A Mountaineer in Boston

March on Blair Mountain - Day 4

2011-06-09T19:29:00.001-04:00

There is a war going on in the coal-fields of southern West Virginia. We can feel it in the dichotomy of support and anger the residents of Boone County have given us. As we have walked along these windy and often quiet roads, the cars that have passed have often been full of people quietly giving us a thumbs-up, or thanking us for doing this. By my estimation, these folks have outnumbered those on the other side at least two-to-one, which has surprised all of us. While many of the homes have the near requisite “Friends of Coal” signs in the yards, there are many that have signs of support – knowing that there outward displays will likely bring quick ire and possibly more from their neighbors. For this we are extremely thankful, as we know it is extremely difficult to show any level of support for this march at all, and thus most of those who wish MTR.

Today we had an especially brave woman host us for lunch in her back yard – which we learned was the very same spot where the marching miners stopped for a meal 90 years ago, hosted by this woman’s forebears. And given the attitudes of her neighbors and the reception we have received in general this was a courageous step taken by a woman who cherishes her family’s role in creating our local history.

You see, despite the gracious nature of the community on the most part, there remains a hidden power fighting us. The Mayor of Madison may have set aside fresh water for us on a hot day, for which were very thankful, but no none in his county would suffer us on their land that night. We have not yet had a camp-ground or farm willing to allow us to camp. We have had first and second options for each night cancel on us at the last minute, and we recognize the extreme pressure the coal operators have placed on them to not work with us. And this is a signal that the fight will not end this Saturday, when we march up Blair Mountain and demand it be placed once again on the National Register of Historic Places. This is a fight for the communities of southern WV, for the space to create a clean economy with local, sustainable jobs. And for the jobs that will remain in the mines to be safe, and union, and not requiring the tops of our dear ancient mountains to be leveled, ruining our water and air. This is a fight that has been waged since the first commercial mines opened up in these hills. It got bloody 90 years ago, and we march to preserve that history for all generations to come. And just as importantly, we march to preserve our communities so that there ARE generations to come in these towns.

I pray for the day that the quiet souls in these towns who wish they could march with us will find the grace from God to rise up and demand a better way of life for themselves, as some are doing today. I know that day is coming, and a brighter future is on the horizon for our southern coal fields.

The March on Blair Mountain

2011-06-09T19:13:00.001-04:00

The Road to Blair Mountain, Boone County, West Virginia – one of the many places in this country where justice seems to go to die.

After weeks of negotiated agreements, last night the side of the law came down against the side of right and morality when the Boone County commissioner forced approximately 300 participants in the March on Blair Mountain off of the county land at John Slack Park. This happened around 9:30pm, after the camp had been pitched for hours, dinner was still being served, and many marchers were looking to bed down for the night after an 11 mile march.

I hold no anger at the men in drill sergeant hats and spiffy tight uniforms for forcing us to find somewhere else to sleep. I know they were only following orders. Many of them may hold a misunderstanding of what we are trying to accomplish on the march. We are not out to completely end our nation’s addiction to coal. What we are trying to do is make a stand against mountain top removal — the most destructive and apocalyptic form of coal mining ever devised — and preserve Blair Mountain as a symbol of the battles and struggles in people’s lives which have taken place in the name of this form of coal extraction. I am sure that there must have been at least a few officers who felt terrible about the orders they were asked to carry out.

You see, we are a good people here in the southern mountains of West Virginia. Lack of abundant opportunities has forced many of us to make terrible choices, between working on a mountaintop mine, or leaving the state for good. And for so many of these kind-hearted and hard working people, leaving just isn’t an option. Some rise up to fight that status quo, and many more get tugged along in the current, caught in the black, poisonous waters that flow down from the strip mines of coal field politics.
Despite the efforts of some behind the scenes powers, this march will go on. We are going to Blair, deep in the heart of Logan County, West Virginia. We are rising. And we will meet our fate there – not in Racine, not in Madison, not in Boone County.

And I look forward to the day when someone, like my dear brother-in-law, who was born in Madison, doesn’t have to make that choice to leave or stay, or to have to choose to obey the letter of the law and follow orders given by a shadow government owned by King Coal.

It's All About the Climb

2010-09-06T14:01:00.003-04:00

I have a little button on my backpack: “I Heart Mountains” it says, with a beautiful vista of my Appalachian home, blue and gray ridges fading into the horizon. I spent countless weeks of my childhood summers in the mountains of West Virginia, fishing, hiking, playing camp games with other summer campers. The soft rolling slopes of Appalachia with her ancient green forests 300 million years old, speak to me wherever I am. I believe I have a deep-rooted Appalachian Soul.

