Category: Michael Treco

Mentors don’t just educate. They help others grow in immeasurable ways.

In return, Michael Treco explains that mentors grow as well.

Take the case of Ranjit Chatterji and his mentee, design student Christian Pavia. Through the iMentor program, Chatterji was matched with Pavia when he was a sophomore in high school.

Slowly, they got to know each other. Pavia loved the visual arts, so they went to art museums together. The once shy and quiet Pavia began to open up.

Eventually, Chatterji encouraged Pavia to combine his love of art with computers and he enrolled in LaGuardia Community College with the goal of becoming a video game designer or launching a commercial graphics career.

Their relationship proves the value of mentorships. It also showcases that effective mentoring is, in fact, an art.

A Rewarding Experience

A mentor is many things. They can be formal, such as mentors trained through professional programs or within higher education institutions. But often they are informal, those who simply wish to be a positive influence on others and offer whatever assistance they need.

Generally, a mentor is anyone who provides advice or uses their skillsets to help others grow skills as well. Early mentorships often involved a specific job or trade, such as printing or construction.

Many mentorships still involve careers, helping others uncover their passions and offering insight into how to accomplish life goals.

The bottom line is that mentors are role models, often both professionally and personally. They impart life skills as well.

The counselors can do everything from helping others make more informed decisions to approaching specific life milestones wisely. Mentors are always available, even after a mentee achieves a specific goal.

Mentoring Isn’t Easy

Anyone can give advice. Not everyone can offer real insight and guidance that is both fundamental and compassionate.

There’s much to consider when establishing a mentor-mentee relationship. That’s what makes it a real art. Mentors must be authentic and unafraid of candor.

A mentor doesn’t have all the answers, and a good mentor admits that fact. But what they do is stress that they will do everything they can to offer answers and help to the best of their ability.

Mentors must listen, too. The nature of the mentorship is often straightforward, but mentors need to understand the intricacies of a mentee’s needs. They learn from mentees but also believe in them unhesitantly.

Benefits of Mentorships

Effective mentorship is beneficial in countless ways. They can help someone work through a specific problem quickly or help them write a roadmap to long-term success. Other main benefits include:

• Uncovering impactful professional development tools
• Landing interviews
• Increased knowledge of a particular job or industry
• Learning effective approaches to working better with others.
• Increased confidence, maturity, and community-building

Mentors always benefit from the relationship as well. Within the context of working with an employee in a business, mentors often expand their professional network and get new perspectives.

And, of course, there’s a sense of satisfaction from a successful mentoring relationship. It’s genuinely fulfilling — and that’s a feeling that’s often difficult to accomplish.

One of the most prevalent schools of artistry is color theory. All art is subjective, but there is a certain science to the way colors and light interact with each other. Arts and science have always had a close connection with each other, but what is the science behind it?

The Aristotelian tradition of primary colors and Isaac Newton’s prismatic theory blend the concepts of art and scientific theory. Light and color’s interaction, and how they are used in art, has been the subject of artistic work and scientific study alike.

Michael Treco explores several periods through history where the science of art helped establish color theory practices that are still in use with artists to this day.

Aristotle

The first recorded color theory came about when Aristotle theorized that the visible color spectrum was sent by God through light. He then suggested that all visible colors were born from lightness and darkness and held specific relations to the four elements.

The Aristotelian understanding of the primary colors considered blue and yellow to be the only primary hues. He associated this with a binary view of life, sun and moon, stimulus and sedation, out and in, and so on.

These were the publicly accepted views about color in the artistic world for 2000 years. It was Isaac Newton’s prismatic theory that shook both the worlds of art and science that would replace it.

Isaac Newton’s Prismatic Theory

Renowned physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton experimented with the way light passed through clear prisms. From this experimentation, our earliest understanding of the seven visible colors of white light took root.

In doing so, Newton identified the ROYGBIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) color spectrum of visible light. He created the first iteration of a color wheel. To this day, artists use this color wheel to study color theory, such as that of complimentary colors.

