OXNARD, Calif., Oct.2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --A new book from one of the nation's most experienced retirement experts answers two of the most important financial questions retirees and soon-to-be retirees will ever face:

With the decline of traditional defined benefit pension plans and the rise of self-directed retirement plans including 401k plans, addressing these questions is one of the most important challenges facing individuals, employers and the entire retirement industry today. Many surveys show that older workers and retirees are struggling with these questions and need help. And Steve Vernon delivers much needed help with his latest book, Money for Life: Turn Your IRA and 401(k) Into a Lifetime Retirement Paycheck.

Money for Life is an easy-to-read, easy-to-understand book that outlines specific action steps and includes illustrations and graphs to support Vernon's points. The book shows in simple terms the three methods for generating a "retirement paycheck" from retirement savings. It explains the pros and cons of these methods, as well as their many varieties and permutations, to help soon-to-be retirees understand just how to generate the money they will need to live comfortably in retirement. One critical factor is the amount of the "retirement paycheck," which can vary widely depending on the method chosen to generate retirement income. This understanding will remove the mystery and frustration around this critical retirement planning decision.

Money for Life also includes these unique features:

Money for Life delivers these powerful messages:

"Workers and retirees usually don't learn about the variety of viable methods to generate a retirement paycheck," says Vernon. "In fact, many people only hear about one or two methods, often from financial planners who have a financial stake in their decisions. Americans want choice in most everything they buy, and that's particularly important for their retirement security."

The book also addresses the behavioral finance issues by debunking common myths and misperceptions about generating retirement income.

This exciting new book provides critical help for boomers who are approaching their retirement years as well as their financial advisors. It's also a great tool for employers and retirement plan sponsors who want to help their employees and participants better prepare for retirement.

About the Author

Steve Vernon, FSA, has more than 35 years of experience as a consulting actuary, helping Fortune 1000 companies design and manage their retirement programs. He provides trusted, unbiased guidance on retirement planning through his regular blog column for CBS MoneyWatch and his four previously published books. For more details on his experience, books, and services, visit Steve's website, http://www.restoflife.com. Steve can be reached directly at steve.vernon@restoflife.com.

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New Book Reveals How to Turn IRAs and 401(k) Plans Into Lifetime Retirement Paychecks

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

More than one third of adults in the U.S., 37 percent, are interested in working with a professional to help manage their retirement accounts but dont think they have enough savings and investments to do so, according to a survey released by E*TRADE. The survey found that many Americans are unaware or overwhelmed by their options for retirement savings.

E*TRADE has a long history of empowering individuals to take control of their financial futures and planning for retirement is a key component, explained Lena Haas, SVP, Investing and Retirement at E*TRADE. By providing investors with simple ways to make informed decisions in their retirement planning we are helping them avoid unnecessary expenses and focus on reaching their financial goals.

E*TRADE offers a wide range of free tools and educational resources to help investors plan for retirement. For one-to-one retirement planning support, E*TRADE has Rollover Specialists and a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor (CRPC) in every branch and available over the phone. Recently, E*TRADE launched the OneStop Rollover, an online program that makes it faster and easier for individual investors to invest their 401(k) savings from a previous employer into a professionally-managed portfolio with a low minimum of $25,000. Investors can access E*TRADEs OneStop Rollover at http://www.etrade.com/retirement, where theyll also find tools like the Retirement Calculator to create or review their current retirement plan.

Additional key findings from E*TRADEs survey include:

Survey Methodology

This survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive on behalf of E*TRADE from August 20-22, 2012 among 2,399 adults ages 18 and older. Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables, please contact Jaime Stein (646-521-4418; jaime.stein@etrade.com.)

