforts has been a home run for us Now I want to talk about some management tricks and tools Effective leaders are responsive and treat everyone fairly and with respect which is all about respect (though I recognize I get too worked up sometimes!) But I’m not only talking about bosses – I’m talking about people at every level it’s still important to emphasize the negatives and focus on continuous improvement I’m a big fan of this one: Write memos yourself Don’t always let others write them for you I want to hear directly back from that person I keep my own follow-up lists with me almost all the time Talk like you speak – get rid of the jargon I see people in meetings all the time who are getting notifications and personal texts or who are reading emails if you’re going to a meeting to present a new product or service This exercise forces you to answer lots of questions people are likely to ask When you write down what you’re going to say it focuses the mind and helps you explain things better Don’t read the same email two or three times We spend the vast majority of our waking hours at work – it’s our job to try to make it fun and fulfilling And another important one: Take care of yourself always answer this question: “What would you do if you were queen or king for a day?” That’s the big one – what would you do Thank you for all the great things you said To see a similarly streamlined video of my session, click here It’s been more than 20 years since the JPMorganChase-Bank One merger – and it’s been an extraordinary journey I can’t even begin to express my heartfelt appreciation and respect for the tremendous character and capabilities of the management team that got us through the good times and the bad times to where we stand today And I recognize that we all stand on the shoulders of many others who came before us in building this exceptional company of ours A beautiful physical manifestation of our company is our new headquarters in New York City which we look forward to opening later this year It is a great example of how we treat our people with wonderful places to work – in New York City Our new headquarters also shows how you can deconstruct something and rebuild it in a powerful way – that’s good for our colleagues I would also like to express my deep gratitude to the 300,000+ employees I hope shareholders and all readers have gained a deeper understanding of what it takes to be an “endgame winner” in a rapidly changing world I hope you are as proud of what we all have achieved – as a business as a bank and as a community investor – as I am we sincerely hope to see the world on the path to peace and prosperity Client franchises built over the long term 1. Certain wealth management clients were realigned from Asset & Wealth Management (AWM) to Consumer & Community Banking (CCB) in 4Q20 2005 and 2014 amounts were not revised in connection with this realignment 2. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Summary of Deposits survey per S&P Global Market Intelligence applies a $1 billion deposit cap to Chase and industry branches for market share While many of our branches have more than $1 billion in retail deposits applying a cap consistently to ourselves and the industry is critical to the integrity of this measurement savings banks and savings institutions as defined by the FDIC Deposit market share and rankings are calculated with historical institutional ownership for each year stated Rolling eight-quarter average of small businesses with revenue of more than $100,000 and less than $25 million Barlow’s 2005 Primary Bank Market Share is based on companies with revenue of more than $100,000 and less than $10 million Total payment volumes reflect Consumer and Small Business customers’ digital (ACH and credit and debit card payment outflows Digital noncard payment transactions include outflows for ACH 2005 is based on internal JPMorganChase estimates Represents general purpose credit card (GPCC) spend which excludes private label and Commercial Card Based on company filings and JPMorganChase estimates Based on loans outstanding disclosures by peers and internal JPMorganChase estimates Represents users of all web and/or mobile platforms who have logged in within the past 90 days Represents users of all mobile platforms who have logged in within the past 90 days Measures satisfaction with wealth management websites and apps Based on 2024 sales volume and loans outstanding disclosures by peers (American Express Company (AXP) and Discover Financial Services) and JPMorganChase estimates Sales volume excludes private label and Commercial Card Consumer segment and JPMorganChase estimates for AXP’s U.S Measures customer satisfaction with the mortgage servicing experience Experian Velocity data as of Full Year 2024 Reflects financing market share for new and used loan and lease units at franchised and independent dealers Measures satisfaction with automotive finance websites and apps Coalition Greenwich Competitor Analytics (preliminary for Full Year 2024) Market share is based on JPMorganChase’s internal business structure Ranks are based on Coalition Index Banks for Markets 2006 rank is based on JPMorganChase analysis excludes the impact of UBS/Credit Suisse merger prior to the year of the acquisition (2023) Client deposits and other third-party liabilities pertain to the Payments and Securities Services businesses Includes client deposits and other third-party liabilities Payments revenue metrics exclude the net impact of equity investments; 2005 data represents Treasury Services firmwide revenue only All other periods include Merchant Services revenue Coalition Greenwich Competitor Analytics (preliminary for Full Year 2024) reflects global firmwide Treasury Services business (Corporate & Investment Banking and Commercial Banking) Ranks are based on Coalition Index Banks for Treasury Services Balances represented for 2005 include certain loans in the Markets business Balances represented for 2005 do not include certain loans related to Community Development Banking S&P Global Market Intelligence as of December 31 Global Banking (GB) is a client coverage view within the Banking & Payments business and primarily composed of the Global Corporate Banking Global Investment Banking and Commercial Banking Client Coverage segments The number of bankers represented includes bankers that are not aligned with Commercial Banking and Global Corporate Banking and Global Investment Banking client segments dollar payment instructions for direct payments and credit transfers processed over Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) in the countries where J.P Rank is based on JPMorganChase’s internal business structure Ranks are based on Coalition Index Banks for Securities Services Middle Market Bookrunner rank based on data from London Stock Exchange Group Part of the Firm’s $30 billion Racial Equity Commitment excluding any adjustments to the prior periods reported Percentage of active mutual fund and active exchange-traded funds (ETF) assets under management (AUM) in funds ranked in the 1st or 2nd quartile (one three and five years): All quartile rankings the assigned peer categories and the asset values used to derive these rankings are sourced from the fund rating providers Quartile rankings are based on the net-of-fee absolute return of each fund the fund rating providers redenominate asset values into U.S The percentage of AUM is based on fund performance and associated peer rankings at the share class level for U.S.-domiciled funds at a primary share class level to represent the quartile ranking for U.K. The performance data may have been different if all share classes had been included Past performance is not indicative of future results “Primary share class” means the C share class for European funds and ACC share class for Hong Kong SAR and Taiwan funds the oldest share class is used as the primary share class Due to a methodology change effective September 30 prior results include all long-term mutual fund assets and exclude active ETF assets the Firm realigned certain wealth management clients from AWM to CCB Prior-period amounts have been revised to conform with the current presentation Administration and Custody assets under supervision Alternatives assets include Private Equity Liquid Alternatives and other nontraditional assets Assets calculated using net asset value of investments (except for certain Real Asset strategies 2023 restated due to product reclassification Percentage of active mutual fund and active ETF AUM in funds rated 4- or 5-star: Mutual fund rating services rank funds based on their risk-adjusted performance over various periods A 5-star rating is the best rating and represents the top 10% of industrywide ranked funds A 4-star rating represents the next 22.5% of industrywide ranked funds A 3-star rating represents the next 35% of industrywide ranked funds A 2-star rating represents the next 22.5% of industrywide ranked funds A 1-star rating is the worst rating and represents the bottom 10% of industrywide ranked funds An overall Morningstar rating is derived from a weighted average of the performance associated with a fund’s three- five- and 10-year (if applicable) Morningstar rating metrics separate star ratings are provided at the individual share class level The Nomura “star rating” is based on three-year risk-adjusted performance only Funds with fewer than three years of history are not rated and hence are excluded from these rankings the assigned peer categories and the asset values used to derive these rankings are sourced from the applicable fund rating provider the fund rating providers redenominate asset values into U.S The percentage of AUM is based on star ratings at the share class level for U.S.-domiciled funds and at a primary share class level to represent the star rating of all other funds except for Japan for which Nomura provides ratings at the fund level Source: Company filings and JPMorganChase estimates Rankings reflect publicly traded peer group as follows: Allianz JPMorganChase ranking reflects AWM client assets Wealth Management investments and new-to-firm Chase Private Client deposits Morgan Stanley (MS) and Wells Fargo & Company (WFC) Managed overhead ratio = total noninterest expense/managed revenue; revenue for GS and MS is reflected on a reported basis JPM’s adjusted ROTCE excludes $5.4 billion from net income in 2024 as a result of the net gain related to Visa shares and the donation of Visa shares to pre-fund contributions to the Firm’s Foundation Best-in-class overhead ratio of comparable peer business segments and firms: Capital One Domestic Card and Consumer Banking Bank of America Global Banking and Global Markets (BAC-GB & GM) Northern Trust Wealth Management (NTRS-WM) and Allianz Group (ALLIANZ-AM) Peer segment overhead ratio is estimated based on public disclosure where unavailable Best-in-class ROTCE of comparable peer business segments and firms: Bank of America Consumer Banking (BAC-CB) Goldman Sachs Global Banking & Markets (GS-GBM) and Morgan Stanley Wealth Management & Investment Management (MS-WM & IM) Peer segment ROTCE is estimated based on public disclosure where unavailable Best-in-class ROTCE of comparable GSIB peer business segments: Bank of America Consumer Banking (BAC-CB) Given comparisons are at the business segment level where available; allocation methodologies across peers may be inconsistent with JPM’s Tangible Common Equity (TCE) 2005-2007 reflects common stockholder’s equity less goodwill and other intangibles assets Basel III Transitional rules became effective January 1 2014; prior-period common equity Tier 1 (CET1) data is based on Basel I rules the ratios represent the more binding of the Standardized or Advanced approach calculated under the Basel III Fully Phased-in basis Capital results reflect the current expected credit loss (CECL) capital transition provisions starting in 2020 Capital returned to common shareholders includes common dividends and net repurchases Includes eligible High Quality Liquid Assets (HQLA) as defined in the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) rule and unencumbered marketable securities that the Firm believes would be available to raise liquidity including excess eligible HQLA securities at JPMorganChase Bank that are not transferable to nonbank affiliates the balance includes eligible end-of-period HQLA as defined in the LCR rule the balance includes average eligible HQLA Periods prior to 2017 represent period-end balances 2016 and 2015 balances are under the initial U.S 2014 amount is estimated prior to the effective date of the initial rule and under the Basel III liquidity coverage ratio (Basel III LCR) for December 31 cash due from banks and investment securities GDP in current prices; Source: International Monetary Fund Consists of cash assets and Treasury and agency securities Private equity assets under management includes Balanced Hybrid and Private Investments in Public Equity in closed-end commingled funds and excludes Venture Capital Top 50 fund AUM data per Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute 2007 and 2010 AUM for entities in the top 50 in 2024 Source: Preqin; venture capital AUM includes early stage venture and expansion/late-stage capital in closed-end commingled funds only Excludes secondaries and Fund of Funds to avoid the double counting of funds 2024 venture capital AUM reflects data as of June 2024 Loans held by nonbank entities per the FRB Z.1 Financial Accounts of the United States money market fund investment holdings of securities issued by entities worldwide exchange-traded fund unit trusts and companies whose business goal is to hold shares of other listed companies; a company with several classes of shares is counted only once Inside Mortgage Finance and JPMorganChase internal data; consists of Top 50 Originators (Top 40 for 2007) Sign up for updates on the ways we are using our expertise resources and scale to open new pathways to economic opportunity and drive inclusive growth in communities around the world JPMCinvestorrelations@jpmchase.com with the subject line “ADA inquiry” privacy and security policies don't apply to the site or app you're about to visit privacy and security policies to see how they apply to you JPMorganChase isn't responsible for (and doesn't provide) any products services or content at this third-party site or app except for products and services that explicitly carry the JPMorganChase name    Photo: Zero Creatives GmbH/Getty Images which offers AI technology that helps abstract data faster announced they acquired Realyze Intelligence The companies aim to expand and strengthen their combined AI platforms Realyze Intelligence platform leverages AI to match patients to clinical trials to expedite research and lower costs while providing patients with the newest breakthroughs in care Realyze Intelligence examines structured and unstructured data in EHRs to identify ideal patients for clinical trials and other research studies Realyze Intelligence’s clinician-trained AI can assemble suitable cohorts in seconds rather than the hours or days the process takes when performed manually Carta Healthcare’s platform applies AI to structured and unstructured data to reduce the time and price for data abstraction Carta Healthcare and Realyze Intelligence anticipate that their combined technologies’ "powerful" automation can offer faster insights and considerably reduced labor demands for clinical data registry abstraction research and internal clinical quality performance programs in oncology cardiovascular health and other specialty areas the expectation is that Carta Healthcare’s platform added to Realyze Intelligence’s AI technology has the potential to significantly expand the feasibility of trials and other research while increasing data abstraction for cancer and other clinical data registries with expert clinician oversight "We believe data is the single most important ingredient to improve healthcare," Brent Dover "From clinical trials to clinical registries clinicians face insurmountable amounts of data ripe with valuable information to improve care practices and patient outcomes We are inspired by Realyze Intelligence’s shared ability to use clinician-trained AI and a human-in-the-loop approach to maximize insights from clinical data for clinical trials and cancer registries."  