SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, USA, November 13, 2017 /EINPresswire.com/ -- For the third consecutive year, Intermountain Foundation has been honored by the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP) for its exemplary performance in raising funds for its local communities’ health needs. Intermountain Foundation is one of only 51 organizations throughout North America recognized as a “High Performer,” based on analysis in the most recent AHP benchmarking database. High performers represent the top 25 percent of all reporting organizations.
Each year, participating hospital foundations complete a survey that collects detailed information on organizational performance, including fundraising revenue, expenses, and details on specific fundraising programs and staff involvement. AHP analyzes this submitted data and defines high performance as those organizations that are in the 75th percentile for net production.
“To dignify the generous investments made through us, we continually strive to maintain Intermountain Foundation as a donor-centric, best-practice model, representing unique opportunities to impact lives within one of the finest health systems in the country,” said David Flood, Intermountain Foundation President and System Chief Development Officer. “This continued designation confirms that we continue to make significant progress to inspire grateful patients and visionary donors to help drive Intermountain Healthcare’s efforts to transform healthcare.”
About the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy
The Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP) is an international professional organization dedicated exclusively to developing the men and women who encourage charity in North America's health care organizations. Established in 1967, AHP is the source for education, networking, information and research in health care philanthropy.
About Intermountain Foundation
Intermountain Foundation is a not-for-profit organization that supports Intermountain Healthcare’s not-for-profit system of hospitals. Helping people live the healthiest lives possible, Intermountain is widely recognized as a leader in transforming healthcare through high quality and sustainable costs. For more information about Intermountain Foundation, visit intermountainfoundation.org.
Daron Cowley
Intermountain Healthcare
801-442-2834
email us here
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Flight tests help qualify nuclear bomb for US, NATO aircraft
By Leah Bryant, AFNWC Public Affairs
KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M., Nov. 14, 2017 – The Air Force recently completed a series of initial tests to qualify a nuclear gravity bomb for multiple U.S. and NATO aircraft.
The B61-12, the follow-on to the family of B61 nuclear gravity bombs, is a key component of the U.S. nuclear deterrence strategy. Employed by a variety of U.S. and NATO aircraft, the B61-12 will also support extended deterrence commitments with U.S. allies and partners.
“This is the first major Air Force nuclear warhead modernization effort since the mid-1980s,” said Col. Dustin Ziegler, Air Delivered Capabilities director for the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Kirtland. “It is a major effort for AFNWC, paving the way for future nuclear modernization programs like the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent and the Long Range Standoff weapon.”
The testing program is a cooperative effort between the AFNWC and the National Nuclear Security Administration. The NNSA is performing a life extension program on the aging family of B61 nuclear bombs, while the Air Force, with the Boeing Company as the primary contractor, is developing a guided tail-kit assembly, or TKA.
The TKA will be paired with the life-extended B61 to produce the B61-12. The B61-12 will include improved safety, security, and reliability from the legacy variants. The first weapon qualification flight test was flown in March by an F-16, demonstrating the weapon’s use with current fighter aircraft.
“We have an aggressive test schedule to drop 26 unarmed bombs in less than a year, from both F-15E and B-2 aircraft,” said Col. Paul Rounsavall, AFNWC B61-12 senior materiel leader at Eglin AFB, Florida. “We are off to a great start.”
Last week, three F-15E aircraft dropped unarmed B61-12s under different flight conditions, demonstrating the aircraft capability to employ the weapon. In July and August, F-15E aircraft dropped a total of four unarmed B61-12s.
“These tests showed the great teamwork provided by AFNWC’s government and contractor team, in overcoming multiple challenges to provide proof of the tail-kit’s reliability,” Rounsavall said.
“The F-15E has been the workhorse platform during development of the B61-12, with continual development of its software interface,” said Col. Tim Bailey, F-15 system program manager. “It will continue to be the primary testing platform for qualification and reliability testing.
In June, the B61-12 was carried on a B-2 aircraft during a flight test, to demonstrate that the B-2 software integrating the guided B61-12 was on track, Rounsavall said.
“This test was a significant step in our program to integrate the B61-12, the first guided nuclear gravity bomb, onto the B-2 aircraft, and gave us confidence that we are on track to field this capability to Air Force Global Strike Command,” said Col. Bill Patrick, B-2 system program manager. “I’m very proud of our combined B-2 team and their hard work at providing the warfighter with the tools they need to provide an effective and reliable nuclear deterrent.”
“With first production planned for early in fiscal year 2020, we still have challenges ahead, but the interagency team, and all the multiple Air Force participants, have proven up to the task,” Ziegler said. “The program has really energized the entire U.S. nuclear complex, and I’m excited about the future as we continue to modernize the U.S. capability to meet the deterrent needs of the 21st century.”
