12:02 a.m. EST January 26, 2015

Edward F. Cassidy stands in the warehouse of his South Toms River business, Progressive Dimensions Countertops.(Photo: TANYA BREEN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)

Edward F. Cassidy ownsProgressive Dimensions Countertops in South Toms River.

When did you decide you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

Ever since I can remember. I always had a job where I could be, somewhat, financially independent. My parents didnt give us an allowance, so I pretty much signed on for whatever I could, like a paper route or snow shoveling.

Why did you start this business?

Well, I like working with my hands. Initially, I landed a job building countertops and cabinets but I left there to work as a general carpenter building decks, putting in windows and doors, etc. I even dabbled in building furniture. It was only when I went back into the cabinet and countertop business as a subcontractor, years later, that I decided to strike out on my own by opening a business in the countertop industry.

Were there any challenges that made you think twice about striking out on your own?

It was a make-it-or-break-it in my situation. I borrowed money from a former employer and rented out a small garage to start. I worked long hours, even though I was a newlywed. We also just bought a house, so it was scary. But, people kept coming back for my services and I started getting a lot of referrals, so I was inspired to keep going.

Whats the best business advice you have ever received?

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South TR countertop maker fulfills his dream

We're sitting in a room that's maybe 9 feet wide by 20 feet long, lined with countertops that hold 12 TV monitors. The screens let us spy upon what's normally one of the most private of encounters: the interaction between doctor and patient, taking place in a dozen nearby examining rooms. In three of the rooms, the patient is talking about a worrisome bout of diarrhea. Patients in another three rooms are complaining about their chronic insomnia. Three more are seeking medical advice about shortness of breath, while the final trio (all young women) have been coughing up blood. The white-coated figures in the exam rooms are asking questions. Some take notes. Almost all pull out stethoscopes and listen to hearts and lungs and stomach gurgles. But none of the White Coats is licensed to practice medicine. They're third-year medical students being tested on how well they deal with patients. And none of the "patients" is actually ailing. They're actors who've been trained to serve as both the students' test and their grader.

Almost unheard of 25 years ago, such actors are now a fixture at every medical school in the United States, according to Peggy Wallace. She heads the program that hires "standardized patients" (as the actors are known) on the UCSD campus. Wallace says med schools have embraced this approach in part because two years ago the board that licenses U.S. doctors began requiring candidates to pass a day-long evaluation of their clinical skills. In that grueling marathon, the aspiring doctor sees a dozen standardized patients who might complain of anything from dizziness to depression.

The licensing board's insistence that would-be MDs demonstrate interpersonal savvy with patients reflects a sea change. Wallace says doctors once thought that a good bedside manner was something one was born with. "They thought you either had it or you didn't." But research over the past two decades has shown that winning patients' trust is "a teachable skill," she asserts. It's not one most people learn in the course of their normal social interactions because "the interaction of a doctor with a patient is not a normal social interaction," Wallace points out. In a normal social setting, you don't let anyone examine your body. You'd be startled and affronted if another person asked about the color of your feces or how many people you were having sex with. But doctors do. Practicing on simulated patients can help them learn to appear both professional and caring, according to the current thinking.

The UCSD School of Medicine's use of standardized patients seems designed to squeeze every iota of insight from the contrived encounters. Consider the third-year students' midterm exam that I observed from the room with the TV screens. Each of the 12 students that afternoon saw one patient who was short-winded, one with diarrhea, one who was sleepless, and one coughing up blood. Although three different actors played each type of patient, each of the three was depicting the same person (based on a real case), and he or she had learned that patient's personal and medical history in detail.A number of different problems and/or diseases might be causing each symptom, the student doctors knew. But their grades for the midterm would not depend on whether they came up with the right diagnoses. The point instead, Wallace explained, was to assess their clinical skills -- the tools they would need to arrive at correct diagnoses time after time. They would have to examine the relevant parts of each patient's body. To know what those were, they would need to interview the patients about their current complaints as well as their medical and family histories. To get the most out of the interview, "There's a whole series of things we teach the students," Wallace says. "For instance, you want to ask open-ended questions at the beginning. If they're coming in with chest pain, you might say, 'Tell me about your chest pain.' You might say something empathetic like, 'That must have been quite frightening for you. Tell me about it.' You want to give the patient an opportunity to say what they're experiencing. What that does is to give the patient a sense that the doctor cares about more than just what the doctor needs. And that builds trust. 'This guy cares about me. I can ask him the question I'm most worried about, which is, "Is my headache a brain tumor?" ' My satisfaction with this encounter is going to be different if I can't get that question out."