I believe in climbing mountains. The big ones on the horizon, the huge monsters of rock that pulled Americans westward with slogans such as “Pike’s Peak or Bust.” I myself have climbed a few of the really tall ones, planted my small mental flag on the peaks of maybe eight or nine, and have stood on ranges around the world, from the American Rockies to the Peruvian Andes, the foothills of the Himalaya in Central Asia, to the glaciers of the Southern Alps in New Zealand. Each has its own challenges, its own history, and its own paths to the top. But it is the Appalachian song that plays in my heart.

The view from the top can be breathtaking but I believe in the serenity to be found at the top of a mountain. Those few moments when you can swear you can see the ocean, so far below, so many thousands of miles away. But this is not why I climb.

I believe in climbing mountains. I think that the climb itself is worth much more that the respite you get at the summit. So often, you approach a peak only to have to give up the climb, due to rain or lightning, to circumstances beyond your control. So you head back down, and resolve that one day you will try again.

But it’s not only physical mountains that we climb. During my year in Iraq in the US Army, the men of my unit climbed up a steep slope of impossible missions every day and every night. I don’t know if we ever reached the top of that peak, but we got better, got closer, on most days. Looking back, I am not even sure that we had a peak to reach even if we could have. And I guess that is one of the keys to what I believe.

Back home in West Virginia, we have a different climb ahead of us, not up the mountains we have so effectively neutralized, but up out of the cycle of poverty and economic malaise that has engulfed us for the better part of a century. Out of a past mired in violence and misunderstanding. I believe not in a city on a hill, but a people on a mountainside, struggling ever upward, eyes to the sky, and hands reaching back down to help those below.

And I believe that being from West Virginia, our nation’s Mountain State, we know how to climb.

(this post has been published by This I Believe... here)

An open letter to Senator Carte Goodwin

2010-08-03T22:52:00.002-04:00

Dear Senator Goodwin,

I hope the heat in Washington hasn’t gotten to you yet. It is certainly a different climate than back in the cooler mountains of Appalachia. And of course, congratulations on being named the newest United States Senator from our great state, if only for a couple of months. Please don’t let that short timeline take away from the urgent responsibility that comes with the position. The next few months will be a quick, and tumultuous ride, not unlike braving the first ten miles of the Upper Gauley back home. Hard work, keeping your eye on the path ahead, and working as a team with those in the boat are the keys to surviving the hammering of the river’s class V rapids.

I am writing you because I am very concerned about the economic health of West Virginia. As you are well aware, there are many serious challenges facing our country today, and few of them are felt more acutely anywhere than back in the Mountain State. Job loss, continued poverty, debates on how to fight the climate crisis so we can remain a prosperous country, and our continued military commitment overseas in two large and complex theaters: these are just a few of the questions you will be asked to tackle over the coming months.

I myself have buried a fellow West Virginian, Captain Ben Tiffner, who lost his life fighting in Iraq, after serving there myself. I and many of his fellow officers and soldiers laid him to rest in Arlington National Cemetery in December of 2007. I urge you to go and visit that hallowed ground and walk among the endless graves of our fallen service members. Watch as the members of the Old Guard bury those who have given their last full measure of devotion to our Nation. It is a sobering experience, and one with which every representative should be familiar.

There is no doubt that you are well versed in the struggles of the many out-of-work West Virginians back home. I, and many others, commend you for helping the Senate realize our commitment to them on your first day in the Chamber. But remember there is more yet to be done. Large portions of our economy have been in a long slow decline for decades, providing fewer jobs and less wealth to our people. It will take a clear-eyed vision to see the way forward and bring others behind you.

There is a strong connection between those soldiers who have given their lives, and those who have lost their livelihoods during the Great Recession. Our national security is intimately tied to our economic security, and a forward looking progressive energy and climate policy will provide the means to solve them both. We in the mountains send more than our share of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines off to defend our way of life. We also have a unique and storied history of providing the energy our nation has needed to fuel its unprecedented growth over the past 150 years. But it is no secret that our coal reserves cannot and will not continue to be a source of economic prosperity for our state much longer. The man who sat in your seat before you knew it well. As he wrote in one of his last pieces, “West Virginians can choose to anticipate change and adapt to it, or resist and be overrun by it. One thing is clear. The time has arrived for the people of the Mountain State to think long and hard about which course they want to choose.” We need to take a leadership position in creating the new clean energy economy and harness the best of our past as we prepare to thrive in a dynamic global economy. West Virginia, both today and tomorrow, needs you to support comprehensive energy and climate legislation.

