The Beans and the Dreams: Reader's Edition (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781492325819)

I would just like to share a few words about myself so that the reader might understand a little of my background. I grew up in England with an English mother and a Texan Father. I didn't have it too easy as a youngster and finally left grammar school to take up an apprenticeship with Royal Dutch Shell as an instrument mechanic. I later became a sales engineer for Honeywell Controls and other organizations. Having married at the age of 19, my wife has been my lifelong companion and we have lived a busy and adventurous life. In our young years, we decided jointly to become teachers and took a teaching degree at London University. She majored in mathematics (so she has always looked after the 'beans') and I in religious studies (the dreams).. It was during this time that I met Hugh Schonfield and worked with him on his vision of a new society based on equity and justice. Another of his associates was Willi Haller. We became close friends with him and his family. Together we founded a community school in London to experiment with practice-oriented education for school dodgers. Later we joined Willi in Germany at the founding of his company Interflex where I became materials manager (so I did my fair share of managing beans too). Some ten years later, I founded my own electronics company, which was finally passed on to my son Amos a couple of years ago and continues to grow, before setting to write down these thoughts. I have also founded the Arun and Sunanda Gandhi Educational Institute in Germany with Arun Gandhi whilst at a conference in Nepal as a delegate from the International Leadership and Business Society of which I am chairman. I have been lecturing strategic management and marketing to students from a wide variety of universities in both English and German for well over a decade now. One learns a lot from the interaction with others and many students bring a lot of their experience into the process. I am also a council member of the historical Sack Family Foundation, which means that I travel and interact with the most interesting people across the globe from all walks of life. All these experiences have been very enriching for me and I hope you will join us in the quest for deeper knowledge and understanding.