In the midterm, every time a student doctor said good-bye and left the exam room, the actor/ patient hurried to a computer and filled out a 30- to 40-question form assessing everything from whether the physical exam included all the requisite maneuvers to whether the med student "listened actively, [paying] attention to both my verbal and nonverbal cues; used facial expressions/ body language to express encouragement; avoided interruptions; asked questions to make sure s/he understood what I said." The student's grade for the exam would be based on this checklist. But Wallace makes it clear that grading the students is only part of the exercise.

The midterm, which features different cases every year, was also designed to be a learning experience, so while the patients were filling out their questionnaire, the students were doing the same thing -- enabling comparison of the two perspectives. Then the students came back into the exam rooms and spent ten minutes talking to the actors (no longer in character). "How did you think it went?" the actors began that interaction. They ended the feedback session by asking what the student would take away from the experience. Wallace said the hope was that the students would go into the next exam room and practice working on the skill they had just identified as needing improvement. "What we know from the research is that you have to practice it immediately or you lose it," she told me. "And it takes about three months of using something before it becomes part of your behavior."

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They love to act sick.

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(Taipei) Taiwanese high power LED lighting company Aeon Lighting Technology Inc.(ALT), is now looking for sales talents, experienced RD engineers, and purchasing agents from all around the world! ALT hopes to recruit individuals that are determined to promote LED lighting across the globe. ALTs very own brand, ALTLED , has long been in high demand worldwide with its innovative technology and professional service. ALTLED covers a wide range of products which caught buyers attention from varies industries.

James Liang, the CEO of ALT, believes firmly that for a start-up business, corporate social responsibility is of the utmost importance. Liang states that ALT is primarily responsible to the Earth, the employees of ALT, and the customers before considering the profit. In the competitive market today, ALT is the worlds leading LED bulb manufacturers and exporter. Part of reason for this is the product quality of ALT and its strong belief in being green. Since it was founded in 2007, ALTs products have reduced 480,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emission, which is equivalent to the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed annually by 48,000,000 trees that are over twenty years old. With this belief, ALT continues to improve its technology to create better LED lighting products with high brightness and high CRI in hopes of closing the gap between LED light bulbs and traditional incandescent light bulbs. ALT aims to spread LED to all and realize the philosophy of sustainable development by staying green.

Besides continuing to improve the efficiency of LED lighting, ALT also participates in charity work. To support this, ALT cooperates with international and domestic buyers at international lighting fairs every year. Last year, ALT started a donation project to give away indoor and outdoor LED light bulbs to orphanages and daycare centers for children and elders to provide a safer and environmental-friendly place to live. Since five years ago, ALTs international student internship program has helped hundreds of students from developing countries to get to know about green technology in hopes of bringing back this idea back to their own countries. Liang emphasizes that the company does not need to wait to start giving back to the society. With this in mind, he guides ALT to do whatever they can to achieve a greener and brighter future. Pursuit of perfection, environmental purity is ALTs mission statement and ALT warmly welcomes those that share the same values to join aboard and together help do what is right for the Earth.

About Aeon Lighting Technology Aeon Lighting Technology (ALT) is a leading high-power LED manufacturer that focuses on precision and quality. ALT has acquired hundreds of patents, including state-of-the-art heat sink technology and has been awarded numerous international awards, including M Technology Award (2009), iF Product Design Award (2010), Red Dot Design Award (2011), and Good Design Award (2012). ALT has also passed international safety certifications such as Energy Star, DLC, UL, ETL, CE, PSE, C-TICK, LVD, FCC, TV, etc. ALTs team of designers, engineers and sales strive for perfection and provide premium quality products and service for customers worldwide. For further information, please visit Aeon Lighting http://www.aeonlighting.com.

Media Contact: Nina Chen Tel: +886-2-82261289 ext # 3005 Email: altpr@aeonlighting.com

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ALT is Now Hiring Elites to Help Sustaining the Earth with Green Technology

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Taking on the job, Sathirat vowed to focus more on the training of young architects as well as green and sustainable designs.