It will certainly be an unpopular vote back home; the coal-dominated media will make sure of that. But it will ensure that the people of the state will have a future. The entrepreneurs who will build the businesses of tomorrow will thank you. Plenty of coal miners will thank you for offering their children a better option than they had. And a generation of soldiers will not have to fight terrorists funded directly by our addiction to oil. This will save American lives overseas, and provide the best defense we have to combat violent extremism around the world: by helping restore a prosperous and opportunity-laden economy.

While attending West Point I learned one fact very well above all else. Life is full of choices, and we are often asked to choose between an easy path and a difficult path. I urge you to choose the harder right over the easier wrong. In ten or fifteen years, you will be able to look back and say to yourself, “I helped create a new thriving clean energy economy in my state.” The other option will be to allow the status quo to continue its slow cancer, eating away at our health, our environment, and our pride.

We need you to lead. Paddle hard, and good luck,

Jon Gensler

Operation Free: Patriots Act

2010-05-30T12:10:00.003-04:00

A new article in the NRDC's magazine highlights the work I have been involved with alongside other recent veterans and Operation Free. We won't stop until all recognize the immense threat that climate change and our status quo energy policy pose to our national security. We need to secure America's future with clean energy, now! Call your senators and tell them you support passage of the American Power Act.

New Campaign Ad in the fight against MTR

2010-05-25T13:35:00.003-04:00

It has been a while since my last post, but I have been busy getting more involved with both Operation Free and the Alliance for Appalachia. Here is the latest ad from the folks at I Love Mountains. Please spread the word and give what you can to get this on the air.

Time to Step Up

2010-01-28T18:58:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, January 27th, 2010, was an inspiring day for me: as a veteran and member of Operation Free, as an aspiring clean energy entrepreneur and businessman, as an environmental advocate, and as a proud American. On the morning before President Obama’s first State of the Union address, national leaders in the business community, the labor community, veterans and national security experts, faith leaders, farming leaders, and more came together at the Clean Energy, Jobs, and Security Forum in the Capitol building to discuss the importance of comprehensive climate and energy legislation, how quickly we as a nation need to respond to truly act in time, and showing a first step in the bipartisan direction that the President called us to take.

There are so many highlights of the day, it would be impossible for me to recount them all, but imagine a conference with opening remarks by Senators John Warner (R-VA, retired) and John Kerry (D-MA), two retired general officers discussing the national security threat posed by climate change, and a keynote lunch address by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Dr. Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy. We discussed the destabilizing force that climate change has in already weak states, how to engage and benefit from the work of the large US agricultural sector (and not merely with promises of corn ethanol!), and how by addressing the risks that a changing climate brings to all facets of our lives, we can seize the reins of the global clean energy economy — one in which China is already outspending us by laying out $9 billion a month to develop their own clean energy sector. Sen. Graham described the costs of doing nothing very well:

"A word of caution and warning: Doing nothing, in my view, does put the planet at risk. Doing nothing continues an irresponsible practice of sending $440 billion year overseas to buy oil from people who don’t like us very much. Doing nothing allows China to own what I think will be the most exciting economic opportunity of the 21st century: the green economy. As we talk, as we argue, as we try to find 60 votes in America, China is doing."

Certainly, the President’s first State of the Union address was a worthy cherry on top, eloquent as always, and full of what I thought to be a heartfelt and serious message. He doesn’t claim to have all of the answers, but claims we need to come together as a nation and try to find them. That seems to me to be the right approach, especially for such difficult problems as the financial, economic, and climate crises that we are facing. We are all going to need to make changes, to adapt the way we have lived and worked in the past to the new realities of the future, and thus it is us as a people who need to shoulder much of the burden of that work.

At the end of the day, feeling good after the President spoke — though waiting for my friends in the environmental community to be up in arms about the calls for offshore oil drilling, nuclear power plants and clean coal — I am perhaps still most inspired by the words of Senator Graham presaging the call the President would make later that evening: “We are trying to find a way forward… but there is no substitute for citizen involvement.” And Secretary Chu: “Policy changes happen when the American people give courage to their representatives.”

Wayne Gretzky, perhaps the greatest hockey player of all time, once said about his abilities in the rink, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it’s been.” We know where the puck is going to be. Step up, America, and get there.

Healing Fragmented Cities

2009-10-03T19:34:00.003-04:00

This is a re-posting of a guest post I submitted for my friend Leland Cheung's campaign page. He is currently running for Cambridge City Council.

Many people would rightly recognize that Cambridge is a fragmented city. Walking along the Charles River past the campuses of Harvard or MIT gives no hint of the default economic segregation you would find in East Cambridge or Central Square. But how can local government work to help heal these divides? What difference can a city official hope to accomplish against such entrenched structures and beliefs?