pointed out that health systems and pharmaceutical companies invest billions each year to identify and enroll patients for clinical trials timely data is essential for accurately identifying eligible patients yet much of it remains trapped in EHRs and other systems We are excited to revolutionize clinical trial matching and reuse the data to enhance research optimize care pathways and improve patient outcomes with Carta Healthcare," Brauser said in a statement Carta Healthcare announced the closing of $25 million series B financing with additional investments from Memorial Hermann Health System and UnityPoint Health The additional funding followed a $20 million Series B financing round that was announced in November 2022 That round included investors Paramark Ventures Maverick Ventures Investment Fund and Storm Ventures Carta Healthcare became a certified software vendor for the Society of Thoracic Surgeons/American College of Cardiology  Traanscather Valve Therapy Registry That announcement came in the wake of a successful $20 million Series B fundraising round researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center applied machine learning and large language models to augment the manual curation of cancer data elements using the Realyze Intelligence platform Realyze Intelligence earned a position among the inaugural class of start-up companies selected for the CancerX Startup Accelerator part of the Biden administration Cancer Moonshot program that aims to cut the U.S cancer death rate in half within the next 25 years The competitive program gave Realyze Intelligence which uses AI to match cancer patients to clinical trials access to connections and collaborations with leading cancer organizations to help reinforce its technology © 2025 MobiHealthNews is a publication of HIMSS Media The latest news in digital health delivered daily to your inbox — CARTA says they are continuing their search for funding as the organization reaffirms its commitment to safety and advancements One of those planned advancements is a new bus station for downtown Chattanooga CARTA says it was recently awarded more than $1 million from TDOT half of which is expected to go towards the new bus station Another $450,000 will go towards technology upgrades and bus-monitoring initiatives CARTA officials say they are working to secure funding matches from Hamilton County 68-year-old veteran Roy McCullough relies on the bus every day Roy says more buses and a new downtown station would make a huge difference in his life its about getting to their destination faster and with less hassle Some county leaders are backing CARTA's request for more taxpayer money saying that a new station will help reduce wait times and improve access to everyone they'll also be able to launch an express shuttle to help riders impacted by the Walnut Street Bridge closure promising more options and less wait times for riders According to CARTA's website more than 70,000 people relied on their bus system. That's down by 20,000 compared to late 2024 CARTA also tracks ridership data for the Incline Railway Their data shows a decrease in riders over the last three-years with a peak of 55,000 riders at the end of last year the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) has governed how projects done by federal agencies must assess their impacts and how the public is informed about these projects NEPA was signed into law by President Richard Nixon on January 1 Many consider it the “Magna Carta” of environmental law in the United States It comes into play whenever a federal agency wants to take action that may have environmental impacts That means that when federal agency decision-makers have a project they want to pursue they must conduct a thorough analysis of the project’s potential environmental impacts and then seek feedback from the public on the project Alli Henderson is the Southern Rockies Director for the Center for Biological Diversity people most often interact with NEPA through public lands management Resource management plans for BLM field offices are also subject to NEPA Winter said there are even bigger conversations about the law NEPA allows for different levels of environmental analysis Depending on the scope and scale of the project environmental analyses (EAs) or environmental impact statements (EISs) are required and there are typically multiple rounds of public comments for these projects some attempts have been made to change how NEPA works how far out must agencies analyze environmental impacts That question is at the heart of a case currently before the Supreme Court the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition proposes building 88 new miles of railroad track to transport waxy crude oil from the state’s oil-rich Uinta Basin The new line would connect to existing Union Pacific tracks and eventually transport oil to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico Colorado counties and the Center for Biological Diversity sued claiming that the Surface Transportation Board (STB) violated NEPA in its environmental impact statement by failing to adequately consider some of the downstream impacts of transporting more crude oil on tracks that run alongside the Colorado River which would ask whether the impacts are ‘remote in time and distance’ and whether they fall outside the jurisdiction of the agency who's approving the project and may fall within the jurisdiction of some other local ‘Remote in time and distance’ basically means that the environmental impact of a project could occur very far in the future or geographically very far away from the project’s location Henderson says the Center for Biological Diversity takes issue with that stance She says ignoring the environmental impacts of the railroad that are further downstream whether that’s emissions from the fossil fuels that will be produced or an oil spill in the Colorado River NEPA is not just being litigated in the courts much criticism of NEPA has been that it’s unnecessarily burdensome and slows down projects The 2021 bill, Undoing NEPA’s Substantial Harm by Advancing Concepts that Kickstart the Liberation of the Economy (UNSHACKLE) Act would have mandated that agencies complete the NEPA process in two years or less and allowed agencies to delegate the NEPA process to state agencies in some cases or the Department of Government Efficiency is a stated effort by the Trump administration to cut federal waste and spending the task force has been behind the firings of thousands of federal employees and the cutting of funds from federal agencies Henderson said officials need to give agencies the staff and resources they need to do the work if they want to speed up the NEPA process Winter says it’s unclear how exactly this rule change will play out in practice but agencies will likely use what’s called a “categorical exclusion.” A categorical exclusion is a determination made very early in the NEPA process that a proposed action will have little to no environmental impact and is not subject to a long environmental analysis An example might be the Forest Service doing minor repair work to an office building or trimming trees in the yard outside that building this could impact their interactions with the federal agencies in their backyards commissioners say these new rules are dumping the baby out with the bathwater Winter and Henderson agree: that means people will have to work harder to be engaged with what’s happening in their federal public lands Copyright 2025 Rocky Mountain Community Radio This story was shared via Rocky Mountain Community Radio a network of public media stations in Colorado Climate change and the parks National Parks in Crisis The Trump administration is moving to weaken national environmental laws that might govern how the National Park Service repairs damage to the Blue Ridge Parkway done by Hurricane Helene/NPS file President Donald Trump's administration is moving to defang the National Environmental Policy Act that long has been viewed as the "Magna Carta" of the United State's environmental laws On Wednesday the president's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) announced its intention to remove its regulations long used to implement NEPA which long has been used to guide federal decision-making on projects that might have an environmental impact would leave federal agencies to rely on their own regulations guiding NEPA policy it could remove requirements for public involvement and consideration of climate change in decision-making "Unless an agency has developed its own specific NEPA regs there are no regulations that apply government-wide," Jason Rylander legal director for the Center For Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute NEPA dates to the administration of President Richard Nixon it directs federal agencies to "to assess the environmental effects of proposed major federal actions prior to making decisions." Over the decades it has been amended by presidents issued an executive order requiring "[environmental] impact statements to be concise and supported by evidence that agencies have made the necessary environmental analyses.” President Joe Biden issued an executive order requiring federal agencies to take climate change and environmental justice into consideration when considering federal actions President Trump now is moving not to simply revise the rules to remove Biden's additions but simply to "eliminate them all," said Rylander one impact will be the loss of required public participation how the agencies are going to address public participation a serious issue because part of the intent behind behind NEPA is to include the public so that you get the best possible information about the impacts of projects and you're proceeding with everything you need to make a sound decision," Rylander said While the lawyer interpreted the proposed changes to still require environmental assessments and environmental impact statements to be presented for public comment requirements the Biden administration specified for what agencies need to consider were being removed Biden's additions "had a lot more detail about how to ensure full and fair public engagement how to consider climate change and environmental justice impacts," said Rylander What we're back to now is essentially just a broad statement that you must do public comment They can publish a notice in the Federal Register and take public comment but not have to actually consider any of these impacts or do any other kind of outreach or or specific." Rylander was not sure whether any land-management agency Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management had adopted their own regulations matching those CEQ has relied on However, the Interior Department has adopted its own NEPA regulations (43 CFR Part 46) that would continue to govern the Park Service if CEQ's proposal takes hold Interior Secretary Doug Burgum could strike those On its web pages the Park Service notes that "the NEPA process is an essential tool for ensuring informed decisions that conserve park resources and values." The agency has its own 104-page handbook for understanding and implementing NEPA in Park Service decision-making Within that handbook the Park Service underscores that the National Park Service Organic Act of 1916 and its 2006 Management Policies "prohibit the NPS from taking any action that would result in impairment of park resources or values (NPS Management Policies 2006 while the NPS has discretion to allow adverse impacts NPS managers must always seek ways to avoid or to minimize to the greatest extent practicable adverse impacts on park resources and values." Furthermore, in 2011 then-National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis issued Director's Order 12 part of which stressed that NEPA-driven evaluations of management decisions must include provisions for: • Meaningful participation by the public and other stakeholders;• Development and critical evaluation of alternative courses of action;• Rigorous application of scientific and technical information in the planning evaluation and decision-making processes;• Use of NPS knowledge and expertise through interdisciplinary teams and processes; and• Aggressive incorporation of mitigation measures and other principles of sustainable park management in all actions How the Park Service will interpret the CEQ move to rescind regulations for implementing NEPA remains to be seen as the agency is operating under an acting director “Trump is trying to destroy 50 years of bipartisan agreement on how to implement the National Environmental Policy Act because his only goal is to tear everything down as quickly he can damn the consequences," Rylander said earlier Thursday in a release "Trump’s drastic procedural shortcut clearly violates the law Trump’s disdain for our environment is matched only by his contempt for the law but if he wants to eliminate regulations created by previous administrations I think that’s exactly what the courts will make him do." "the Trump administration has made crystal clear that it hopes to make federal environmental decisions behind closed doors and without considering their impacts — these are decisions that will favor polluting industries and big business rather than Utahns or the health of the federal public lands in our state Utahns and Utah’s environment will be worse off because of these efforts The Trump Administration has complained that 'local voices' are not being heard when federal agencies make public land management decisions – but with today’s action they’re eliminating the very way in which locals and all Americans are able to provide input.” Support Essential Coverage of Essential Places A copy of National Parks Traveler's financial statements may be obtained by sending a stamped self-addressed envelope to: National Parks Traveler National Parks Traveler was formed in the state of Utah for the purpose of informing and educating about national parks and protected areas Residents of the following states may obtain a copy of our financial and additional information as stated below: National Parks Traveler is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit Here’s the definitive guide to National Park System campgrounds where RVers can park their rigs Our app is packed with RVing- specific details on more than 250 campgrounds in more than 70 national parks.You’ll also find stories about RVing in the parks tips helpful if you’ve just recently become an RVer National Parks Traveler is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit media organization The East Ridge City Council and city manager are trying to find a solution for continuing to help citizens who need it get to places that they need to be has been providing Care-a-Van transportation that is used by just one percent of the East Ridge population But the new costs will put a strain on the city which he said just benefits the small percentage of residents He said services should meet the needs of all citizens In August 2024 that price increased to $20 per trip and $40 for a round trip.   