About E*TRADE Financial

The E*TRADE Financial family of companies provides financial services including online brokerage and related banking products and services to retail investors. Specific business segments include Trading and Investing and Balance Sheet Management. Securities products and services, including IRAs, Rollover Specialists, CRPCs and the Retirement Calculator are offered by E*TRADE Securities LLC (Member FINRA/SIPC). Advisory products and services, including OneStop Rollover, are offered through E*TRADE Capital Management LLC an investment adviser registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A copy of E*TRADE Capital Management's Form ADV Part 2A, which describes, among other things, affiliations, services offered and fees charged, is available at no cost upon request. Bank products and services are offered by E*TRADE Bank, a Federal savings bank, Member FDIC, or its subsidiaries and affiliates. More information is available at http://www.etrade.com. ETFC-G

Important Notices

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Investors Underestimate Retirement Savings Opportunities Says E*TRADE Survey

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Corporate Insight, the leading provider of competitive intelligence to the financial services industry, has announced the launch of a new subscription research service, Retirement Plan Monitor. This new Monitor service will track the website capabilities and marketing materials that retirement plan sponsors provide to plan participants. Corporate Insight will offer subscribers an unbiased, first-hand view of the user experience by monitoring live accounts that are held by actual plan participants at each firm.

Retirement plan participants are increasingly turning to the web to manage their plan investments. Unfortunately, the resources available to them are sometimes sub-par compared to what many brokerages and banks provide to their customers, explains Drew Maresca, senior analyst for Retirement Plan Monitor. Retirement Plan Monitor will provide firms with an informed look at the online capabilities and participant communications that their competitors provide, along with Corporate Insights analysis of industry trends and best practices. We are confident this will make it easier for our subscribers to create a best-in-class online user experience for plan participants.

Corporate Insight will track a number of the industrys top defined contribution plan providers including:

-- MassMutual

-- Mercer

-- New York Life

-- Principal

-- TIAA-CREF

-- T. Rowe Price

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Corporate Insight Launches Retirement Plan Monitor

RIYADH, KSA--(Marketwire - Oct 2, 2012) - With a need to create a modern, future-proof network infrastructure to support bandwidth-intensive research applications and data sharing across global universities and research agencies --such as the IAEA (the International Atomic Energy Agency) and the UNESCO (the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization) --King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), the national science agency and laboratory for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has turned to Brocade ( NASDAQ : BRCD ) to deliver a state-of-the-art network infrastructure comprised of high-performance campus networking and load balancing solutions.

Commenting about the reasons behind the upgrade, Eng. Hasan Alhowimel, Assistant of IT Directory and Network Engineer at KACST, said, "Factors such as an increasing number of employees and deployment of bandwidth-intensive applications -- like Oracle ERP, wireless applications as well as external services [to share data with international agencies] -- led to tremendous strain on the underlying infrastructure. We had plans to go wireless to increase user productivity, but were being held back by the limitations of a network that could not deliver the kind of performance we required. The need for a more stable, high-performance network was becoming increasingly obvious to us, and we knew that the success of a number of our future initiatives would depend on a strong and reliable foundation."

The new Brocade campus network environment, deployed by Brocade's local partner Nesma Advanced Technology, spans 16 buildings including the KACST headquarters, which houses the institution's data center. Each building has a Brocade FCX Series switch at the edge connected to a Brocade FastIron SX Series switch with 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) uplinks to Brocade BigIron RX Series core switches in the data center. KACST also deployed Brocade VDX 6720 Switches to provide reliability and performance, while paving the way for the institution to deploy Brocade VCS Fabric technology and private cloud services in the future.

The benefits of the Brocade FastIron SX switches, with industry-leading Power over Ethernet (PoE) technology, were immediately realized. "We found that the Brocade PoE solution not only reduced the cost of cabling, but also greatly simplified integration of our security camera and fingerprint attendance systems," said Eng. Alhowimel.

As part of the wider network upgrade, the Brocade ADX Series of application delivery switches allowed KACST to achieve significant performance benefits from its Web portal. The Brocade ADX switches have also future-proofed the KACST for IPv6 support, enabling a seamless migration to this technology as required.

Since the network upgrade, KACST has seen improved performance and a dramatic increase in the speed of its many applications and Web services. The agency has successfully deployed its wireless network, which effortlessly manages the additional load from personal mobile devices, the security infrastructure and attendance systems.