I spent the summer of 2009 working for the start-up (and largely experimental) California Fisheries Fund. Engaging with a diverse group of small fishing businesses, environmental NGOs, and local government representation, I saw first hand the tremendous societal value that can be created in a small community through collaboration. Examining my experience in light of Leland Cheung’s candidacy for the Cambridge City Council, I see many parallels between what I witnessed first hand in Morro Bay, CA, and Leland’s vision he is bringing to this campaign.

The city of Morro Bay, CA is small in comparison to the other cities along the Central Coast, but has a history filled with character and success. Once a thriving commercial fishing port, it has seen its fish landings (and economy) implode in the wake of misguided regulation mismanagement of key species. Fishermen stood at loggerheads with regulators, environmental groups pushing for wholesale restoration of the local ecology clashed daily with economic planners, and the results of this conflict proved disastrous. Some studies have shown a 75%-80% drop in commercial activity, and the loss of many once-profitable businesses with that decline.

But now things seem to be moving in a different direction. NGOs with strict environmental missions have begun to embrace market forces as a powerful tool for reform and change. Hardy, independent fishermen are beginning to see enhanced value for fish that are harvested in a more sustainable manner, and are considering working together for the first time memory to ensure the catch of future generations. Local government officials are beginning to see the spark of economic revival through this unique collaborative effort, and hope for this sleepy little town is on the rise once again. The local harbormaster and mayor’s office have begun to embrace a plan to invigorate the local economy: a comprehensive plan built on environmentally sound fishing practices and innovative product marketing jointly created by all involved parties.

All of this because groups once committed to opposite extremes have begun to talk to each other, to find value in engagement, and have begun to focus on what is possible tomorrow, not on what has transpired in the past. Commercial landings are on the rise again, and a handful of businesses have arisen, driven by thoughtful, local entrepreneurs, to create and keep this new value in the community. Again, all possible because groups once aligned against each other have begun to listen and work for the sake of their combined fate.

Such engagement is what Leland dreams about for the city of Cambridge. This is without a doubt a fragmented city. Standing alongside the economic and knowledge engines that are Harvard and MIT we have entire populations of people who are clearly being left behind, segregated by old prejudices existing between city and university. Bridging this gap is not going to be easy, but I have to believe it is possible. If a ruggedly individualistic fisherman can sit down and listen to an MIT educated businessman who has never been on a fishing boat, finding value in the conversation that directly applies to the community’s well-being, I am confident that the same type of thing can happen here. It only needs a nudge, a push in the right direction. Electing Leland Cheung and giving him a chance to represent the interests of all of Cambridge will certainly be a step towards that end.

Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act

2009-10-01T08:32:00.004-04:00

I just wrote an opinion piece for my hometown paper in West Virginia on behalf of Operation Free and future West Virginians.

On December 4th, 2007, I stood among a crowd of uniformed US Army officers, and watched as my fellow West Virginian and West Point classmate Ben Tiffner was lowered into the ground at Arlington National Cemetery. Ben was killed in action a month earlier, in an improvised explosive device (IED) attack on his Humvee in Iraq. As my friends and I left the cemetery, we reflected on Ben’s life as well as on the lives of too many other soldiers who gave the last full measure of devotion for our great Nation.

If you haven’t been to see one of our national cemeteries, you need to. The endless rows of white headstones open up into a new section, constantly growing, devoted to those who have given the ultimate sacrifice in today’s War on Terror. Remembering my own time in Iraq leading an infantry mortar platoon, and the dangers we struggled through, I know our military fights a hard, long war. And due to our addiction to cheap fossil fuels, the long war is going to get longer. This is why I choose to fight a better fight, here at home, for cheap, clean energy independence. Our national security depends on it. The lives of soldiers such as Ben’s depend on it. And the lives of our children depend on it. For these reasons we, the people of West Virginia, need the US Congress to pass strong energy and national security legislation this fall.

To be sure, I know the economy of West Virginia has been built on coal. I also know that many people dispute the truthfulness behind the science of climate change. And while I have in fact studied a bit of the science myself, I do not write to you as a climate scientist. Instead, I write to you based on my own experience as a United States soldier. On the battlefield, a soldier doesn’t have the luxury of waiting for 100% certainty before acting. Too often, waiting for certainty results in bad things happening and soldiers dying unnecessarily. We must act when we are sure enough, and the benefits of action outweigh the costs of inaction.

Climate change offers us a similar situation. The world’s top scientific minds agree with 95% certainty that climate change is going to drastically alter the way we live, and that much of climate change is man-made. I’d take that bet any day of the week, especially when my soldiers’ lives are on the line.

