Ray Anderson Quotations

What has been very gratifying is that all my clients and colleagues in the agent ranks have taken a very supportive view. We're all human, and you think, 'I wonder what my buddies on the union side are going to think? Are they going to think I've changed my stripes and now I'm management?'

I don't think it's that simple. But historically, there have been some 'copycat' tendencies in the league.

He's given us the edge of a working environment second to none.

Harris County and Montgomery County will be part of the group that will do the maintenance work.

It isn't just the low-hanging fruit we go after.

I think I was surprised as anybody when I first got the call, because I've been an agent for 20 years, ... I was certainly intrigued and curious as to why me? But I'm glad I took the opportunity to meet with Arthur Blank and have that explained, or I wouldn't be sitting here.

The acceptance from the marketplace of what we're doing has been just astounding.

I was mildly shocked they moved as quickly as they did. Like Tyrone, I think there are fine people at Notre Dame. But the situation got away from them, and the powers that be, who were in the background, saw winning as the most important thing, and that carried the day.

Those are three things that are kind of fundamental when you're talking about hiring a guy as your head coach. The absence of those three components of the process certainly had us thinking that this was unusual to say the least.

The conventional Internet naming system of URLs (Web addresses) can be clumsy and time-consuming for users on devices that have access to the Net via a telephone keypad,

There is room for an Olympic-size swimming pool between the current library parking lot and the parking lot for Metro.

Everyone's out to have a good time, ... And so are we.

The unions will never allow another ambulance to be placed here.

They all thought when we joined the league (from the Western District Junior Football League) that we were under done but we proved them wrong today. We've used this as our biggest challenge this season.

Anyone who would say it's worse than it was before isn't being realistic. Before you could run around without the glare of the spotlight on you when you were conducting your search. Now at least you can't do that. You are going to draw attention. Some situations are going to have some uniqueness, but I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and say the whole initiative if flawed. It's too early to say that.

It's too early to judge the initiative by the unique situation that Jerry Jones was in in Dallas, and the bad fit in Jacksonville with Denny Green,

It's the grandfather of all the strolls in the Bay Area,

It's like watching an unbelievable movie or novel unfold.

It's unfortunate that the next two years are the oddities, ... Because most years there are two weeks before the Super Bowl and interviews could be conducted in that time frame. We'll just have to see if something can be done in those situations.

It's in everybody's minds, ... We're lucky to be here. Everybody knows we're lucky. But it's still important to celebrate.

It was obvious that Ozzie was in a great position to literally run the football side of it, and run it unimpeded,

Notre Dame is in his rearview mirror. We don't even talk about it. What we have talked about is the excitement of being at Washington.

That's disappointing but it doesn't surprise me, ... The league historically takes its time on issues like this one. I guess the feeling is that it still needs more discussion.

But he's going to learn a very, very difficult and painful lesson. Even if it's one that's not totally unexpected, because he has seen others go through it.

He's not going to moan or go ballistic,

What’s the business case for ending life on earth?

We need an honest bottom line. Today that bottom line is vastly subsidized. If anyone of us were paying the full cost of oil our bottom lines would be very different. If you internalize the cost of oil, look at the cost of the war in the Middle East or the cost of global warming for future generations, if you internalize those external costs and what you pay, that bottom line would look very different, what ever business you are in.

The status quo is a product of our culture or our culture is a product of the status quo - I'm sure which is the effect and which is the product - there is probably a feedback loop there that is mutually reinforcing. But we have a culture that says "Hey, look around. This place called Earth was created for you and you can do anything you want with it."

We really began to think in different ways about our business in terms of climbing this mountain and it became very clear very quickly this was the smart thing to do. Not only did we start to generate answers for those customers, they embraced us for what we were trying to do. The goodwill in the market place has just been stunning. The rest of the business case is pretty simple. I cost it down not up.

During the last five years, those four advantages-costs, products, people, goodwill-have been the salvation of Interface during a recession that saw our primary marketplace shrink by 38% from peak to trough-38%! As a heavily leveraged company with over $400 million in debt, we might not have made it without the sustainability initiative and, especially, the support of our customers. This revised definition of success-this new paradigm-has a name: "Doing well by doing good". It is a better way to bigger profits.

If we somehow put a value on species extinction and factor that into our costs that bottom line would look very different. IF we put any resource depletion into costs our bottom line would change. So what we have is a dishonest market that does not take into account all the costs when it establishes its prices. We need an honest marketplace before we can let the market work for sustainability rather than against it as it works today.

I used to think that my job didn't have anything to do with the environment. Then I realized that my job, as well as everyone else's job, impacts the environment in some way. And now advocating for sustainability has become my No. 1 responsibility.

The status quo is a very powerful opiate and when you have a system that seems to be working and producing profits by the conventional way of accounting for profits. It's very hard to make yourself change. But we all know that change is an inevitable part of business. Once you have ridden a wave just so far, you have to get another wave. We all know that. For us, becoming restorative has been that new wave and we have been riding it for 13 years now. It's been incredibly good for business.

"Comply" is not a vision.

For nearly 11 years, now, we have been on this mission; we call it, "climbing Mt. Sustainability", a mountain higher than Everest, to meet at that point at the top that symbolizes zero footprint-zero environmental impact. Sustainable: taking nothing, doing no harm.

The new course we're on at Interface ... is to pioneer the next Industrial Revolution: one that is kinder and gentler to the earth.

One of the biggest things that needs to change is the educational system. Universities are still teaching a system to students that destroys the biosphere.

I always make the business case for sustainability. It's so compelling. Our costs are down, not up. Our products are the best they have ever been. Our people are motivated by a shared higher purpose - esprit de corps to die for. And the goodwill in the marketplace - it's just been astonishing.

We have a choice to make during our brief visit to this beautiful blue and green living planet: to hurt it or to help it.

...there is no more strategic issue for a company, or any organization, than its ultimate purpose. For those who think business exists to make a profit, I suggest they think again. Business makes a profit to exist. Surely it must exist for some higher, nobler purpose than that.

You've got to project ahead and see what's going to help you win. Brian didn't think he'd get as much of a chance to be influential in personnel decisions in Cleveland, and I think that made the final decision.

The city of Houston could have made more of a pitch that they are going to be able to accomplish something other than just taking control of an existing asset that belongs to Texas Parks and Wildlife. Texas Parks and Wildlife apparently has no funds to do anything, so this appears to be a win situation for the city and for the park.

The company has made significant progress in all areas of the business and, in particular, in building the international billing infrastructure that will support future growth.