The implementation has also brought about significant cost benefits. "The cost of the Brocade solution was exactly half that of the equivalent competitive offering, but delivers so much more in terms of performance," notes Eng. Alhowimel.

Such improved performance allows the agency to connect and collaborate with a broad network of universities and research centers across the globe. This permits the sharing of extremely expensive research equipment, which is used for analysis and calculations. Thanks to the new network, KACST now shares the utilization and cost of these systems with other research agencies.

About Brocade Brocade ( NASDAQ : BRCD ) networking solutions help the world's leading organizations transition smoothly to a world where applications and information reside anywhere. (www.brocade.com)

2012 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Brocade Helps KACST Deliver High-Performance Connectivity to Global Network of Universities and Research Agencies

WASHINGTON, Oct. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- Answering an anonymized survey, more than 400 defense executives rated the top 20 defense firms across a wide range of criteria, showing significant deviations in perceptions among executives with different job roles and positions in the industry. This is the second year Defense Industry Daily conducted the survey of its defense procurement readership, analyzing the data to show individual firm trends for each of the measurements. Overall, contractors were rated worse than in 2011, especially in quality ratings.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121002/CG84628)

Starting off on opposite ends of the ratings spectrum, defense IT firms (poor performers last year) and major aerospace contractors (good performers in 2011) both suffered significantly worse ratings this year. These ratings were even worse among engineering executives and those with personal experience with those firms.

Defense contractors tended to perform in sync with other firms in their sector, and the included graph shows how those different defense sectors fared against each other.

"The individual comments people made in the open-ended questions were some of the most informative data we collected," said Defense Industry Daily CEO Olivier Travers. "It was in those boxes that the executives explained their reasoning and the causal links behind their more positive and negative ratings."

Travers noted three interesting developments in the 2012 data: "We found that respondents were more critical of the larger prime contractors; that they were less concerned with ITAR restrictions; and that the entire industry is progressively more disillusioned with the major information technology firms."

The study, a 45-page analysis containing more than 30 comparative charts, examines the different opinion sets in multiple dimensions, including by job role, industry sector, U.S. vs. international respondents and several other factors.

The study identified several segments and individual firms that have large perception problems among key decision makers. In some cases, firms were able to bounce back somewhat from severe negative opinions in the previous year's survey. In both types of cases, the difference between the opinions of those with personal experience with the firm and those who have not personally worked with the firm were useful in showing some of the causes in the perception changes.

The poll was conducted in late August and early September 2012 among the audience of Defense Industry Daily, an online defense procurement trade magazine with more than 300,000 unique monthly users. Information about the report and access to an executive summary can be found at: https://reports.defenseindustrydaily.com/?release.

Tig Tillinghast, Watershed Publishing, 8027854260, tig@watershed-publishing.com

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New Defense Exec Survey: Contractor Performance Falling

SPRINGFIELD, Va., Oct. 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Versar, Inc. (NYSE MKT: VSR) announced today that it has been awarded a new prime contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Middle East District, to provide Afghanistan National subject matter experts to perform on-site construction management support services for assigned projects supporting two USACE Engineer Districts in Afghanistan.

The construction management positions will support the Afghanistan Engineer District North (TAN), based in Kabul, with area and resident offices throughout Northern, Central, and Eastern Afghanistan, and Afghanistan Engineer District South (TAS), based in Kandahar, with offices throughout Southern and Western Afghanistan. These positions will replicate typical foreign national service employee positions obtained by U.S. Government Agencies to support overseas projects and locations. The first task orders under the contract are for $11.7 million for TAN and $4.3 million for TAS.

The Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract is a single award with a maximum four-year period of performance consisting of a base year and three options years. The maximum contract capacity over the entire length of the contract is $170 million. This contract is for Personal Services in exclusive support of the USACE construction mission in Afghanistan.

Tony Otten, CEO of Versar said, "Versar is pleased to be selected by USACE to support this important construction management program and we are privileged to continue our construction management and quality assurance support for reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan."

