Bill Meyer Show Blog and Guest Information for 4/29 to 5/3/2024

8:35 Richard Emmons, Publisher and Editor of the Oregon Eagle – a talk on the county charter change measures. More information and subscription details at www.OregonEagle.com

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Wednesday 05-01-24 Bill Meyer Show Guest Information

(Podcasts on www.BillMeyerShow.com)

6:35 Eric Peters, auto journalist with www.Epautos.com and today’s Wheels Up Wednesday talk on various must-read articles including:

https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2024/05/01/the-driver-who-doesnt/

https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2024/04/29/2024-kia-ev9/

https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2024/04/30/weight-ought-not-to-be-taken-lightly/

7:10 Mark Seligman, State Representative for HD3 Democratic Party candidate talks about Jo County issues and how the state could help.

7:35 State Senator Dennis Linthicum, Republican primary candidate for Secretary of State. www.ElectDennis.com

His latest newsletter “Feted…and Fed” – https://mailchi.mp/electdennis/fetted_fed_0430_10000?e=0491e75abc

8:45 Advanced Air and Randal Lee on Open for Business – www.MyAdvancedAir.com with today’s special at 541-772-6866 – Get a 2^nd opinion on your HVAC and possibly save THOUSANDS of dollars through Advanced Air. Fee only $80 to $90. `

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Tuesday 04-30-24 Bill Meyer Show Guest Information

(Podcasts on www.BillMeyerShow.com)

6:35 Dr. Jane Orient M.D., Executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons www.Aapsonline.org

COVID-19: Is the Death Rate Higher after Vaccination?

Are you up to date on your COVID boosters? Your doctor may be nudging you—since the recommendations and information on shot availability may be in every issue of medical society electronic publications, as they are in Arizona. Uptake is considered disappointing—even though most doctors are apparently not warning patients of immediate or delayed adverse reactions. These graphs show deaths per day in a population group by day after receiving a pneumonia vaccine, or after a COVID-19 vaccine, according to Medicare data.

Read the full post: https://aapsonline.org/covid-19-is-the-death-rate-higher-after-vaccination/

7:10 State Rep Dwayne Yunker reports on yesterday’s trip to the border and other political news

7:35 Josephine County Commissioner Herman Baertschiger. Local and state politics…and…INFLATION – what’s it really doing to the gov and personal economy?

8:45 `Open for Business with Royal Stanley from Oregon Pacific Financial Advisors and Todd Tippin of TMT Business Services. They’re putting on FREE seminars for business owners of more than a million dollars in yearly revenue and they’ll offer strategies to prep your business for sale but for the MOST amount possible in order to help pay the owner’s retirement. Reserve your spot by calling 541-772-1116 or visit www.opfa.com/events to register.

MORE INFO:

Attend the ‘Successful Succession Planning for Business Owners’ presentation with Todd Tippin of TMT Business Services and Royal Standley of Oregon Pacific Financial Advisors and hear financial strategies for your future and the future of your business.

If you are a business owner with over one million in annual revenue and pondering your succession plan, this is for you. Join us for an insightful evening seminar led by expert business consultants and financial planners and discover tegies to maximize your business value, minimize taxes, and plan your next move. Reserve your spot now by calling 541-772-11-16 or visit opfa.com forward slash events. Visit opfa.com forward slash events to register.

Securities offered by United Planners. Member FINRA/S I P C. United Planners is not affiliated with OPFA or TMT.

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Monday 4-29-24 Bill Meyer Show Guest Information

(Podcasts on www.BillMeyerShow.com)

6:35 Dr Currie Myers, America’s Criminologist, is an applied criminologist, academician, author, consultant, and retired sheriff of Johnson County, Kansas which is one of the largest sheriff’s offices in the Midwest. Johnson County has a population of nearly 650,000 and is the largest populated county in the Kansas City Metropolitan area. Dr. Myers is on faculty in the criminology department at Benedictine College and is a public safety adviser to Americans for Prosperity.

He is a media favorite on radio, podcasts, and television to include national syndicated radio shows and television. He has been featured numerous times on Fox News National programs. His published works and weekly podcast can be viewed on Substack at www.drcurriemyers.substack.com

Dr. Currie Myers, retired Sheriff of Johnson City, Kansas, writes this week about how Operation Snowcap was a significant initiative by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to combat the international trafficking of drugs, particularly cocaine, heroin, and marijuana. It was launched in the 1980s and remained active for several years, with operations continuing into the 1990s and beyond.

Writes Dr. Myers, “Bringing back a program akin to Operation Snowcap could provide a comprehensive approach to addressing the flow of drugs into the United States and other countries. By focusing on collaboration between law enforcement agencies and governments across key drug-producing regions, such an initiative could enhance interdiction efforts, target trafficking networks, and support the dismantling of drug cartels and organizations.

Moreover, with advancements in technology and intelligence-sharing capabilities since the time of Operation Snowcap, a new iteration of such a program could leverage these tools to enhance its effectiveness further. By adopting a multifaceted strategy that combines law enforcement action with targeted interventions to address root causes of drug production and trafficking, a revived Operation Snowcap could play a crucial role in mitigating the flow of drugs into the US and beyond in present-day circumstances.”

