Updates on Lake David Holdings, Inc.

Greetings!

Mr Fit continues to be a hearty snow-goer, blazing trails with minimal exhaust plumes and maximum resistance to the pothole crusted streets all while navigating never before encountered tectonic plates made of ice in the mountains of South Minneapolis. Warm-up times have increased this winter as Mr Fit now carries a infant passenger in the early morning hours, and with an extended cold weather season, he has relentlessly battled ice, snow, rain, sludge, sleet, wind, and more snow. One investment made before this winter began was a bloc heater plugin. When Mr Fit has his turn in the garage, he enjoys sipping a little electricity overnight to startup warm and bubbly. We are sure he uses less gas to warm the engine while driving those first 15-20 minutes, thus saving much more than the few cents of electricity consumed. Until we acquire an electrical outlet power usage measurement doodad, we'll have to just trust our gut on this one.

The Mr Fit executive dashboard for fuel reporting has been updated from October through present. If you missed the inline link, simply put yer mouse here for a review of the new and enhanced readout. The reporting system still shows fuel economy by tank, cost per gallon, by tank, and has added monthly graphs for fuel economy, cost, and usage. The monthly look provides a more smoother view of seasonality. For instance, our cost to drive the Fit has dropped by 1/3 over 2 years, and while we think we must be out and about much more in the Summer months, he clearly uses much more gas in the winter. Aside from the occasional roadtrip spike, cost has beeen steady at about $90 for 4 refills a month. All of this information has allowed me to set a revised goal for 2010. While air temp has a lot to do with usage and efficiency, I want to try to push the MPGs back up over 35 earlier than it has in the past couple summer months.

The OBD Scangauge II died sometime early last year, so we're driving "blind" in the sense that only our intuition of what it used to tell us can guide behavior. On the lookout for a new, similar add-on that doesn't have quite the same price tag yet shows realtime MPG (like the newer model Fit I believe incorporated in-dash). Have you seen anything similar or discovered a way to get new data added to the in-dash LED display that's already in the computer?



On the work front, David has transitioned from Senior Database Marketing Analyst to Database Developer, still at The Lacek Group. He is excited for the new technical challenges, and opportunity to bring his marketing knowledge and strong communication skills to the Application Development and Information Management practice team. My work has expanded from basic campaign analysis and QA into building and executing logic for dynamic messaging for our Alamo, National and Enterprise Rent-A-Car customers, as well as working with FICO (Fair Isaac) on the Enterprise business. I am training a new marketing analytics director on reporting processes while taking on a handful of new promotional projects for the three brands and their partners. Despite a difficult reduction in staff last year, TLG is rebounding and building back to its former might. Through strategic reorganization and new development in the project management arena, it positions itself to be scalable and capable of handling larger clients' data. TLG has grown the Ford Owner Advantage program, tripled the size of its car rental business to include all three Enterprise brands (Emerald Club, Quicksilver, and Enterprise Plus), designed and promoted US Bank's FlexPerks VISA card, and a great deal more, all while seemingly every company around shed staff. It's fun to be a part of a company with a realistic but positive attitude. . .one where they challenge their staff to do more and more, but don't take away your post-it notes to save pennies.

I'd love to hear from my readers.. how are your companies managing during the struggling economy? Has it led you to try something new?