The ridership has increased each year and it currently is 3,200 trips for the current year City Manager Scott Miller was told the price per trip would need to  increase again to $47 one way or $94 for a round trip When that price is applied to 3,200 trips the council was told it would mean East Ridge’s cost would become $150,000 for the 2025-2026 fiscal year The reasons for the steep increases include because Hamilton County did not appropriate funds to CARTA for 2025,that East Ridge has been using American Rescue Plan funds to help pay for the  transportation needs for the small number of individuals and that money is no longer available And a grant that CARTA was using to provide the service has now been depleted those things have resulted in the higher cost of $47 per ride CARTA needs that amount just to break even the Care-a-Van operates seven days a week CARTA has categorized the purpose of trips from East Ridge 24 percent for employment and nine percent for general purposes has looked at options to lower the cost which could include limiting uses or reducing hours of operation or both Vice Mayor Tyler has investigated and found alternatives that are available to those riders groceries can now be delivered and Uber can be called for rides and have special vehicles when needed he said that some of these services are covered by Medicare but he said many superior programs are available “That safety net shouldn’t suck up so much of our budget,” he said Mayor Williams said he favored continuing service at some level but one that is sustainable and said he favors limiting some services Vice Mayor Tyler said he would rather put the burden on the people who are using the service City Manager Miller said there is no guarantee that the $47 per trip would stay the same in the next fiscal year Buses have to be maintained and employees of CARTA have to be paid In order to prepare the fiscal year 2025-2026 budget Miller told the council that he would tentatively leave $100,000 in the budget for Care-a-Van which might lower the city’s cost down to $54,000 Medical will be defined and he said that would include rehabilitation appointments not a visit to use weight machines at the gym or for a massage The citizens of East Ridge will also be made aware of education that is available for options and how to use available services “The city has resources for people,” he said populating the city’s citizen advisory boards was amended Each council member will have the opportunity to appoint one member to the boards Those  discussed include the Library Board that would require three of the five members on that board to be knowledgeable about zoning and real estate The motion  was tabled until there is clear language and specific requirements for what knowledge the council is looking for The city’s Housing Commission deals with property maintenance and depends on the codes enforcement department for guidance They are the people who  have experience dealing with making decisions for condemning or demolishing a structure The process also involves a structural engineer so members of this board can rely on information from those experts and do not necessarily have to be certified themselves The Whataburger that will be opening at 6521 Ringgold Road at the former location of Wally’s was granted two sign variances - one relating to size and the other for spacing Only Councilman Jacky Cagle voted in opposition Approval was given for operating a medical clinic at 842 South Germantown Road which is within the R-1 Residential district Most recently the property has been used for a pre-school and a speech therapy clinic.  WWRD won the bid to provide concessions for the parks and recreation department events The city will receive 25 percent of the gross profits A change order for $8,000 was approved for the sound attenuation system at the new East Ridge Animal Shelter The increase was attributed to increased costs due to tariffs Another change order was  approved for the North Mack Smith Road widening and improvements project to modify the drainage system after unexpected buried pipe was found The Scenic City's public transit agency is seeking new and bolstered funding streams from local governments as its board of directors argues the organization now merits a deeper investment immigration and sometimes other things for the Chattanooga Times Free Press primarily on labor and political movements has appeared in various magazines and on NPR member stations He previously worked as a general assignment reporter with the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin Could we have been commemorating the wrong date of Magna Carta all along Speaking on an episode of the HistoryExtra podcast Professor David Carpenter shares another date as a contender for the anniversary and how the story of the charter has been shaped by other forces… But according to Professor David Carpenter one of the world’s leading authorities on Magna Carta we might have been commemorating the wrong occasion all along people didn’t see King John’s 1215 charter as the Magna Carta at all “For people in the 13th century and beyond John's charter was not regarded as Magna Carta,\" said Carpenter they saw it as \"the Charter of Runnymede.” So if 1215 wasn’t the defining moment, what was? The answer, Carpenter argues, is 11 February 1225 – the date when John’s son, Henry III the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta is 11 February 2025,” Carpenter explains often hailed as a cornerstone of constitutional law It was a response to the significant grievances of England’s barons who were furious at King John’s military failures The charter established a crucial principle: the king was subject to the law Magna Carta wasn’t a sweeping statement of liberty while also talking about more prosaic matters such as fish weirs to no one deny or delay right or justice.\" the 1215 Magna Carta failed almost immediately King John had no intention of honouring Magna Carta he persuaded Pope Innocent III to annul it the rebel barons invited Prince Louis of France to take the English throne Everything changed when John died in October 1216 but his supporters needed to find a way to stabilise the kingdom Henry issues a new version of the charter,” Carpenter explains It was a politically strategic move that intended to win back support from barons who had sided with Louis which regulated royal forests – a major grievance for landowners It was at this point that Magna Carta got its famous name “We've got to remember that John's [1215] charter is the Charter of Runnymede,” says Carpenter when the Charter of the Forest was introduced royal clerks needed a way to distinguish between the two “So they decide to give it the term ‘Magna Carta’ The 1225 version of Magna Carta wasn’t just another reissue – it was qualitatively different from 1215 The key change was that it was no longer extracted from the king by force Henry III freely granted it in exchange for taxation “There was growing unease over the legitimacy of the earlier versions,” Carpenter explains arguing: “The charters of Henry III should not be obeyed They have no validity because they've been extracted by force.” The 1225 version removed any doubt by explicitly stating that it was given in return for taxation “And so no one anymore can say the king has been forced to do it This made 1225 the final and definitive version of Magna Carta the 1225 Magna Carta also excluded the most radical part of the 1215 charter – the security clause The original 1215 charter had contained a revolutionary provision allowing 25 barons to enforce the agreement “no later king really felt the need to issue another version,” Carpenter noted Whenever later kings confirmed Magna Carta they confirmed the 1225 version – not John's 1215 charter when the great lawyer Edward Coke dusted down Magna Carta as a bastion against Stuart tyranny It was still the 1225 charter,” says Carpenter So why does everyone focus on 1215 instead of 1225 Blackstone was the first person to print all the different versions of Magna Carta together His decision to label the 1215 document as the Magna Carta stuck “He took an absolutely crucial decision,” Carpenter explained not the Charter of Runnymede – he called it Magna Carta.” “Such is the authority of Blackstone that it stuck,” Carpenter said “So both in popular culture and academic writing Magna Carta becomes essentially the charter of King John in 1215.” the actual law still acknowledges the truth “There are still chapters of Magna Carta on the Statute Book of the United Kingdom today,” Carpenter said it's still the 1225 charter of Henry III.” Recognising the importance of the 1225 Magna Carta doesn’t mean disregarding 1215 entirely; the original document set events in motion and without putting it on a consensual basis – so it's a freely entered into bargain between king and kingdom supported by the church – I think without that too the charter would not have survived,\" says Carpenter Carpenter's view is that we ought to see the 1215 and 1225 charters together in tandem but he also argues that 11 February 2025 is a good moment to reflect on the fact that the Magna Carta we think we know isn't quite the full story Professor David Carpenter was speaking to David Musgrove on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation Here’s why you might be wrongDo you know the correct date of Magna Carta Here’s why you might be wrongCould we have been commemorating the wrong date of Magna Carta all along John's charter was not regarded as Magna Carta," said Carpenter they saw it as "the Charter of Runnymede.” So if 1215 wasn’t the defining moment, what was? The answer, Carpenter argues, is 11 February 1225 – the date when John’s son, Henry III Hunters target deer in a medieval French illustration banned capital punishment for forest offences and reduced the area of the royal forest (Image by Alamy)The charter established a crucial principle: the king was subject to the law to no one deny or delay right or justice." “We've got to remember that John's [1215] charter is the Charter of Runnymede,” says Carpenter Henry III (depicted centre) in ac1280–1300 manuscript (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)How was the 1225 Magna Carta different?The 1225 version of Magna Carta wasn’t just another reissue – it was qualitatively different from 1215 They have no validity because they've been extracted by force.” they confirmed the 1225 version – not John's 1215 charter it's still the 1225 charter of Henry III.” Magna Carta likely wouldn't have survived and without putting it on a consensual basis – so it's a freely entered into bargain between king and kingdom the charter would not have survived," says Carpenter Carpenter's view is that we ought to see the 1215 and 1225 charters together in tandem but he also argues that 11 February 2025 is a good moment to reflect on the fact that the Magna Carta we think we know isn't quite the full story Professor David Carpenter was speaking to David Musgrove on the HistoryExtra podcast Dr David MusgroveContent director HistoryExtra.comDavid Musgrove is content director of the HistoryExtra.com website and podcast plus its sister print magazines BBC History Magazine and BBC History Revealed He has a PhD in medieval landscape archaeology and is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society you are agreeing to site title terms and conditions and privacy policy This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply Clinician-trained AI analyzes electronic records to match ideal patients with studies in seconds rather than hours which ignites healthcare improvement by unlocking the power of clinical data expanded the strength and capabilities of its AI-powered platform with the acquisition of Realyze Intelligence The Realyze Intelligence solution leverages AI to match patients to clinical trials to accelerate research and reduce costs while providing patients with the latest advances in care compared to the same timeframe without using the software Carta Healthcare's platform applies AI to structured and unstructured data to decrease the time and costs for data abstraction The combined technologies' powerful automation can provide dramatically faster insights and significantly reduced labor demands for clinical data registry abstraction cardiovascular health and other specialties "We believe data is the single most important ingredient to improve healthcare," says Brent Dover We are inspired by Realyze Intelligence's shared ability to use clinician-trained AI and a human-in-the-loop approach to maximize insights from clinical data for clinical trials and cancer registries." The need for Carta Healthcare's expanded and more robust solution has never been more