Showing results by author "Chip Bell" in All Categories

Design and construction industry practitioners collaborated to bring you Transforming Design and Construction: A Framework for Change, the first of LCI's Transforming Design and Construction series, to encourage discussion, learning, and experimentation around Lean processes. The short chapters focusses on various Lean topics. They are not designed as a "how-to" for Lean tools, but as a framework for learning and to guide you along your Lean journey.

Today's customers demand service that isn't just beyond the norm, but makes its mark in their minds and in their hearts. This updated edition of Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service provides listeners with up-to-the-minute advice on how they can create world-class service both in their operations and through their people, whether they work with customers face-to-face, on the phone, or in e-space.

The South Beach Sadist is dead.... Jake had seen to that. But in two weeks, Miami has two new victims, each butchered and their bodies marked with the sign of the Sadist...a sign never revealed to the public. As cryptic clues, and the promise of a third victim, begin to arrive in his office, Jake Sullivan, chief prosecutor for the Justice Department in Miami, and Mike Lang, his investigator and best friend, are once again hunting a madman. As the trail leads to a rogue DEA agent, Jake and Mike close in on the killer, not realizing that saving victim three means saving one of their own.

Jake believes he has found happiness, but a devastating blow sends him back into the world of evil that lies beneath tropical beauty. He begins a path of revenge, carefully crafting a plan to ensure the end of Santiago and Group 45.

Jake and Mike have arrived in Martinique, closing in on the elusive “Broker”. Tipped off to a location, they join an assault force provided by the French government through the head of the DST, Philip Rostand. Fighting their way through a beautiful island estate, Jake and Mike become separated, and when Jake makes his way into a secret study, he is attacked from behind and knocked unconscious. Waking momentarily, he sees the shadowy outline of his attacker leaning over him, a form he seems to recognize before darkness claims him again.

When the head of the French DST, Philip Rostand, an old friend of Jordan Fletcher, comes to FSI and provides information that he and his counterpart at MI5 have credible intelligence that Group 45, due to past setbacks, is in financial difficulty and may be using their new nemesis, “The Broker”, to gain a treasure trove in the Caribbean, Jake and Mike are sent to investigate.

When a United States Treasury Agent detailed with investigating an arms deal between a Mexican cartel and a European far-right group goes missing in the swamps of Southern Louisiana, FSI is soon on the case. Jake and Mike are sent by Jordan Fletcher to investigate whether or not a mysterious new financier involved in the deal is a part of Group 45 and responsible for the Agent’s disappearance.

A defrocked priest comes to Jake Sullivan with a fantastic tale of ancient voyages, cryptic clues, and imminent dangers from present and medieval organizations in search of history's most sought after relic. Did a secret northern voyage, never recorded in history actually occur...and is it possible that it somehow connects to ruins on the Florida Coastal Waterway?

Jake Sullivan is back. After waking from his coma and rehabilitating his mind and body, he heads to Key West with Mike Lang to combat a new threat. But he is still plagued with severe headaches, lack of focus, and trouble remembering important details of the night he was shot. A late night assault at his office turns out to be the catalyst that allows him to concentrate and focus once again.

Mike Lang is on a mission...a mission of revenge. As his best friend, Jake Sullivan, remains in a coma, near death, Mike is on a hunt for his assailant, the leader of Group 45. Traveling to Cuba, he seeks out an old friend for help, only to find that it is his help that is needed. Trying to discover the plot behind a new biological weapon and watching his back, as he closes in on the Leader, Mike is forced to confront old ghosts and new dangers. Passions run hot as a final confrontation will only allow one survivor.

Learning that nuclear weapons have been smuggled into the United States, Jake and Mike are charged by President Fletcher with finding them and the terrorists involved. Joined by an over-the-road trucker who has innocently become ensnared in the terrorists’ web, who provides Jake and Mike with vital information to aid them in their search, they follow lead after lead, some true and some false, ultimately finding themselves in the Arizona desert.

“Everything’s changed.” So says Jake Sullivan as he recalls his recent past. Dealing with private and professional turmoil, Jake, and his best friend Mike Lang find themselves on the hunt in Key West, trying to unravel an assassination plot in this tropical paradise. Only here could a high school reunion, a vice president elect, and thousands of Parrotheads attending a Meeting of the Minds, all play a part in their attempts to take down an evil mastermind.

Jake Sullivan has just returned from a life-and-death struggle in Mexico and still faces an ongoing battle with Group 45. He soon finds himself in a confrontation with a late-night assailant, the descendent of a minor historical figure of the 19th century, who provides Jake with an amazing tale and a strange drawing that may hold the key to solving a murder clouded by history and finding the long-lost City of Gold. Once again, Jake and Mike embark on an adventure, aided by a knowledgeable young intern from the Federal Institute of Native Studies.

Simon Branson is on the run, and Jake Sullivan and Mike Lang head to Paris to track down a killer. Charged by President Fletcher with verifying the incredible secrets found in the Group 45 documents, they are moving ever closer to finding the truth about the package. Surviving a murderous attack in the City of Light, they follow another clue to the Bavarian Alps, where the scattered remains of Group 45 are coalescing around a neofascist proclaiming himself the savior of Western civilization.

Having narrowly escaped a deadly attack in Bavaria, Jake and Mike return to Washington, D.C., and reveal what they believe to be the true identity of “The Package” and the role played by Group 45 in its disappearance. Still in need of the key to break Simon Branson’s code, and ordered by President Fletcher to verify the identity and whereabouts of “The Package”, Jake and Mike travel to South America and then Mexico in search of the truth.

Organizations need to offer customers breakthrough products, services, and solutions to effectively compete in today’s innovation-hungry economy. The challenge is customers often don’t know precisely what they want. As Henry Ford is reputed to have said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."

A frantic late-night phone call from his estranged wife, Linda, brings Jake Sullivan back to his hometown in Western Pennsylvania. Jake's childhood friend and law school classmate Simon Branson is about to be appointed a federal judge for the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania when his wife is brutally murdered and he is charged with the crime. Turning to Jake for help, Branson pleads his innocence and claims to be the victim of a political plot to wreck his judicial appointment.

A Jamaican drug dealer surrenders to authorities after coming ashore in the Florida Keys and tries to bargain for his safety with a fantastic tale of lost pirate treasure and its connection to the Shower Posse drug cartel, the CIA, and more. When a brazen daylight attempt on the dealer’s life leaves American citizens dead on the streets of Miami, President Jordan Fletcher asks Jake Sullivan, chief federal prosecutor in the Justice Department’s Miami office, and his investigator and best friend, Mike Lang, to join a special DEA task force and go to Jamaica to investigate.

Arrested for the murder of a prominent businessman, Jake Sullivan finds himself the object of a conspiracy to take away everything he has as one piece of evidence after another builds the case against him. Jake's best friend, Mike Lang, comes to his aid and his investigation reveals that Jake is to be transferred to an island prison from which there will be no return. Mike arranges an escape with the help of some island characters found only in the southern latitudes.

When a retired United States Senator's passion for deep-sea treasure hunting off the coast of Palm Beach leads to murder, Jake Sullivan, chief prosecutor for the Justice Department in Miami, thinks he has an open and shut case: the DNA of the man pulled out of the warm waters near the ill-fated yacht matches blood found on the deck. But life is never so simple for Jake. In a rush of political maneuvering, Jake's suspect is whisked away by the State Department under a claim of diplomatic immunity. The mystery man is no simple treasure thief; he is a covert operator for the Mossad.