7:10 Joyce Michealangelo and Jackson County Commissioner Colleen Roberts discuss the next two evenings of townhall meetings against Measures 15-224, 225, and 226.

7:35 Chris Barnett, candidate for Josephine County Commission https://www.votechrisbarnett.com/

8:10 Dr. Dennis Powers, Where Past meets Present – www.DennisPowersBooks.com

Frederick Schilling: Dagoba Chocolate and More

By Dennis Powers

Frederick Schilling was born in 1971 in Minnesota, and his father had been an IBM corporate manager, but who retired at age 49 to live life non-corporately. His son followed the example. Frederick left Ohio Wesleyan while on a lacrosse scholarship, intending to study religion and satisfy his spiritual needs. He attended a music festival in Telluride, Colorado, however, and then decided on a music life. Playing the guitar, he wrote songs and became the lead singer in a band. He moved to Boulder, where he could ski and live the life. To make ends meet, Schilling became a chef in a high-end restaurant and discovered the joys of using cocoa with the best bean selection.

He learned that the early Mayans revered cacao as a drink of the gods, and that Aztecs used cacao beans for currency. In 2001, Shilling became intrigued by this and started making his own organic chocolate. The first ingredients included Chai tea spices, chilies, and dried rosehips.

After experimenting extensively in his home kitchen, Shilling quit to start his own business.

With his girlfriend, Tracey Holderman (whom he later married and divorced), Frederick traveled in 2001 to New York City to attend the Fancy Food Show and launch Dagoba, his organic-chocolate company. (The name is derived from the Sanskrit word for a dome-shaped memorial alleged to contain relics of Buddha or a Buddhist saint, or commonly a “temple”.) Although Dagoba didn’t have employees or orders, it did have a small industrial building lease, wrapped organic bar samples, and his family backing (an initial $20,000 investment).

Making cold calls to sell his chocolate, it took time to build Dagoba’s reputation. He hand-poured the chocolate into molds and wrapped the bars for the first two years. An East Coast distributor later ordered 10,000 of the chocolate bars. Schilling poured each one (over ten 18-hour days), and his mother, who still lived in Minnesota, flew in to help with others.

In the summer of 2002, the company made its first million dollars in sales. As the business grew, he decided to move its operations from Boulder to the Rogue Valley, all after looking at other areas, due to its lower costs, less congestion, and close-by outdoors. Later, they moved from a 3,000 square-foot, Central Point space to Ashland (on Benson Way) in 2005 for a nearly 40,000 square-foot facility. They added new machinery and more employees; product lines were expanded to include cocoa powder, chocolate syrup, truffles, bars with different tastes and ingredients, and more.

The awards flowed in: “Best Chocolate,” CNN-Money, 2003; “Tops the List,” Money magazine, 2004; “Best Dark Chocolate, Organic Style,” San Francisco Chronicle, 2004; “Best Flavored Organic Chocolate,” Time magazine, 2005. And so did the orders: They produced in 2005 more than 700,000 pounds of chocolate products. The marketing aided with wrappers touting the percentage of pure cacao used and the region where the cacao beans were grown (primarily organic farms in the Caribbean and Latin America countries such as Peru, Ecuador, and Costa Rica.) Encouraging farmers to grow organic crops, partnerships were created with cacao growers and their towns.

Hershey then paid $17 million in 2006 for the business and kept it in Ashland. Bored afterwards, Shilling began moving into closely connected fields. He’s a partner and co-CEO in a sustainable/organic-supply-chain company based in Indonesia, Big Tree Farms; it sells into the international organic/natural/specialty markets. Its products include: coconut palm sugar, cacao/chocolate, coconut water concentrate, peppercorns, Balinese sea salt, honeys, cashews, and other ingredients. Big Tree Farms sources its raw material from 10,000 small, Indonesian farmers, primarily on the islands of Bali, Java, and Sulawesi, and operates four factories with some 400 employees. It’s now Indonesia’s largest organic food company and the biggest producer and manufacturer of coconut sweeteners in the world.

Begun in 2008, he also is a partner in AMMA Chocolate, a Brazilian organic company with a factory in El Salvador and headquarters in Sao Paulo. As to Dagoba, Hershey divested the brand in June 2021, and it became a privately-held company. In late 2023, he joined the “Corporate Advisory Board” for Innovative MedTech, a company in the natural foods business.

Frederick Shilling still has an Ashland home (although traveling extensively abroad)–not bad for an ex-songwriter, musician, and chef.

Sources: Bill Buford, “Extreme Chocolate,” The New Yorker magazine, October 29, 2007, at Founder’s and Dagoba Background; Jennifer Squires, “Dagoba chocolate founder Frederick Schilling,” Ashland Daily Tidings, Oct. 18, 2005; Greg Stiles, “Dagoba founder Frederick Schilling now global player,” Mail Tribune, December 28, 2016; at Wikipedia, see “Dagoba Organic Chocolate.

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