urgent. With cancer poised to overtake cardiovascular disease as the leading cause of death worldwide pharmaceutical companies and provider organizations are diligently developing and investigating the most effective interventions to reverse the trend and improve patient outcomes over 80% of trial inclusion and exclusion criteria are in unstructured patient notes which typically require manual extraction and review by a clinician while only 7% of patients with cancer participate in clinical trials a reported 50% would enroll if they were recruited enhanced with Realyze Intelligence's AI technology can significantly expand the feasibility of trials and other research while accelerating data abstraction for cancer and other clinical data registries with expert clinician oversight "Health systems and pharmaceutical companies invest billions annually to identify and enroll patients for clinical trials—a process that is not only costly but labor-intensive and time-consuming," said Aaron Brauser optimize care pathways and improve patient outcomes with Carta Healthcare." About Realyze IntelligenceRealyze Intelligence combines clinically guided large language models Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) and AI to rapidly read and summarize the unstructured portion of a patient's electronic health record to identify cancer patients who match open clinical trials in seconds Media ContactsKatlyn NesvoldAmendola for Carta Healthcare[email protected]  The vast majority of clinical data abstractors believe AI would save them time but concerns about data quality without human.. whose mission is to ignite healthcare improvement by unlocking the power of clinical data is thrilled to announce its recognition .. Health Care & Hospitals Artificial Intelligence Computer & Electronics Computer Software Do not sell or share my personal information: a Palo Alto-based technology start-up offering private company valuation and equity management services has announced a $300 million investment injection propelling it into the Unicorn Club of Silicon Valley companies valued at more than $1 billion led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz with participation by Lightspeed Venture Partners follows closely on $80 million raised in the company’s series D round in December which increased its value then to $800 million After the series E round and subsequent investments, however, the company’s total valuation stands at $1.7 billionOpens a new window The seven-year-old company started its journey when someone askedOpens a new window : Why can I buy Google stock on my phone but investing in a private company costs $20,000 in legal fees and ends with a mailed paper stock certificate CEO and co-founder Henry Ward set out to tackle this problem by offering a simpler method of online securities shares that grew into a digital platform that allows private companies to manage equity electronically with the participation of shareholders Carta’s capitalization table softwareOpens a new window automatically tracks the details of a company’s issued stock providing information in real time on all securities issued and who owns them The firm notes the irony of many artificial intelligence blockchain and information-security start-ups that still rely on paper share certificates and what Carta regards as out-of-date Excel spreadsheets with lawyers charging huge fees as the companies rush to get their capital tables updated at key moments Carta also offers a service to assist with 409A valuations named after a section of the federal Internal Revenue Code requiring privately-held companies to set stock option prices at fair market value before the shares are offered The service includes a waterfall model enabling a company to assess how much each shareholder will take away at different exit valuations says its now serves more than 11,000 corporations and 700,000 shareholders both venture capital-type private investors and employees who have bought in through company stock options the company also launched a fund administration service Its real-time portfolio management platform has $9 billion in assets under administration Marc Andresseen – co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz co-creator of the Netscape web browser and an early investor in Facebook – will join Carta’s board of directors “We believe Carta will change how Wall Street and the financial world operate by transforming private markets,” Andreessen says Carta has laid a foundation of an extensive network of limited partners “The network effect is why I’m bullish on the future of this company. Carta is redefining business ownerships as we know it.” Will Kohler of Lightspeed Venture Partners was impressed by Carta’s vision and ownership network “We believe the company is best positioned to change how capital markets work,” he says Dareen Cohen of Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments adds that Carta is led by a team with a proven track record he says, “effectively address pain points in inefficient markets.” Investor interest in private markets is increasing. They are attracting more investments than initial public offerings and with Carta apparently filling an unmet need for a sort of private stock market representing a 15% increase from 2016 91% of limited partners surveyed for the report said private markets provided better returns than publicly listed stocks Carta hopes it can be a key player in making private markets more accessible and efficient “We’ll use our new funding to enable liquidity across our network,” the company claims “Private markets are so illiquid that founders and employees often wait a decade for an IPO to earn money from their equity We think it’s time for this to change.” DELL 7530 M1004 error - Advice to fix? Windows Server 2019 to 2022 in-place upgrade failing What's your favorite "Old" tech? Toolbox will become Spiceworks News & Insights (WCIV) — Public agencies across the nation are grappling with uncertainty over federal funding sparking concerns among local organizations and groups board chairman of the Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority underscored the critical role of public transit "Public transit is an essential service in the lives of people who live in this country," Seekings said several Lowcountry residents and CARTA bus riders expressed their worries about potential funding cuts "A lot of things seem to be really up in the air at the federal level." Others emphasized how public transit serves as a lifeline offering low-cost transportation for medical appointments Seekings remains optimistic about the future of public transit "I do not believe sort of in the way that this country is governed that public transit is in jeopardy," he said Seekings explained that while federal funding is vital for major projects CARTA also benefits from local financial support we have lots of local support here too through the county's half-cent sales tax," Seekings said He assured that CARTA is prepared to adapt to any changes in federal funding but we're going to keep an eye on what's going on with the Federal Government," Seekings said The final stage of the ninth edition of the Carta Rallye started and ended at the Bivouac in Merzuoga a historic base and familiar temporary home for many rally raids in the past including the Dakar the Carta Rallye was both his Ténéré 700 Rally and rally raid maiden voyage and it seems the French rider took to the discipline with aplomb The race also represented a first official outing for the 2025 Yamaha Tenere 700 GYTR race bike, take a closer look here: Pro Bike: 2025 Yamaha Tenere 700 GYTR Race Bikes – how good does this look! Paulin was consistent despite his lack of experience at navigating and considering he was competing on the T7 against rivals on 450cc single-cylinder race bikes He was not alone in the Yamaha camp with stalwart Alessandro Botturi his very experienced teammate (although he did miss a huge number of waypoints on stage two putting the Italian out of contention) and Ténéré Spirit Experience rider and former hard enduro specialist Kevin Gallas also competing in his first rally raid.  A post shared by Kevin Gallas (@kevingallas71) The German took victory on the second stage and recorded another two podiums across the rally If it had not been for getting lost on stage five he would have been competing for the overall victory but ended up fourth in the general classification and second in the “Over 450cc” category behind Paulin and ahead of Botturi Gautier Paulin – P3 Overall – 23h48m51s and what a great result!  Racing with Marc and the Ténéré Yamaha Rally Team has been a pleasure I only had a few days to learn navigation before arriving here and the bike was so smooth that what should have been very challenging was actually fun.  and to finish on the overall podium and win the “Over 450cc” class is incredible.” Marc Bourgeois Ténéré Yamaha Rally Team – Team Manager even if the navigation was extremely tough To secure a podium on debut is spectacular.  “Stéphane also joined us for the last two stages which was very special for the riders and team We have also been able to develop the new bike and considering it was making its racing debut I want to thank the whole team for their efforts Create a personal Enduro21 account to access our new forum receive exclusive competitions and money saving offers Enduro21 is all about motorcycle enduro and off-road riding. Read more Donations to Enduro21 can make a huge difference to what we do Learn more We're on the lookout for writers, photographers, videographers and enduro enthusiasts, from all around the world. Read more This website uses cookies that are necessary to its functioning and required to achieve the purposes illustrated in the privacy policy By accepting this OR scrolling this page OR continuing to browse Issues with signing in? Click here Need help signing in? "The CFO role is changing to be more strategic" Join today to access this content and much more Your email address is already registered with us. Click here to receive a verification link and login. Don't have an account? Click here to register Please check your spam or junk folder just in case Results reveal familiarity with potential workflow benefits although concerns about human oversight and quality remain which involves harvesting data from EHRs and other systems and entering data into clinical registry forms They cautioned that data quality may suffer because of these inefficiencies The latest survey results reveal that abstractors are excited about the potential of AI in their position The vast majority (85%) agree that automation would save time nearly as many abstractors (83%) agreed that AI would reduce clinicians' administrative workload 75% believed it would speed up the abstraction process and 50% agreed that it would improve data quality "The manual clinical data abstraction process is long overdue for transformation and no one understands that better than the trusted experts who perform these duties day in and day out," said Carta Healthcare CEO Brent Dover especially when viewed in the context of our other two rounds of findings clearly demonstrate that these clinicians are eager for new safe and effective methods to do their jobs They want to eliminate the manual effort associated with abstraction significantly reduce the enormous time and costs and ensure that the highest-quality data is captured and shared with the healthcare community." Access and Acceptance Obstacles RemainWhile clinical data abstractors applaud AI tools to automate their manual tasks the majority (61%) of survey respondents reported that their health system employer does not offer such solutions over half (53%) of abstractors agreed they would like their employer to adopt such tools—only 7% were opposed 61% of survey respondents stated that AI could not yet fully replace a human in their role 69% reported concern about the quality of AI-generated data and just as many said they were worried about the lack of human oversight in the process 54% of respondents reported being very optimistic or somewhat positive about using AI Carta Healthcare can help ease adoption concerns by combining the power of AI technology with expert human abstractors to abstract data and insights that act as catalysts for healthcare transformation Health systems and hospitals using the Carta Healthcare platform can lower their data abstraction costs by more than 50% reduce per-case abstraction time by two-thirds and achieve an average of 98% to 99% Inter-Rater Reliability (IRR) a data abstraction consistency and dependability measure "AI innovation and development is constantly evolving and improving so it is understandable that clinical data abstractors might be apprehensive or uncertain about this game-changing technology," Dover said accuracy and efficacy of Carta Healthcare's AI-powered clinical data abstraction platform have been demonstrated in health systems and the recipient of several prestigious industry awards we have discovered that as abstractors learn more about Carta Healthcare they understand how it can significantly improve their jobs and patients' health by ensuring complete a national online survey was conducted by Reaction Data a market research firm focused on the healthcare information technology industry Relevant respondents opted-in to an online survey based on their role and subject matter expertise If a potential respondent did not match the appropriate criteria only qualified responses to the survey were received Media Contacts:Katlyn NesvoldAmendola for Carta Healthcare[email protected] Carta Healthcare® whose mission is to ignite healthcare improvement by unlocking the power of clinical data Computer Software CARTA's unionized staff will get a pay raise under a labor agreement approved Thursday by the transit agency's board The deal is set to remain in effect until mid-2025 while parties negotiate a longer-term contract A monthly overview of things you need to know as an architect or aspiring architect View an example Chris Price discusses the critical shift from catching bugs at runtime to identifying them during the build process He explains how leveraging modern programming language features such as static typing in dynamic languages and exhaustive pattern matching can significantly enhance code maintainability and prevent expensive production issues Cooper Bethea explains the need for a cellular architecture at Slack He details the "before" & "after" of their production environment emphasizing the strategic choices made for services with varying consistency requirements including incremental implementation and embracing "good enough," that enabled this complex migration Thoughtworks’ subject matter