Several Air Force units have contributed to the testing program, including the B-2 program office at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio; the F-15 program office at Robins AFB, Georgia, and Wright-Patterson AFB; the F-16 program office at Hill AFB, Utah; and multiple developmental and operational test squadrons from Eglin AFB; Edwards AFB, California; Barksdale AFB, Louisiana; Nellis AFB, Nevada; and Whiteman AFB, Missouri.
“The B61-12 design is proving to be solid, and we anticipate great results over the next several years of testing,” Ziegler said.
Headquartered at Kirtland AFB, the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center is responsible for synchronizing all aspects of nuclear materiel management on behalf of Air Force Materiel Command in direct support of Air Force Global Strike Command. The center has about 1,100 personnel assigned to 17 locations worldwide, including Eglin AFB; Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts; Hill AFB; Tinker AFB, Oklahoma; and Ramstein Air Base, Germany.
AFNWC fact sheet: http://www.kirtland.af.mil/Units/Air-Force-Nuclear-Weapons-Center/. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AFNWC/ .
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Best 4 year colleges in Utah by Schools.com
Schools.com’s latest study uses government data to unveil the best 4-year colleges in Utah.
Foster City, CA (November 14, 2017) -- The Utah State University ranked as the No. 1 best 4-year college in the state after being thoroughly evaluated against 13 different criteria in an analysis by Schools.com.
Each school was scored on a 100-point scale using the most recent data available from government sources and based on metrics such as tuition and fees, number of degrees and certificates offered, flexibility, student services, and rates of student graduation, retention and transfer.
Here are the colleges and universities that stood out in the statewide study:
See the details as to why these colleges made it into the top 10 and check out the complete methodology here: https://www.schools.com/online-colleges/utah
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Happy Book Birthday to two new THP titles!
Nature Love Medicine: Essays on Wildness and Wellness
Throughout this illuminating collection, a diverse array of people—psychologists and poets, biologists and artists, a Buddhist teacher—share personal stories that reveal a common theme: when we pay conscious, careful attention to our wider world, we strengthen our core humanity. Nature Love Medicine: Essays on Wildness and Wellness declares that nurturing a love for our biologically and culturally diverse planet is essential in this time of turbulence and change.
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“In Nature Love Medicine, nearly two dozen writers, poets, scientists, and healers reflect on what loving and needing nature really means to them. Read it, and you’ll be stirred to ask the same of your own reflection—in the clearest, quietest pool you can find.”
—ALAN WEISMAN, author of The World Without Us and Countdown
Use the code
PUBLICLANDS
to get 20% off your order!
See editor Thomas Lowe Fleischner's countdown to publication, featuring excerpts from the book and about the contributors, on the Nature Love Medicine Facebook page.
Take a peek at this day 14 post:
EDIE DILLON
“Serendipity, Sculpture, and Story”
“Art’s apparent lack of functional value must belie some other worth. There must be something else life sustaining about encountering art, something about art that we need. And in this time of fascination with the virtual, when adolescents in darkened bedrooms and basements hunch blue-lit over video games to practice detached brutality, we are still inexplicably bound to nature. The first snow, the windy day in April, the panda cam, the glimpse of moon through fast moving clouds, the Facebook video of a sea turtle beginning its journey—all stir something both restive and vestigial. It starts as a small feeling in the core, a story remembered, a way back to mystery.”
Edie Dillon is a nationally exhibited sculptor, painter, and environmental artist whose work seeks to honor the beauty and mystery of the world. She has also worked as an educator, environmental advocate, and national park ranger.
Pursued by a hired killer after they protested at a mining site gate, Luna Waxwing and Hip Hop Hopi seek refuge in the remote Southwest village of Stony Mesa where they start over as micro-farming restaurateurs with a dangerous secret. With their rodeo princess partner Kayla and a colorful cast of unlikely allies, they struggle to find common ground between coyote-killing cowboys and bird-watching retirees.
Along the way they explore the nature of the energetic body, how the sins of the past echo into the present, and how to live lightly but joyously on the land. Can Luna and Hoppy keep their secret? Did Mayor Dooley strangle his rich nemesis? Will Bunny Cleaver’s patriarchal prophecies come true? And what’s the deal with that mystical coyote? Stony Mesa Sagas is a thought provoking and laugh-out-loud romp through the cultural conflicts of today’s American West.
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"[Ward's] his own particular phenomenon, the funniest thing to happen to Utah, and one of the most acute environmental thinkers of our time. Now, good people, go eat up this novel and enjoy every bite, and every biting observation. Buckle your spurs; you’re in for a wild ride."
—REBECCA SOLNIT, author of The Mother of All Questions
Use the code
PUBLICLANDS
to get 20% off your order!
Listen to interviews with Chip Ward about writing Stony Mesa Sagas on UPR's Access Utah, KRCL's RadioActive, and the HEAL Utah podcast.