VERSAR, INC., headquartered in Springfield, VA, is a publicly traded global project management company providing sustainable value oriented solutions to government and commercial clients in the construction management, environmental services, munitions response, and telecommunication and technology integration market areas.

VERSAR operates a number of web sites, including the corporate web sites, http://www.versar.com, http://www.geomet.com; http://www.viap.com; http://www.dtaps.com; http://www.adventenv.com, http://www.charronconsulting.com and http://www.ppsgb.com.

This news release contains forward-looking information. The forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may be significantly impacted by certain risks and uncertainties described herein and in Versar's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the fiscal year ended June 29, 2012, as updated from time to time in the Company's periodic filings. The forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and Versar does not undertake to update its forward-looking statements.

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Versar Awarded A Personal Services Contract In Afghanistan From The US Army Corps Of Engineers With A Maximum Capacity ...

By Andrew Noel - 2012-10-02T10:22:17Z

BASF SE (BAS) named a new head for its European personal-care chemical business as it hones the units focus after a disappointing set of results from additives and ingredients used in cosmetics.

Jan-Peter Sander will take up the role of senior vice president of personal care in Europe on Oct. 1, succeeding Simon Medley, who is leaving to pursue his career outside the group, Ludwigshafen, Germany-based BASF said in a statement.

BASF is seeking more synergies and cost savings from its integration with Cognis after a dip in performance at its care- chemicals business, Chief Executive Officer Kurt Bock said July 26. BASF paid $3.8 billion for Cognis, which was folded into BASFs care chemicals division that saw a decline in second- quarter sales and earnings.

We will continue to establish BASF as the market-leading supplier to the personal care industry by focusing on anticipating customers current and future requirements and providing the market with innovation-driven solutions, Sander said today in the release.

BASF did a very detailed study into whether it may be losing market share to competitor Croda International Plc (CRDA), though there was no evidence of this happening, Bock said in July.

Shares of BASF rose 1.6 percent to 66.67 euros in Frankfurt as of 2:36 p.m.

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Noel in London at anoel@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Benedikt Kammel at bkammel@bloomberg.net

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BASF Names New Head of Personal-Care Unit to Bolster Growth

Portland, Ore. (PRWEB) October 02, 2012

What do successful business leaders such as Warren Buffet, Oprah Winfrey and Donald Trump have that many others dont? Profound success, fame and fortune, but how did they get there? They had a vision and a strategic plan.

Fortune 500 consultant John M. Hawkins says strategic planning is a key factor that many dreamers are missing. His new book, Building a Strategic Plan for Your Life and Business, allows readers to follow in the footsteps of notorious strategic thinkers by providing insight and instruction on how to create their own strategic plan.

This book is about helping people turn their dreams into reality, said Hawkins. Its about helping people reinforce their vision with simple tools that can make that dream come true.

By working alongside his father as a carpenters assistant in multi-million dollar homes, Hawkins learned at a young age that the secret to getting what you want is to build a strategic plan. In Building a Strategic Plan for Your Life and Business, Hawkins provides a detailed roadmap for success by teaching readers to:

Hawkins says his dad, a carpenter by trade and perfectionist at heart, ignited his passion for success. Now a dad himself, Hawkins hopes to pass along these values to his own children.

For more information, visit johnhawkins.blogspot.com.

Building a Strategic Plan for Your Life and Business By John M. Hawkins ISBN: 9781469746265 Approx. 214 pages Paperback 6x9 Retail price: $28.95 E-book price: $3.99 Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iUniverse

About the author John M. Hawkins has 17 years of business/consulting experience. He has helped Fortune 500 companies, small businesses and individuals achieve their short and long term goals. Hawkins graduated with a degree in business from the University of Portland. He is also the author of Affinity: Managing Java Application Servers. Hawkins lives in Oregon.

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Think Like a Millionaire, says Fortune 500 Consultant John Hawkins

Jack Crenshaw

June 1, 2010

Jack Crenshaw

In the two decades or so that I've been writing this column, we've covered a lot of topics, ranging from the best implementation of abs(x) to CRC algorithms to logic theory, Karnaugh maps, and electronic gates, to vector and matrix calculus to Fourier and z-transforms to control theory to quaternions, and lots more. I even wrote about whether or not the ancient Egyptians really built the values of and into the Great Pyramid (they did. And , too).