expert on Generative AI coding assistants discusses how to enhance generated code by incorporating additional information into its context and how your team’s dynamics will evolve with the adoption of these tools Shane Hastie spoke to John Gesimondo about how to leverage generative AI tools to support sustainable mental peace and productivity in the complex interruption-prone world of software engineering by developing a practical framework that addresses emotional recovery discusses how the EU Cyber Resilience Act can help with improving your software project’s security and in the same time to slow down the alarming acceleration of software supply chain attacks Learn how senior software developers are solving the challenges you face Learn practical solutions to today's most pressing software challenges real-world best practices and solutions in software development & leadership Learn how leading engineering teams run AI in production-reliably Shawna Martell and Dan Fike discuss why Carta started the Navigators program QCon London empowers software development by facilitating the spread of knowledge and innovation in the developer community and project managers who influence innovation in their teams Fike: I'm hoping you all can help us settle something We've been trying to figure out something between us there's a bunch of very clever engineers out here The decision we're trying to make is turning out to be a little more controversial than we'd expected A lot of our standalone services use it too They're looking at bringing up a new service and they really want to use SQLAlchemy instead My take on this is that Django will meet their needs and do the job and it's good to keep a consistent approach across our teams and projects Fike: I don't disagree with this sentiment We use it today to build REST APIs and legacy SSR pages Asking future hires to ramp up on an entire web framework just for that seems excessive It's like trying to plant a rose bush with a bulldozer but I just don't think it's the right take in this case doesn't have an objectively correct answer Martell: We weren't even talking about the feature sets of these different technologies Do we need something that supports Postgres specific column types we were talking about the principles and the people It'd be a lot easier if we only had to deal with the technology because the principle and the people's problems Getting all the priorities and context into a room and ensuring that it's considered can be a lot of work and you end up just making the same decision Maybe you feel a little bit better about it but the more time you spend in these debates the more likely it is that everyone's going to walk away saying What we want to talk to you about is some changes we've made to how we work at Carta to consolidate the inputs to these decisions and empower our engineers to drive outcomes with higher conviction and in less time We are the creators of a program at Carta that we call navigators Navigators are essentially individual contributors that we task with applying and evolving our engineering strategy The real core thesis behind navigators is that it exists to empower our individual contributors to lead and to land better outcomes for themselves and the company I imagine some of you are here trying to develop leadership skills in yourselves and others might be here trying to develop it in your peers and your teams Shawna and I are both individual contributors in fairly different leadership roles and we've taken very different career paths to get here We have both seen and participated in several past attempts to make decisions more quickly Nothing has worked as well as what we are doing now which is why we want to talk to you about some of these past attempts we've seen and why they failed We want to talk about what we're doing instead Martell: If you're building software of any complexity or you're selling software in any complex business space your life is invariably filled with questions where the only correct answer is Do we need a relational database or a non-relational one Do we want to buy this off the shelf or build it ourselves Can this procedure be eventually consistent or not Do we want to move fast and accrue some tech debt or do it right the first time It depends on how much it's going to cost It depends on your time to market and other business goals It depends on the existing architecture patterns in play today It's going to depend on the staffing of the team and who's going to be the long-term owner of this It's going to depend on your performance requirements and your failure tolerance I've seen architecture decisions decided by whether or not our support staff observe daylight saving time Martell: This is why leadership is so important and we do some research and we make a decision it's often countless documents and meetings you end up in a situation where the meeting is actually about the document and not the decision or you're negotiating the decision-making of others You either need to get a representative from all your teams into a room and that doesn't scale particularly well once you have dozens of teams or you have to slowly build your sphere of consensus over time because she's the real influencer in SRE His product's going to have a bunch of work but you need he and Mike to really iron out a few of these details You can't forget about Jill in product building this plus one at a time consensus tree half the people you talk to don't remember you ever talked to them Sometimes you get to the end of this exercise only to realize no one actually agrees on who the final decision maker is I've also seen several examples of companies trying to streamline this path to consensus and very frequently it takes some form of committee and even I found this one really hard to believe It's really clear who you need to convince You can even get time with them during their biweekly review hour or whatever Sometimes it ends up being a thing you have to go present your proposal to get promoted or to establish your clout It can be really hard to know how much context to bring to the committee because you don't know how much context they need where you can end up waiting weeks to get a slot and maybe you're blocked that entire time because you don't have the committee's blessing yet Fike: We've tried a few simpler versions of this at Carta we had something called the engineering architecture review This was a periodic meeting where some engineer would throw a proposal onto the agenda and all of our most senior engineers from different products would just show up and weigh in and offer feedback if you can get the blessing from that crew Anybody want to venture a guess how that played out and it was really unclear how to make a decision in light of that engineering architecture review just became the place where neat but controversial ideas would go to die People started just finding a way to work around it entirely and we put together something we instead called the Carta Engineering Council and it was curated to have a specific membership that included some staff-plus engineers and some VPs and some managers from around the company instead of them having this de facto role of saying no to bad ideas or just ideas they couldn't agree on they were explicitly tasked with saying yes to good ideas They saw a lot of ideas and got a lot of questions conversations around new technology and best practices If anybody was building something complex across team boundaries where they typically would find themselves unsure who to consult or who makes a decision the council existed in theory to provide those answers your council members were too far from each other in their day-to-day work to actually have any shared principles that inform their decision-making and they were often too far from the work that was being discussed to actually participate in the discussion very effectively When you don't have the right context to critique an idea you often fall back on critiquing the proposal like the document and its structure and stuff like that The Carta Engineering Council wasn't as destructive as the engineering architecture review of the past All of these changes made it harder for our engineers to make decisions with conviction The tools we had to offer them left a little bit to be desired and we found ourselves in this position again It turns out that this is actually the root of our problem folks don't know what all it depends on or how to resolve those dependencies We did something that probably seems pretty obvious at this point "I thought this was a talk about navigators Navigators works at Carta because of our strategy I know some of you hear the word strategy and are going to picture very different things in your head Let me go ahead and tell you what strategy means to us because a strategy is not a vision and it's not a plan A vision is just an outline of where you want to be in the distant future these are the real principles in play that you can apply to help move closer toward that vision A plan is just the actual work you're going to do the vision is going to inform your strategy and you employ the strategy when building your plan I know it gets pretty abstract talking about strategy it's actually pretty easy to imagine architecture decisions and sequencing decisions that are more or less made easy by trying to pursue that To put it very simply to the engineering organization at large it's just the principles and guidelines that drive our decision-making Martell: We did have an engineering strategy Even if we'd just been flipping a coin on every decision We were making decisions underpinned by some principles wouldn't have been fair to say our strategy was to spend no time making decisions Fike: There are probably people who maybe think they don't have a strategy the strategy exists only implicitly or culturally There's a lot of power in simply writing it down Half of the value in writing it is going to come from the writing process itself It really forces you to think deeply and critically about why this is the right principle for your company it also forces you to differentiate between the principles that actually provide valuable decision-making characteristics and those that might just be your opinion You might think that you and your peers and your teams are very aligned but you would be surprised at how much misalignment is going to surface just by simply trying to document this to give voice to the engineering organization itself it becomes much easier to communicate changes because your strategy will change over time Fike: We've never written anything quite like this especially at an organization with 400 people How have other people approached this in the past One of the things we came across was this guy He's written extensively about engineering strategy because Will Larson also happens to be the guy who literally wrote the book on staff engineering We subscribe to so many of his thoughts on IC leadership that we really took his direction on engineering strategy to heart Martell: This whole time while we were doing this work it was up to a small group of us to put this together Fike: Will's perspective is actually an extension of Richard Rumelt from his book our strategy really has three primary components to it This is really describing your current situation You'll see an excerpt from ours on the right there These are an outline of the principles that underpin our decision-making this is really an enumeration of any actions that we want the organization to take holistically to either apply or maybe even just enable that guidance Sometimes a strategy might only have guidance and no action we were really focused on what we were doing today there are one or two areas where maybe things weren't working quite as well as we'd hoped we'd seen some of the wrong things get prioritized in our decision-making to create guidance that would explicitly prevent that if our engineering strategy was a wish list of how we could imagine the company operating in some alternate universe it would be viewed as merely aspirational or unrealistic The engineers in the organization are likely to reject or dismiss it as vaporware We sought instead to just document reality What are the principles being applied today If we were making decisions with a coin flip Once this status quo strategy is out in the wild and the controversy had started to settle now we could start to enact changes incrementally and the rationale for the pivot is well explained Martell: Our example here in maintaining the status quo in v1 was around how we're breaking out services from our monolith We'd spent so much time thinking about what not to do We hadn't spent enough time understanding what we expected people to do instead our operating principle there really ended up being Fike: Before we rolled this out to the organization we got a couple other staff-plus engineers in the room together in person with our new CTO really to finalize the details and pick out a couple strategic follow-ups we'd want to land know that one of the things we wanted to do was extend the engineering strategy after release with some guidance around how we build platform technology One of our other takeaways from that gathering was that we can't just drop some strategy docs into Slack and ride off into the sunset and consider our job done We recognize that it can be difficult to understand how to apply that strategy in every team that there are often going to be edge cases where the strategy doesn't work as intended One of the pieces from these original notes that I do want to call out is that we knew we needed to identify some individual contributors around the company that would act as local guides to help other teams interpret and apply that strategy This is really where the idea of what we call navigators was born We found ourselves recalling two patterns we'd seen previously one of which was this concept of what Netflix calls an informed captain They describe it really well on their website Netflix identifies an informed captain of the ship who is an expert in their area They are responsible for listening to people's views and then making a judgment call on the right way forward We avoid decisions by committee which would slow us down and diffuse responsibility It is sometimes challenging and always important to identify up front who the informed captain is for a project The second thing we recalled that we really liked was this blogpost from Martin Fowler's blog back in 2021 titled The main takeaway is that the author was advocating that decisions should be made locally on teams so long as they first satisfy a duty to seek advice We wanted the autonomy from the Fowler