Trade Compliance Road Warrior

2009 started out a bit modestly for me travel wise. Most certainly due to the global economy. However, as March approaches I have a number of travels coming that will take me a number of important trade compliance events, including:

Export Regulatory "Coffee" (for Clients), Houston, TX - February 24

SIA Back to Basics ITAR Conference, San Diego, CA - March 2 - 4

ICPA (International Compliance Professionals Association) Annual Conference, Anaheim, CA - March 8 - 12

BIS Export Control Forum, Newport Beach, CA - March 16 - 17

ACI National Forum on Export Controls, Washington, DC - May 19 - 20

I am also working on a number of other events and will post more here later...

Compliance Blues...the lyrics now have MUSIC!

If you have visited my blog before you may have stumbled upon the lyrics to "Compliance Blues", a song a which I wrote in 2002. Well, thanks to my good friend Tim Birchard, there is now some music to go with those lyrics. You can access the song

by clicking on the title of this post above.

Tim is like a brother to me as well as being a fine muscian and singer. If you like this tune, you can check out Tim's other work, including his new CD at his website. Tim is not a "starving artist" but if it'll help him turn more people on to his music, I will gladly say that he could put on a few pounds...

Taking another stab at it...

I started this blog with grand intentions but was subsequently consumed with the reality of the daily grind. As the title above reflects, I am going to try to be a bit more communicative and use this blog to post some ideas, news, musings, etc. However, I doubt it will be frequent activity. In the current economic climate one has to keep one's focus on what really matters.

Since my last post, I joined Facebook and created a group there for the Export Compliance Professional. It is technically a "closed" group whereby you have to apply to me to join, but as I have been trying to get the membership up to a decent level, I've simply been approving anyone who wants to join....but I am going to want to see some trade compliance credentials before long here, especially from those I don't know.