"This year, we'll finance

overseas training in Japan - a major producer of steel. Winners of a contest from three zones - South Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia - can learn how to incorporate steel in their work," he said. He also plans the networking of young talents in Asia and later link them with those in the United States and the Union Internationale des Architects.

In November, Thailand will host the 36th ARCASIA Council Meeting & Forum. Over 1,000 architects from across Asia will attend the conference in Ayutthaya, which is held under the "Future of the Past" theme, to conserve cultural heritage. The event will also focus on designs that can withstand natural disasters like floods and earthquakes.

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Sathirat named as first Thai to lead Asia-based architect organisation

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), revealed plans for the redevelopment of its 14-acre campus. The master plan by Steven Holl Architects includes the new 164,000-square-foot Nancy and Rich Kinder Building, designed by Holl, which will add 30 percent more gallery space to the museum and will house 20th- and 21st-century art.

Rendering of the new campus plan by Steven Holl Architects.

A new 80,000-square-foot home for the Glassell School of Art will allow the school to double its student population. Also designed by Holl, the school will be L-shaped and will feature a precast concrete structure and a stepped amphitheater that leads to a trellised roof garden. The plan also includes a preliminary design by Lake|Flato Architects for the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation Center for Conservation.

Rendering of the lobby of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building by Steven Holl Architects.

Rendering of the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation Center for Conservation by Lake|Flato Architects. The master plan, called the Fayez S. Sarofim Campus, will integrate the new structures into the campus, which features a sculpture garden by Isamu Noguchi and buildings by William Ward Watkin, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Rafael Moneo. All parking will be moved underground, allowing green spaces on campus to be woven together to create a 14-acre pedestrian zone. A landscape architect will soon be selected.

The new plan is expected to cost $450 million and MFAH has raised $330 million to date. The project is set to begin later this year and is planned to be complete in 2019.

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MFAH Announces Expansion Plans by Steven Holl Architects

By design, a new mid-rise building in Prince George, B.C., breaks many conventions of commercial construction.

At 29.5 metres, its height alone makes the Wood Innovation and Design Centre the highest contemporary wood structure of its type in North America a record soon to be broken by others. The $25.1-million centre also stands out for its embrace of engineered wood: thick panels, columns and beams of so-called mass timber, sturdier and more fire-resistant than lightweight wood frame construction.

Built as a showcase for woods potential in mid-rise and taller buildings, the provincial government-owned centre houses academic and research programs at the University of Northern British Columbia and corporate offices. Its opening last fall comes as architects and others look to push the traditional boundaries of wood as a structural material in commercial construction. See earlier story: Six-storey wood buildings a game-changer.

The building is a very important milestone and stepping stone as we work our way higher into the taller wood building arena, says Michael Green, principal of Vancouver-based Michael Green Architecture and the centres architect. He used engineered wood products for the centres stair and elevator core and, for the floor assembly, eliminated a layer of concrete typically needed to muffle sound.

The hardest part of this process of introducing a new way to build is not the engineering; it is shifting the publics perception of what is possible, adds Mr. Green, co-author of the 2012 industry-financed study, The Case for Tall Wood Buildings.

Climate change is one factor behind the rise of wood as a competitive rival to concrete and steel, the typical energy-consuming components of taller buildings. Mr. Green likens the shift to adopting healthy eating habits.

What we want to do is reduce the things that we know arent good for us, like steel and concrete, but that doesnt mean we get rid of them completely, he says. We are just reproportioning these materials in buildings and not trying to say that one is exclusive over another.

Also raising woods profile is an expanded menu of engineered products, first developed in Europe a decade ago but now manufactured in Canada. One recent arrival is cross-laminated timber, engineered in various panel thicknesses of 2 x 6 planks, glued cross-wise, often pre-cut and assembled on site faster than traditional materials.

Architects also use laminated veneer lumber (thin strips glued together), laminated strand lumber (a largely warp-free composite material) and glue laminated timber, an established product known for its steel-rivaling strength and used for horizontal beams or vertical columns.

In just 15 years, wood has repositioned itself as a high-tech material, says Vancouver engineer Eric Karsh, a principal at Vancouver-based Equilibrium Consulting Inc., and Mr. Greens co-author of the tall wood building study. People are starting to see it as a high-tech material and it is no longer something you use in a rough or inefficient manner, he adds. We have shown that wood can be used in just about any building type so now it is just a matter of weighing the pros and cons.

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Next-generation wood pushes to greater heights