article supported by a well-defined It might sound like another word for a committee and all of this domain and context would be decentralized Some poor engineer would be responsible for bringing that context to the committee where it gets combined with a strategy and a decision comes out we don't send the context to where the strategy is We send the strategy to where the context is Navigators are already members of the teams they support and every team is in scope for exactly one navigator This navigator maintains alignment with that central strategy They combine it with the domain context and technical context they already have Martell: It's one thing to decide what we want navigators to be It's another to decide who we want them to be I think the best way to describe this is to show you how we roll this out to the organization Let me highlight just some of the really important parts of this document I want to break this into three really important pieces it's really important that our navigators maintain an alignment with our engineering strategy This is around how we want to boost velocity and reduce our reliance on consensus this we haven't really talked about yet Here we're discussing what it means to be a good navigator They already have deep technical and domain context but we're equipping them with a new tool we're also offering them an extension of the CTO's authority in their teams The CTO is going to hold them accountable for how they use that authority We've decided at Carta that all of our navigators are going to be ICs and not managers giving this type of authority and autonomy to your ICs is uncommon but we would encourage you not to underestimate your engineers A sufficiently senior IC can take their deep understanding of the technical details and combine it with a pretty well-informed understanding of the organization more broadly Their lens is going to be different from your managers or at least more focused on teams and execution rather than software and systems We believe that this IC perspective is a critical component in making decisions in software and not just architecture and design decisions Carta expects managers and navigators to work together as a team with complementary perspectives We talked about this at the very beginning Most technical decisions aren't just technical so managers and navigators understand collectively our technical and people constraints and use that information to guide their teams We find that it makes both the navigator and the manager more effective in their role we do expect our navigators to help make technical decisions with their teams about what we build and how we build it They're not expected to micromanage every design or implementation and they shouldn't be writing every design spec They do need to stay close enough to their teams to understand decisions that might conflict with the engineering strategy and stay close enough to the strategy and the intent behind it to know how to resolve those conflicts Maybe the engineering strategy is wrong or lacks an exception Our navigators are best equipped to understand those things and escalate as needed some people think this sounds like a bit of a promotion Martell: I don't blame you if you think so the folks that we made navigators were already doing this work in their teams already It'd be hard to convince me you'd be a great navigator if that weren't true We really changed these three things for the folks that we made navigators We established a well-defined point of contact that even folks outside of their teams were well aware of We created the opportunity for smoother working relationships with navigators across the organization Through their very tight alignment with the engineering strategy they were now given the authority of the CTO within their teams Fike: I put up a slide earlier that said we wanted 12 navigators I also said we had 400 people in the organization The challenge in trying to keep this group small is really rooted in having teams that are very siloed technical leader in an organization of about 60 engineers who had pretty good context on what was going on over there I had a team of about five people who have a niche skill set and are working on unique data problems I can add one more navigator to the collection with a relatively narrow scope or I can find an existing navigator and stretch them over that area to avoid growing the group You will find examples of both amongst our navigators It's really a balancing act between the effectiveness of any single navigator forced to ramp up on a new area and hold context and the effectiveness of the navigators collectively where too many and it becomes hard for those navigators to maintain an effective relationship with each other and it becomes hard for them to work together to iterate our strategy Martell: Navigators are a really important part of the future iterations of our strategy navigators are the result of our engineering strategy They're also the interpreters of our engineering strategy and we expect them to help us iterate it going forward The example for us here was around those items we talked about adding to our engineering strategy that were specifically focused on platform technology Our navigators being the senior tenured ICs that they are had seen enough examples at Carta of platform gone wrong and platform gone right to have deep insights into how to help us repeat past successes while avoiding past mistakes All strategy is inevitably going to be a balance between global optimization and local optimization it's almost certainly going to be worse locally Our navigators are best positioned to identify and help their teams navigate these edge cases ultimately working to improve our strategy It also means that no single navigator is quite positioned to own the strategy in its totality We definitely don't want it to be blocked by consensus We talked before about how expensive consensus can be We would recommend that your strategy be owned by your executive Your navigators are going to be a resource to that executive your CTO or your executive is going to be a resource to the navigators We've been incredibly fortunate to have a CTO that works really closely with our navigators and that's created a relationship that's symbiotic It's honestly a unique group in my almost 20 years of working and one that I'm incredibly proud to be a part of We're about a little over a year into it now We're on our second cohort of navigators We've gotten really great feedback like this Decisions going from months to days is quite literally exactly what we were going for I know it's one thing to throw up this mostly anonymous quote and be like I'm going to tell you a story of a before and after to show you how this has changed our decision-making Let's rewind all the way back to the beginning This is a real decision that I had to make several years before we were talking about navigators or engineering strategy and I spent so much time making this decision I would go back and change this if I could I want to contrast that with a decision that we had to make after navigators and engineering strategy One of the teams that I was responsible for navigating was discussing building a new platform service We were encountering a problem we'd seen a few times previously and it really didn't take that much imagination to imagine it showing up in some other domain in the future The team was excited to dig in and solve this problem once and for all there were a lot of surface area similarities it seemed to me there was enough deviation that a platform wasn't immediately obviously the right choice and I was going to talk to a bunch of people building consensus around the idea of not building this platform I was also going to have to convince people who in the world the final decision makers were as the navigator equipped with our strategy we weren't going to build this platform because it wasn't aligned with our strategy It actually wasn't aligned in several different ways but I'm going to highlight just one of them here This was trying to be a one-size-fits-all solution: solve it once for everybody Carta had decided that wasn't how we wanted to start new platforms it's very clear who the decision maker was You also had documented guidelines to inform your decision-making You could hold that decision up against the engineering strategy to show others how it was and wasn't aligned You didn't have to litigate or relitigate the principles that inform that decision You could just weaponize the platform strategy navigators can resolve these issues in their teams This cropped up for us last year just as ChatGPT was taking off Our data team and our SRE teams were misaligned on how to ensure that our engineers could prototype with the software while not running afoul of our data handling policies The two appropriate navigators got into a room and they were able to find a direction pretty quickly If they hadn't been able to gain alignment then we would have expected them to escalate Escalations are actually a really important part of how navigators navigate I know that word has a negative connotation Martell: When you're trying to increase the velocity of your decision-making Our intention is to inject strategy locally That's not going to work in 100% of cases You're going to have decisions that involve the tradeoffs of business priorities of multiple teams and that's something that navigators alone can't fix Those types of decisions need to go to someone with a wider field of vision Give it to somebody who can reconcile misaligned incentives or competing business goals the quicker you're going to get a decision Fike: As often as we'll find navigators escalating up to our executive we'll also find our executive escalating to our navigators Maybe escalating isn't quite the right word there If the executive found themselves in a unpleasant phone call with a very high profile customer or if they're hearing incompatible stories from different parts of the organization a navigator can actually be immensely valuable as a direct resource for that executive They're not uniquely capable of doing so but the navigator's existing relationship with that executive their well-defined area of scope in the business and the confidence that that executive has in their deep technical context can give that executive a very accelerated path to the answers and action that they might need Maybe some of you are thinking of trying it yourself no matter whether you're an IC or an executive start by writing down your engineering strategy and make sure it reflects the truths in play where you are today Take the wish list that might come up along the way and set that aside then it's time to start identifying some concrete follow-up actions These can be actions that are part of the strategy or things you're going to want to do in like v2 This doesn't have to exist only for the entire engineering organization half of the value comes from the writing process itself If you're having trouble figuring out where to get started look at decisions you've seen made already Why was tech debt acceptable in situation A and totally unacceptable in situation B Dig into that and understand the principles that are informing these decisions This is going to help you understand what your strategic guidance should be and maybe where it needs to change going forward we got a lot of guidance from Will Larson before we started this The most valuable piece of guidance we got from him at all was to just do it if you're looking for reasons not to get started You will be missing context and information You'll be surprised at how much you learn just by getting started You're also going to have pages of stuff that looks like this that you end up just throwing away later We have so much stuff that didn't make the final cut Some of it was just aspirational and unrealistic A lot of it was simply broad and unactionable If we're being really honest with ourselves If your strategy doesn't help you make decisions This is one of my favorite examples of something we just cut but if you're already having a discussion around tech debt you surely have at least formed some intentionality writing it down in this document probably wasn't going to change that We couldn't see how this was going to substantially change our decision-making If you're the IC on the team and you're writing the strategy how can my strategy inform my team's decision-making and show other people how to use it to make decisions Once you have a few examples of your strategy informing your decision-making empower your manager to encourage other teams to write a strategy too because I've never met a manager who didn't want to hear about better Fike: If you're an executive or a senior manager out there you're probably already aware of who the people are in your organization who are strategic thinkers who are supporting the company more holistically get them together and collaborate on a strategy with them if they have more ownership over this strategy and they will be more effective at implementing it in their teams these are probably your first batch of navigators and you should see how far you can stretch them now it's time to find some other folks to fill in the gaps but only if you're confident in their ability to align with that strategy Martell: We understand that the navigator's pattern has some risk with it You're putting a lot of trust into these ICs to make decisions with autonomy It's another reason why this accountability piece is so important Your executive needs to be prepared to hold these folks accountable for their decisions and another reason we think it's important to keep this group pretty small You won't get it right the first time or the second time We took two-and-a-half months to get this from idea to launch and we've been iterating it ever since Success is finding ways to adapt as your organization learns and grows a written strategy and a dedicated group of individual contributors can really help us skip out on consensus and accelerate decision-making That same group of individual contributors can help us iterate that strategy and act as a very valuable resource to your executives in other ways we have found this to be very transformational in how we work Participant 1: How easy is it to form staff engineer in Carta Fike: Staff engineer is almost like an orthogonal axis on how we think about these We do have levels that go up through staff engineer There's definitely a lot of intersection in what constitutes a good staff engineer versus what constitutes a good navigator a staff engineer is going to be accountable to the team for some outcomes in slightly different ways Navigator's jurisdiction really starts and