This blog is a venue for talking about Chinese medicine, but it is also a place where we can share with our larger Blue Poppy family what's going on here at our offices in Boulder. Although Blue Poppy started out in 1982 as a momma-papa business with Honora and I, in the last 6-7 years especially, we have grown into a team of more than a dozen players. As I progressively transition out of Blue Poppy, this team becomes ever more important.

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In particular, I'd like to mention a few of our key personnel. First and foremost, there's Bruce Staff, our General Manager. Bruce is actually "the boss" around here. With an MBA, degrees in education, and a lifetime of experience in business (large and small), Bruce has made Blue Poppy the company it is today. He's created all the systems that allow our company to run smoothly and efficiently as well as provided a vision of and plan for a sustainable future. Bruce is also the driving force behind Quality Control here at Blue Poppy. Bruce's stated goal is to wow every customer every time with every Blue Poppy product and service. As part of that effort, later this month, Bruce will be visiting our herb factory in Guilin to make sure that everything is in place for our third-party U.S. GMP certification inspection later this year.

Secondly, I'd like to introduce Kurt Ehrenman. Kurt has been our Web partner for 7-8 years now. If you like our Website, you largely have Kurt and his team to thank for that. When something doesn't work quite right, it's Kurt that fixes it. When we want to add another bell or whistle to the site, it's Kurt that figures out how to do it and makes it so. If you like the fact that you can do Blue Poppy Distance Learning entirely on-line from soup to nuts (registration to certificate of completion), it's largely Kurt you have to thank for that. Kurt is also a kick-ass jazz and blues saxophonist and no mean skier.

And third, I'd like to welcome Eric Brand to our team. As many of you know, Eric has huge chops in terms of Chinese language, Chinese medicine, and knowledge of China and Chinese. He's an author, translator, teacher, and practitioner. He's also a lot more savvy about IT than me or Bruce. Just yesterday he announced that he had created a macro which will automatically allow us to replace out-dated Pinyin and Latin herb identifications with the push of a button, including the addition of tone marks for the Pinyin. I can't tell you how many hours of tedious work (not to mention carpal tunnel syndrome) this is going to save all of us around here. Eric's going to be handling a number of jobs at Blue Poppy. Basically, he's going to be sharing my workload and all that I have done for years. So expect to hear more and more about Eric. Already, his additions to this blog have been a huge contribution that I know many of you appreciate.

Please don't think that, by my singling these three out that they are more important than our other employees. We believe that every member of our team is equally important for getting you the products and information you and your patients need. As much as possible, Blue Poppy is organized horizontally, and every one of our employees has a definite say in the running of this company. Tomorrow I'll tell you about our Customer Service team.