Almost all of the topics involved math, but they also required software, either for embedded systems or just to illustrate a given algorithm. But I've never talked much about the way I write software. I thought the issue of my own personal software development methodology would be, at best, a distraction from the topic at hand and, at worst, a subject of great hilarity.

I've always known that the way I write software is different from virtually everyone else on the planet. Is this true for everyone? I don't have a clue.

That's why I thought it would be fun to share with you the way I write software. If you do it the same way, that's great. It would be nice to know that there are other folks who share my approaches. On the other hand, if it's not the same way you do it, we have three possible outcomes. Either you'll learn from me, and decide that some of my approaches have merit; I'll learn from you, and decide that I've been doing it wrong all these years; or my revelations will serve as a subject of great hilarity. Any of those outcomes, I submit, would be good. It's a win-win-win situation.

The environment Let's begin with the software development environment. In my time, I've used some really rotten development environments. I've worked with systems whose only I/O device was a Teletype ASR-33. We got so tired of emptying the chad-catcher on the paper tape punch, we just let it flutter to the floor. (At the end of the day, guess who got to sweep it up.)

I worked on one program where my only "compiler" was a line-by-line assembler (meaning that it didn't accept mnemonic names, only absolute addresses). The bulk storage device was an audio cassette. Just so we're clear, this wasn't a homebrew system I cobbled up out of old Intel 4004s. paper clips, and chewing gum. It was a system built up by serious, if boneheaded, managers in a very large corporation.

Perhaps because of these nightmare environments, I really appreciate a good one. I especially love using integrated development environments (IDEs), in which all the tools are interconnected, preferably by a lovely and fast GUI interface. I know, I know, real men don't use GUIs or IDEs. Some folks much prefer to use only command-line interfaces. and to write ever more complex and inscrutable makefiles.

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How I write software

Fitness and Personal Development Guru John Spencer Ellis Wins Quilly Award from National Academy of Best-Selling Authors for The Wellness Code

John Spencer Ellis recently received a Quilly Award from the National Academy of Best-selling Authors for his book, The Wellness Code. The academy honors authors who have achieved best-selling status for their literary works.

The Wellness Code: Your Ultimate Guide to Health, Fitness and Nutrition was compiled by a select group of the worlds leading health and fitness experts and offers tips, tools and secrets for better health, fitness and wellness. The book can be purchased at Amazon.

As an author and business owner, I couldnt have been more thrilled to receive this honor and to accept my Quilly Award, said Ellis, founder of John Spencer Ellis Enterprises, a personal development and fitness solutions company. For the past 20 years, I have been incredibly passionate about offering health and wellness solutions to people around the world, and I believe that The Wellness Code can truly help people live healthier, better lives.

The Quilly Awards, which provide a 12-inch commemorative gold statue crafted by the same artisans who sculpt the Oscars and Emmy Awards, were founded by the National Academy of Best-Selling Authors to commemorate an authors achievement of being named to a nationally recognized best-seller list. The awards are exclusively distributed at the Academys Annual Golden Gala in Hollywood.

This years Sept. 26-28 event at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel also honored Jack Canfield, named Publishing Phenomenon of the Decade by Time magazine, with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Wellness Code discusses topics including diet and exercise, nutrition, physical and mental health, careers, healthy habits and more. It was published by CelebrityPress, a leading fitness and health book publishing company.

About John Spencer Ellis Enterprises John Spencer Ellis Enterprises is a solutions provider for fitness and coaching professionals around the world, providing education, turn-key business programs, coaching and resources for new and advanced fitness and coaching professionals. For more information about John Spencer Ellis Enterprises or The Wellness Code, please visit http://johnspencerellis.com/

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Fitness and Personal Development Guru John Spencer Ellis Wins Quilly Award from National Academy of Best-Selling ...