ends around the engineering strategy for the company It's the reason we call them navigators and not cartographers They are there to follow a map that they've been given and ensure that it works well They're not going to be making decisions beyond that Their authority doesn't extend outside of the context of what the strategy is really espoused to cover Staff engineers are going to have slightly different roles navigators are not micromanaging every decision and they're not writing every tech spec I don't think staff engineers should be doing that either It's closer to what a staff engineer role might be in a team in that they have accountability beyond what the strategy says to even things the strategy is indifferent about They are the decision makers that apply the company strategy in their respective teams Maybe there's no need for them to even talk to each other When we have things that cross team boundaries the expectation is that both navigators would be involved in making that decision It's a place I go when I have something that I'm trying to align with the engineering strategy and I want a second opinion We're individuals that work within our teams but we are people who work together to answer strategic questions and place to get advice It's a place that also our CTO will come to us for advice do we work together in a committee and have lots of meetings and stuff I talk to other navigators at least every week Participant 3: How would you compare this role to enterprise architect or technology architect Fike: In much the same way I was talking about staff engineers earlier architects are going to have obligations beyond what the strategy is covering the Django and SQLAlchemy example we put up earlier because of Django's existing presence in Carta If somebody was building some new service to do something and we need to understand the right way to represent timestamps and deal with time zones because there's 45 ways to do that in Java Somebody should try and pursue consistency locally for that or even tech leads are well suited to do that I think that there's a world where the way that tech leads and navigators work with managers ideally looks the same I think good tech leads will interoperate in much the same way we're trying to establish our navigators do in terms of collaborating with managers to take in context that's beyond the technology Participant 4: One of the things that I've seen when we've done something similar is that actually maintaining that strategic alignment between these types of people becomes quite difficult particularly if they come from different backgrounds or radically different parts of the company What are your tips and tricks for actually getting that alignment We haven't really had many examples of needing people to disagree and commit and that's in large part because our navigators tend to be people who are tenured and understand a lot of the rationale behind what we've done We haven't had someone we hire recently coming in without the deep Carta context and then we throw this responsibility on them although it's usually more about the surrounding decisions around how this strategy gets applied The raw principles are pretty well agreed upon Part of how we get that to work is by avoiding the stuff we might be tempted to put in there that's just opinions I have a lot of opinions about how maybe we should do something differently That does not belong unless these are truly dealing with some diagnosis we've established around what's working well or working poorly at the company Our entire engineering strategy document is two pages Participant 5: I was wondering about the concept of scalability of this idea of just making a group not too large but what happens when the company grows to thousands or tens of thousands of people Martell: I think we feel pretty confident that we're not totally sure We haven't done this at an organization any larger than the one that we have instead of having a group of navigators that really is very closely aligned with our CTO that you have lots of individual groups of navigators that stay closely aligned with their engineering executive I used to work at an organization of 120,000 people What I imagine if we had tried to get navigators there there'd be a little bit more localized groups that did adhere to engineering strategy that maybe does come from the top but actually has its own individual strategies in their pockets of the world There are individual teams that have their own strategy documents that inform their localized decision-making Participant 6: Is there a relation and how does it work with product managers with product development by the navigators or there is no relation and they don't show up with that Martell: There's no official relationship that I can think of in anything we have written down I've historically worked on a few different teams as their navigator it tends to be that our senior engineers do generally work with our product folks more than in some of the other companies that I've worked There are definitely senior engineers who are not navigators that work very closely with their product counterparts It's something that I think actually is very refreshing at Carta that the engineering and the product stay pretty well aligned Fike: I actually think that the reason our navigators are working so closely with product is because they're existing technical leaders and all of them should be close to product Participant 7: I think what you've shared is very interesting it's within the spheres of engineering How does that play out when you bring in the business side of things when you bring in the priorities that this is really something we should be working on now Were there any showdowns between the navigators and the product managers How does engineering strategy play alongside with product strategy Fike: One of the main reasons we wanted to establish this engineering strategy to begin with actually we need to slow down and build this right I have the voice of the executive in the strategy that is written for the whole engineering organization this product manager assuming I'm just an engineer who likes to do things one particular way this is a very deliberate calculated move on behalf of engineering to say that this particular audit logging There are things we didn't put in the strategy explicitly because we actually might want them to bend toward product a little bit more Martell: In the example that I mentioned where I ultimately had to say no to a proposed platform that original idea actually had come from our product organization We had to have a conversation about why that particular approach was not going to be the solution to this problem I was able to use the engineering strategy as my tool there See more presentations with transcripts Solve your dev challenges with insights you can 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Register now at InfoQ Dev Summit (June 9-10, 2025) Learn from active senior software developers at Google Chattanooga area K-12 students will be eligible to ride local public transit buses for free after CARTA's board voted Thursday to permanently approve a pilot program launched earlier this year Acknowledged for its clinical data abstraction platform Carta Healthcare showcases its leadership in shaping the future presented by the Business Intelligence Group Selected from hundreds of global submissions Carta Healthcare's clinical data abstraction solution was celebrated for its groundbreaking impact on healthcare innovation "Humanity relies on innovation to improve our lives and the planet," said Russ Fordyce "We're thrilled to spotlight Carta Healthcare as a shining example of innovation making a profound impact." Clinical data abstraction is essential for hospitals to improve patient care manual clinical data abstraction methods historically have been labor-intensive and expensive while failing to consistently produce the highest-quality data Carta Healthcare combines the power of AI technology with expert human abstractors to abstract data and insights that act as catalysts for healthcare transformation reduce per case abstraction time by two-thirds and achieve an average 98%-99% Inter-Rater Reliability (IRR) a measure of data abstraction consistency and dependability "Innovation is what enables healthcare organizations to solve their biggest challenges and find new ways to provide better care for individuals and patient populations," said Carta Healthcare CEO as well as our commitment to delivering solutions that inspire progress and improve the world around us." the BIG Innovation Awards have spotlighted industry leaders pushing the boundaries of creativity Winners are evaluated by a panel of seasoned business leaders and executives who consider creativity Past winners include Fortune 500 companies and trailblazing organizations such as Google underscoring the elite nature of this accolade For more information about the BIG Innovation Awards, visit http://www.bintelligence.com\awards\big-innovation-awards About Business Intelligence GroupThe Business Intelligence Group was founded with the mission of recognizing true talent and superior performance in the business world. Unlike other industry award programs these programs are judged by business executives having experience and knowledge The organization's proprietary and unique scoring system selectively measures performance across multiple business domains and rewards those companies whose achievements stand above those of their peers Media Contacts:Katlyn NesvoldAmendola for Carta Healthcare[email protected]  Eliana StarbirdChief Nominations OfficerBusiness Intelligence Group+1 909-529-2737[email protected] CARTA has announced that they will maintain their normal operating hours during the upcoming winter storm they say that the public should be prepared for service disruptions UPDATE: CARTA services will resume operations on Saturday all CARTA services will be canceled at 1:00pm on Friday READ MORE | School closings & delays PREVIOUS STORY: CARTA has announced that they will maintain their normal operating hours during the upcoming winter storm Follow along on Local 3 for updates on weather and closings.  The winter weather moved in on Friday morning, blanketing Chattanooga with more than 4-inches of snow in some areas by nightfall. Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. BREAKING: Former Chatt. Prep. teacher Kenya White intends to plead guilty to enticement charges in federal court. CARTA awarded funding to explore high-capacity transit corridor in Chattanoogaby WTVC — New funding awarded to CARTA will allow them to explore creating ahigh-capacity transit corridor along Brainerd Road and Lee Highway The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) awarded $630,000 to the Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority (CARTA) to support planning for transit-oriented development (TOD) along the Brainerd Road/Lee Highway corridor The City of Chattanooga says they are providing an additional $157,500 in local matching funds bringing the total project funding to $787,500 The city says this will allow CARTA to exploredevelopment options along a planned high-capacity transit line identified as a priority in the city’s "Plan Chattanooga" vision The project will enable CARTA and the City of Chattanooga to assess TOD opportunities along the Brainerd Road/Lee Highway corridor designated for a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line that will connect neighborhoods to accessible This will allow for a mixed-income housing development and sustainable growth along the transit line The city says the TOD planning study will kick off in early 2025 with CARTA and RPA working closely to ensure active community engagement and collaboration (WCIV) — The ongoing dispute between the Exchange Club of Charleston and the Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority (CARTA) over the use of six acres of the Coastal Carolina Fairgrounds is now set to be decided in court According to a spokesperson for the Coastal Carolina Fair the matter has escalated to the courts after CARTA's board of directors filed an eminent domain action The action seeks to condemn a portion of the fairgrounds to facilitate a new park-and-ride as part of the Lowcountry Rapid Transit project CARTA previously stated that the proposed park-and-ride would alleviate traffic congestion and attract more visitors to the fair arguing that the plan would reduce available parking and negatively impact the funds raised by the fair which are vital for supporting the local economy The Exchange Club of Charleston and CARTA have yet to resolve and the court's decision will determine the future of the fairgrounds' use READ MORE | "Coastal Carolina Fair and CARTA clash over proposed parking lot transformation." CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — A brush fire that forced evacuations and road closures on Lookout Mountain over the weekend heavily damaged one of the City of Chattanooga's top attractions CARTA is struggling to figure out what's next and how long before the Incline is back on the right track The fire then traveled to the incline railway where the tracks themselves went up in flames The National Parks Service says about a quarter of the railway must be repaired CARTA told us the fire caused damage to their cable system and rails A structural and technical assessment will be done before they can plan for repairs Read more: Flames damage Incline Railway in suspected weekend human-caused fire on Lookout Mountain Nearby businesses along the base of the mountain were also evacuated leaving employees and residents concerned about the blaze's extent It is unknown if those businesses lost profits due to the unforeseen closures the Incline Railway's owner and operator could face severe financial consequences linked to the fire CARTA's projected monthly budget versus their actual income for this year The Incline Railway brings in the most money compared to their other services Parking services bring in roughly half a million dollars and transit alone costs an average of less than $400,000 the Incline Railway itself brings in a total of nearly $2.8 million Structural and technical assessments will happen before they can plan for repairs and But now fewer tourists will be coming through Depend on us to keep you posted as we learn more The leading authority for the Architecture & Design community Recharge in a Restored Spanish Farmhouse in Menorca Words: Hayley Arsenault A micro-plastic alternative crafted from mollusk shells, a smart system for protecting animals at road crossings, and a cost-effective wildfire detection tool—these inventive concepts reflect a selection of standout