Goethe’s Rebuttal

Over one hundred years later, the poet Goethe offered a rebuttal the theory Newton had established about color – at least from an artistic standpoint. He argued that color was not quite as objective as Newton insisted. Rather it should be subjective, based on the perceptions of the viewer.

He began to study the effects of color on the human mind. From this, he penned his ‘Theory of Colors’ in 1810. Newton’s studies were scientifical, but Goethe’s were based on the human reaction to different colors. These studies would branch into modern color psychology.

Chevreul’s Color System

A French chemist, Chevreul, was attempting to study the chemistry associated with dyeing pigments. This scientific work gave wings to an artistic movement; the color system that Chevreul developed was a cornerstone of pointillism and neo-impressionism.

It was so popular that the artists Seurat and Signac used this color palette almost exclusively in their works.

Conclusion

While they may seem to be separate disciplines, art and science have always been interwoven. Artists use certain colors and establish lighting to evoke emotions or establish mood and theme. The science of art is the science of color, psychology, and light working together.

Michael Treco has been focused on exploring avenues to improve sustainability in the workspace. This is a role he has taken in many of his previous organizations but over the last year, as he works to complete his degree of Masters of Sustainable Energy and Green Technologies in the College of Engineering and Architecture, this goal has taken on a more prominent role in his life.

Improving existing industry standards and revitalising ageing infrastructure with innovative solutions and technologies is crucial to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and Michael Treco has recently taken aim at investigating methods to reduce the GHG emissions from the cattle and dairy agricultural industries.

An Overview of Michael Treco’s Research

In recent years, there has been an ever-increasing interest in reducing the overall carbon footprint of humanity to slow the effects of climate change. Ireland has taken a leading role in both local and national efforts to embrace renewable energy technologies and improve existing practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from many facets of society.

Michael Treco has set his sights on reviewing current farming practices that can be streamlined to reduce waste, increase profits and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The goal of his research into this field is to assess the amount of carbon and natural resources that can be saved through the use of sustainable farming processes. It is Michael Treco’s belief that building a sustainable or circular economy around agriculture is one method where significant gains can be made in reducing Ireland’s carbon footprint.

Determining just how much carbon can be saved and how the monetary value of that stored carbon can be determined is the goal of this report. The goal Michael Treco hopes to achieve moving forward with this question and investigation is to examine the sources of greenhouse gases and the amount of carbon that can be stored from the application of a silage grass press in a green biorefinery through the production of meat to start to establish a monetary value of that carbon.

Challenges Faced in Agriculture and Farming

Mr. Treco’s research in this field has shown him that farming and agricultural practices around the globe are facing increased scrutiny as once accepted practices are now being questioned. The most significant changes are centred around sustainability as climate change takes on greater significance in the public and political spheres. It is his desire to help progress and evaluate change in this field. The three main issues Mr. Treco has noted facing the agriculture and livestock industry are the need to meet an ever-rising demand, make proper adaptations to the changing political requirements that have been implemented to address changing environmental regulations and economic circumstances, and lastly, to reduce the impact that their practices have on the environment.

Raising livestock, and cattle in particular, is very resource inefficient in its current form. Increasing population along with a rising standard of living around the globe has led to an increase in natural resource use and land degradation. Both of these results further contribute to climate change along with other environmental issues such as freshwater depletion, reduction in biodiversity, increased erosion, and general habitat change.

Applying Research to Solve Ongoing Farming and Agriculture Obstacles

While these are all significant issues, Michael Treco is currently focused on the practices farmers can apply to address climate change issues, specifically carbon and greenhouse gas outputs, and determining if there are methods that can be employed by livestock farmers to improve sustainability practices and as a result, earn a stipend or form of income as a benefit. At this stage in his research, Michael Treco has found that by establishing a value or system of evaluation to place a price on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions saved through the implementation of sustainable farming practices and through the utilisation of a biorefinery to process animal feed.