The enrollment process for 2014 health coverage in the Marketplace made easy by local company. 

West Des Moines - Focus OneSource, a professional employer organization, announces the development and launch of its sister company. Focus ACA, Affordable Care Act Specialists, is an off shoot of the guidance and services that Focus OneSource are currently providing to Central Iowa businesses with a new directive toward the individual market.

Focus ACA has entered into an exclusive relationship with UnityPoint Health, the 13th largest nonprofit health system in the country, to ensure UnityPoint Health Certified Application Counselors (CACs) and their affiliates are providing the best possible assistance to eligible citizens when assisting with enrollment through the Healthcare Marketplace.

Focus ACA provides UnityPoint Health a streamlined enrollment process, enriched training, and community outreach to assist UnityPoint Health in their goal to successfully identify and enroll eligible citizens into a qualified health plan or a government sponsored plan.

Focus ACA is a natural fit in the expansion of the services of Focus OneSource. "Being able to cater to both businesses and individuals strengthens our position as experts in helping to select the right path for obtaining mandatory health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act," said Michael Teachout President of Focus ACA.  Focus OneSource and Focus ACA will be vital services supplied to the business community and general public to help in the health reform transformation.

To find out more information about the Affordable Care Act, go to unitypoint.org/marketplace or healthcare.gov.

If you're in business, you likely don't even call this the holiday season anymore - it's "the holiday quarter." Because for businesses, Christmas is all about making money.

"In Western societies, Christmas has largely become a family and commercial celebration for which the historical event - the birth of Christ - is a pretext," says Christian E. Megrelis,  www.christian-megrelis.com, chairman of the French Bible Society, former vice chair of the United Bible Societies and author of "Glossary of Hope," a contemporary distillation of New Testament teachings and their applications.

"When Eastern churches began celebrating the birth of Jesus, they sought to keep the religious event distinct from the family and gift-giving event by separating the dates," he says. "That's why in Orthodox churches, gifts are not offered on Christmas Day, but rather on Jan. 2, St. Basil's Day, and thus are linked to the New Year celebration."

But Western churches, which adopted the Nativity celebration first, meshed the two practices, which led to secularization, Megrelis explains.

"The West's Christmas celebration is partly responsible for the secularization of Western societies," he says.

Some of our most important religion-oriented holiday traditions don't even jibe with the story told in the official historical record of Jesus' birth: the Bible, Megrelis says. He offers these examples.

• Animals in our manger scenes. The canonical Bible - the books of the Bible considered to be Holy Scripture - does not mention sheep, donkeys or other animals watching over the newborn Jesus. The animals are from the apocryphal gospels, writings by early Christians that were not included in the New Testament because their authors were anonymous, unverifiable or otherwise dubious. These include the "infancy gospels" written during the second century to feed a hunger for more detail about Jesus as a baby and young boy.

"The Gospels of Matthew and Luke say only that Jesus was placed in a manger - a feeding trough for animals," Megrelis says. "They do not say whether the manger was in a stable or what animals were about. Those details came from the infancy gospels."

• Our images of a pregnant Mary riding to Bethlehem on a donkey. Again, the New Testament makes no mention of Mary on a donkey. But according to the apocryphal gospels, Joseph saddled a donkey and "set Mary upon it" for the trip to Bethlehem.

• "We three kings of Orient are." Contrary to the popular Christmas carol, the Bible does not say how many wise men visited the infant Jesus. The only reference to "three" is the number of gifts they brought: gold, frankincense and myrrh. The carol has them traveling a great distance and our traditions have them arriving at a stable.

"In fact, the Bible says, 'On coming to the house'  -- not stable --- 'they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him,"  Megrelis says, adding "No one knows where the wise men came from. It could not have been very far, as we are told that Jesus was brought to Jerusalem as soon as Mary has been purified, in keeping with Jewish tradition, and shortly after his circumcision, which would have been at eight days old."

Giving one another gifts was also not part of the biblical Nativity, Megrelis points out.

"The wise men brought gifts because it was customary to bring gifts when one visited royalty, but the Bible doesn't mention an exchange of presents," he says.

About Christian E. Megrelis

Christian E. Megrelis holds master's degrees in engineering, business and political studies. He is the founder of Exa International, a multinational engineering company, and vice chairman of the International Union of Economists. He is also the former vice chair of the United Bible Societies, a major world publisher of the Bible. He is the first publisher of the Bible in the French-speaking world.

Capri College has received top honors in the 2013 Excellence in Education program, a national competition that recognizes innovative cosmetology schools across the country. Capri was notified last month that they were nominated in 4 of the 8 categories that comprise the program, including School Culture, School Marketing, Community Involvement, and School Technology.

Capri College had previously been nominated in the Community Involvement, Facilities, and Placement categories, but never received top honors. The winning announcement for their efforts came last week at the American Association of Cosmetology Schools  Annual Convention held in Las Vegas, NV.