designs from this year’s Terra Carta Design Lab a global competition that challenges art and design students to devise impactful responses to the climate and biodiversity crises Launched in 2021 by His Majesty King Charles III and Sir Jony Ive in partnership with the Royal College of Art the Terra Carta Design Lab operates as part of the Sustainable Markets Initiative which seeks to drive environmental progress through private-sector innovation “We are delighted with the momentum and impact of the Terra Carta Design Lab,” says Sir Jony Ive “The teams created innovative and practical solutions describing their thinking and design proposals with compelling clarity.” present diverse solutions to global challenges Entrants represented four international design schools: the Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation in the United Arab Emirates the Rhode Island School of Design in the United States and the Royal College of Art in the United Kingdom Among the winning projects were groundbreaking designs like BIOPOD and Shellf Life, both developed by students at the Rhode Island School of Design BIOPOD proposes modular ecosystems that restore water quality while reintroducing marshlands to urban areas Shellf Life transforms discarded shells—oyster and clam—into a biomaterial for construction celebrating the resilience of materials refined by nature over millions of years Other winning projects include aerodynamic innovations to enhance container ship efficiency a circular denim brand addressing fashion waste and a power-harnessing system that converts energy generated while cycling into usable electricity Each winning team will receive funding and mentorship to advance their designs The Terra Carta Design Lab embraces an optimistic With traditional approaches often falling short in addressing the dual threats of climate and biodiversity loss fostering innovation among emerging talents has become more critical than ever Czech interior designer Denisa Strmiskova brings a scenographer’s touch to her artful spaces where lighting and clean lines create a captivating harmony Discover how designers are approaching home interiors and see highlights from Interior Design’s KBIS panel CARTA's free "beach reach" shuttle leaves the Isle of Palms and heads back to Towne Centre August 28 The shuttle runs an hourly loop from Towne Centre to the Isle of Palms The pick up and drop off on IOP is at the entrance to the county park on 14th Ave A free shuttle from Mount Pleasant Towne Centre to Ocean Boulevard right outside of Isle of Palms County Park will continue this summer Maddy Quon covers Charleston County for The Post and Courier Maddy graduated from the University of Mississippi where she studied journalism MOUNT PLEASANT — The free beach shuttle to the Isle of Palms that CARTA operates will return for a fifth year Parking fees on Isle of Palms are going up for the first time in five years — now costing up to $25 during peak beach season — but beachgoers will still have a free way to get to the beach CARTA's Beach Reach route starts from the Mount Pleasant Towne Centre to Ocean Boulevard — right outside the entrance of Isle of Palms County Park the shuttle will be on a trolley bus the Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments purchased in late 2024 The shuttle route was first approved in 2021 after the state Department of Transportation told city officials to roll back plans eliminating free beach parking for nonresidents CARTA's strategy to transport people from Towne Centre to Isle of Palms helps alleviate the parking issue The CARTA board unanimously voted at their March 19 meeting to continue the Beach Reach a slight decrease from the 795 riders in 2023 CARTA board Chair Mike Seekings told The Post and Courier ridership can vary throughout the summer because of the weather He added he's glad to see the route return for "season five," and called it a natural choice for CARTA to implement the shuttle so people have free access to a beach where parking is expensive the closer you get to the shoreline and getting to and from (the beach) can be a challenge drop you right off at the entrance to the county park with the beach nothing but 100 yards away?" Seekings said "It’s really a great resource for people." CARTA board member Daniel Brownstein supports the Beach Reach and has pushed for an additional stop to Sullivan’s Island for the past year "I think that’s the missing piece of the puzzle," Brownstein told The Post and Courier Brownstein said the route could be a circle starting in Mount Pleasant Towne Centre to Isle of Palms then to Sullivan’s Island and back He believes it would not only increase ridership but also solve parking challenges on Sullivan’s Island Seekings said he'd support a Sullivan's Island stop as long as the shuttle remains "as quick and easy as possible" for riders Isle of Palms wasn't always the only beach route for CARTA. According to Seekings, there was a route to Folly Beach several years ago but the ridership was lower than expected Although it was a regular route and not just for summer months the route was discontinued due to  lack of success Seekings said the board will keep an eye on the situation and see if a shuttle to Folly Beach is viable in the future The Beach Reach will start on Memorial Day and run every weekend until Labor Day running on both Memorial Day and Labor Day The first trip on Saturdays is at 9:15 a.m and the first trip on Sundays is at 9:40 a.m Reach Maddy Quon at mquon@postandcourier.com News tips/online questions: newstips@postandcourier.com Delivery/subscription questions: subserve@postandcourier.com Some members of the Exchange Club of Charleston say a bus rapid transit line that uses six of the fairground's 139 acres threatens all this but it's not stopping a club-funded campaign against Charleston County's transportation sales tax referendum An aerial view of the Ladson fairgrounds shows the property borders with a potential CARTA parking lot in green at the bottom right The Charleston Area Transportation Authority (CARTA) is using eminent domain to use part of the fairgrounds for a park-and-ride station The Coastal Carolina Fair is challenging it in court A land dispute between the Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority (CARTA) and the Coastal Carolina Fair has reached the courtroom Circuit Judge Marvin Dukes ruled that CARTA which aims to install a park-and-ride station on fair property for its Lowcountry Rapid Transit line according to Save the Fair Committee Chairman Carl Schultz “It’s been several motions back-and-forth by both parties in the court right now and we’re waiting for the court to rule,” Schultz said we’ve offered CARTA leadership an opportunity to move to a different parcel that’s still on Highway 78 closer to Summerville than the piece that they have targeted which will have less of an impact on our gates and CARTA has refused to negotiate with their representatives regarding relocating the lot to a place that is more acceptable to us and is suitable for them in their purposes is the courts rule that CARTA did not do their required due diligence in selecting the parcel and to rule in our favor.” Schultz said the issue has been misrepresented to the public specifically regarding the percentage of property in question Shultz says CARTA has stated it aims to use 3% of fairground property “It’s going to have a significant impact on our gate revenue and the number of people who can attend the fair,” Schultz said “It will require us to completely revamp the entire parking program.” Schultz said CARTA negotiations with the previous fair administration were not as fruitful as claimed “CARTA wants the public to believe that they had negotiated in good faith and had come to some agreement with the previous administration at the fairground And that’s so far from the truth that it’s not funny,” Schultz said if you believe that you guys had reached an agreement and substance and terms for lease or purchase of a piece of the fairgrounds for your park-and-ride a decrease in fair revenue could affect the nonprofit’s ability to give back to the community through scholarships and charity funding the line would alleviate traffic congestion in the area and could promote fair attendance “Lowcountry Rapid Transit (LCRT) is a modern bus rapid transit system that will connect the region key destinations and employment centers,” according to the website “This project will transform our region by improving transportation for people traveling on buses The foundation of LCRT will serve Charleston and spark upward mobility and economic growth through the area.” low-cost and new mobility alternative to tens of thousands of residents and visitors.” if CARTA is successful in using the land in question fairgoers may still use that space for parking Email: online@journalscene.com The Federal Transit Administration has awarded $630,000 to CARTA to support planning for transit-oriented development along the Brainerd Road/Lee Highway corridor An additional $157,500 in local matching funds from the City of Chattanooga brings the total project funding to $787,500 sustainable development options along a planned high-capacity transit line identified as a priority in the city’s "Plan Chattanooga" vision to foster affordable housing and equitable access to transit in the region “This grant represents a major milestone for CARTA and the City as we work to expand transit access and create economic opportunity for all Chattanoogans,” said Charles D “We are grateful to the FTA and the City of Chattanooga for their support in advancing a transit-oriented development vision that builds a more sustainable and inclusive Chattanooga.” designated for a Bus Rapid Transit line that will connect neighborhoods to accessible mixed-income housing development and sustainable growth along the transit line TOD planning aims to boost economic development and support environmental goals that benefit Chattanooga’s residents and economy Mayor Tim Kelly underscored the initiative's significance “This funding for Transit Oriented Development will help us make progress on nearly every goal of the One Chattanooga plan It will help us build more affordable housing units increase access to jobs and economic opportunity Congratulations to CARTA on securing this funding and thank you to the Biden-Harris administration for making this possible."  “This project will support residents in my district by bringing essential housing and transit options that enhance our quality of life,” said City Councilwoman Carol Berz who represents District 6 where the corridor is located this initiative will not only reduce transit costs and improve connectivity but also foster economic growth in Chattanooga and across our community making it a more inclusive and vibrant place to live and work.” City Planning Administrator and Executive Director of the Regional Planning Agency “This is a visionary opportunity to shape the future of Chattanooga and we’re excited to work alongside CARTA and community stakeholders to bring this vision to life.” part of the Administration’s Housing Supply Action Plan prioritizes projects that incorporate affordable housing near transit hubs to reduce household transportation and housing costs CARTA and the City of Chattanooga are poised to create walkable transit-oriented neighborhoods that support a sustainable The TOD planning study will kick off in early 2025 After a two-year dealmaking drought, IPOs are mounting a comeback enriching company founders and employees in the process To land these desirable clients before their big windfalls a platform for startups and investors to track company ownership Silicon Valley firms widely use Carta's financial software for tasks like issuing stock options and administering executive compensation Carta will refer clients looking to go public to Morgan Stanley at Work a division that caters to businesses and their employees Carta told BI it has nearly 2,000 clients that have raised up to a Series C and are on the pathway to an initial public offering "The likelihood of the pipeline materializing is higher than it has been in a very long time," the bank's wealth boss He said investors had been waiting to cash out and favorable conditions were on the horizon such as the incoming Trump administration's plans to cut red tape for megamergers Morgan Stanley uses workplace services like employee financial advice and managing executive compensation to get clients in the door while they're building wealth and hopefully convert them into fee-paying financial-advisory customers the $6 trillion wealth business has added $250 billion in assets from people who started either as workplace or brokerage clients This partnership is part of Morgan Stanley's effort to reach $10 trillion in client assets between the wealth arm and its smaller $1.6 trillion investment-management unit Since companies are staying private longer and growing larger before going public their employees are more likely to need financial advice before and after a mammoth IPO Issues can include whether to put their shares in a trust or how to diversify their newfound wealth "We're uniquely situated to be able to address that complexity and to provide the advice these employees need as the companies embark on their next wave of growth," he said but now customers can swiftly transport their data from Carta to Shareworks before they go public and stay on the platform after their IPO "This really works for making it easier for Carta clients to get that second part of their existence in the hands of somebody who has the experience to deliver it," Finn said the data-security issues out of the process because we have a seamless and protected mechanism to make that transition." Carta clients can access Morgan Stanley services before moving to Shareworks clients considering going public can meet with a Morgan Stanley investment banker to walk through options companies can access the same offerings as other Shareworks customers they can tap Morgan Stanley for other services including 401(k) management and financial reporting employees can get financial advice from Morgan Stanley Advisors even visit company campuses to hold webinars and office hours these conversations lead to employees becoming wealth-management clients Finn has known Carta CEO Henry Ward since 2019 when the bank was looking to expand its stock-management business the bank also acquired the cap-table business of the Silicon Valley law firm Wilson Sonsini Finn declined to confirm whether Morgan Stanley considered buying Carta "We regularly evaluate every company in the space we're thinking about," he said we thought the partnership made the most sense since it addresses their needs