To be nominated for these awards, schools were asked to submit essays for each category describing how their institution not only embodies excellence in education for their students, but how they are involved in their communities as well as describing the innovation/evolution of their school over the past year. Essays were judged by a panel of industry professions at Modern Salon Magazine. From a field of hundreds of applicants, finalists were narrowed down to 6 schools per category..

Capri's nominations and 1st place honor demonstrates what Capri College has provided for their past graduates, current students, as well as the communities they serve in Cedar Rapids, Davenport and Dubuque.

For more information on Capri's national award recognition in this year's Modern Salon Excellence in Education program, please go to www.capricollege.edu

SPRINGFIELD, IL (11/24/2013)(readMedia)-- A prototypical sergeant major in the Army is rough around the edges, crotchety when he speaks, and usually appears older than he is due to the hard life of a career Soldier.

You would not notice those traits when Command Sgt. Maj. Howard Robinson of Olympia Fields, Ill., is making his rounds visiting Soldiers.

"He doesn't get excited too easily, but it's probably because of the stress he had growing up as a kid," said Brig. Gen. Richard Hayes of Chatham, Ill., the Assistant Adjutant General, Illinois National Guard.

Hayes said Robinson gets his strength from his mother, whom Hayes has met on several occasions.

"She was a single mom in the projects trying to bring him up in abject poverty and to look at her and see the strength in her, you'll see it in him," said Hayes. "If you meet his mom, you'll see a lot of the demeanor in him is a reflection of his mother."

Robinson retired from the Illinois National Guard Nov. 30 after 30 years. He served for the past two years as the senior enlisted advisor, the principle advisor to the Adjutant General on all matters related to Soldiers and Airmen.

"It's bittersweet," said Robinson. "The thing I'm going to miss most is the interaction with our Soldiers and Airmen."

Robinson entered the Illinois National Guard in 1983 as a fire support specialist with 2nd battalion, 122nd Field Artillery. At the time, Robinson was finishing his bachelor's degree in healthcare administration and wanted to serve the Guard in a medical-related capacity.

"I was told there were no slots in the medical field and the only military occupational specialty available to me was fire support specialist in the artillery," said Robinson. "So, I joined the artillery and I started to enjoy it because I wasn't doing medical stuff during drill weekends. It worked out for me. I always tried to turn a negative into a positive."

Robinson's positivity is one of the first things Hayes noticed when the two began serving together in the early 1990s.

"He is very personable and he was totally dedicated and motivated to do the best he could," said Hayes.

Robinson also had thoughts of becoming an officer when he first enlisted, but abandoned the idea because of the demands of school, a budding family and a full time job.

"It was taking a toll," said Robinson. "I felt the only way I could make a difference was to be part of the solution and I had to place myself in a position where I could do that."

Hayes said Robinson was instrumental in making improvements to the enlisted promotion system, which he said Robinson did not believe was a fair system.

"Whether you like the current system or not, he was passionate about making it better; throughout his career he was passionate about making it better," said Hayes.

Robinson said the camaraderie and the opportunity to mentor Soldiers are moments he reflects on often.

"I think I've done a great job, at least I hope I did a great job, at being able to mentor young men," said Robinson. "The feedback I get from them is 'if it wasn't for you' and 'thank you.' The joy of seeing these guys doing what they do and looking at me as a staff sergeant back then, and they're taking over and doing it now, I can't help but be proud. That makes me feel good."

The list of Soldiers who credit Robinson with mentoring them might rival the list of individuals Robinson says mentored him. At the top of Robinson's list of mentors is his mother followed by his extended family and his Army family, including Command Sgt. Maj. (Ret) O'Darrell Pennington of Chicago.

Pennington began serving with Robinson in the early 1990s and said Robinson was studios and mild mannered.

"He knew how to take care of business and was good at getting Soldiers to do what needed to be done," said Pennington. "Stay focused and shoot for the top. Those are the two things he always did that I would encourage other Soldiers to do. It worked for him."

Staying focused is exactly what Robinson plans to do in retirement. He plans to complete the seven remaining classes toward a Master's Degree in healthcare administration and continue to serve Soldiers and Airmen.

"My desire would be to work for the Department of Veterans Affairs. My background in healthcare administration and my service in the Guard, interacting with Soldiers and Airmen, veterans and their families, I think that would be a perfect fit."

Robinson's mentors and peers alike would suggest his nurturing style of leadership and mild demeanor has been a perfect fit for the Illinois National Guard.

"He cares about what he does and he cares about those that he does it with," said Hayes. "He is organized and methodical in the way he approaches everything."

Opposite of what you may expect from the prototypical sergeant major, Robinson said he always found the good in everybody.

"You have to make everybody feel good about their service, no matter what they do," he said.