Which takes me back to my main point. Assume dry parts of the world dry up even more, and wars over precious drinking water become even more prevalent. Slight sea level increases force the coastal populations of the world’s poorest regions to flee as climate refugees. Instability opens up more holes for extremists preaching anti-American terror to step in and take control. Who is going to have to respond to these threats? China? India? No! We will: American fighting men and women. It is the American soldier who will bear the brunt of inaction. And that will cost us dearly.

We stand at a crossroads. We can choose to do nothing, and be confident that other brave West Virginians such as Ben Tiffner will see their way into our most hallowed of grounds, all because we could not summon the courage to act when needed. Or, we can make an investment in our future today, and reap the benefits for decades to come.

The time for investment is now. On September 30th, the US Senate began consideration of a bill that can and will offer just the added incentives we need to avert the worst of climate change. Such a bill has no chance of knocking out the coal industry overnight -- nor is it intended to. Instead, this bill will spur innovation that will make coal technology cleaner, and will bring better quality jobs to West Virginia. By creating economic incentives for coal users to reduce their carbon emissions, we will unleash an American power just as mighty as any our military possesses: the power of the American entrepreneur. New markets will open up where the hard-working and industrious people of the Mountain State can make the fortunes of tomorrow. And just as importantly, it is going to keep our fighting men and women safer, and our great Nation more secure. We cannot let these benefits pass us by.

Call our Senators and ask for their support today!

A story of airplanes... remembering 9/11

2009-09-11T10:24:00.010-04:00

September 11th, is both a difficult and honorable day. Difficult because eight years ago we were woken to threat of terrorism on our shores as thousands of Americans lost their lives in the attacks. And yet honorable because it is now a day we use to honor those whom we lost not only on that day, but in the years since 2001, fighting abroad to secure our safety. However, this is not about the four hijacked jets of 9/11/01. This is about my response to them…

I am lucky enough to be a native of the great state of West Virginia, a graduate of West Point, and a former Army officer and veteran of the Iraq War. I remember clearly the plane that took me to Iraq as a platoon leader. That first year in Iraq, many good soldiers gave their lives for the rest of us, including my good friend and former football teammate, Joe Lusk, USMA ’01. Be thou at peace, brother. I wish I had space to list all of those who gave the last full measure, and I honor them here.

The next plane I want to mention is where this story starts to change. My plane was riding lower over the ground, coming into its landing strip. Looking out the window, I could see desolation all around. Truly the Waste Land of the poet T.S. Eliot. But this was not Iraq or some God-forsaken land in Central Asia. This was me flying home to West Virginia, and those wastelands used to be a beautiful stretch of Appalachia, blasted and laid bare by our coal-hungry economy. My thoughts jumped rapidly from those whom I had lost in the war to future generations of Americans, of West Virginians. What will we call the Mountain State when all of the mountains are gone?

Which brings me to my last plane: a short, small flight from grad school in Boston to Washington, DC, where I would join 150 other veterans with Operation Free in order to meet with our senators on the Hill. We would give voice to the national security threat that climate change poses. You see, this isn’t merely about saving our mountains; this is about preserving our way of life, about reasserting our national place as an international leader. Who will respond when storms of growing frequency and intensity batter the shorelines of the world? Not the Chinese. Not India. We will. The US military. And beyond the count of humanitarian missions that will rise with rising seas, we must not for a moment underestimate the threats that will increase as populations are displaced, as drinking water becomes ever more scarce. Misery and scarcity will spread, creating breeding grounds where terrorists can and will gain a foothold.

And yet there is still time to act. Legislation before the Congress now can give us a chance to avert the worst of climate change, preserve our environment, create new jobs in a clean economy that will last into the next century, and perhaps most importantly, mitigate the threat to our national security posed by unabated climate change. But the time is now. Join Operation Free and call your senators and support strong legislation that will secure our nation for the future.

A start-up is a start-up...

2009-08-11T17:38:00.002-04:00

[syndicated from http://blogs.ft.com/mba-blog]

The California Fisheries Fund is definitely still a start-up. The rapid changes of direction; the nebulous defined roles and responsibilities and the need for self-starters to go through their days doing just that. Even over the short seven weeks I have been with the CFF, I have experienced the turmoil that goes with working in this kind of fast-paced environment. Right now I feel as if I could throw out half of the draft fund operations manual I was given when I started and in fact, have been trying to do just that with my work on defining, refining and updating our mission performance metrics.

Not so easy in this kind of world, where success is not measured by how much money you can bring in, but by much more intangible things such as the increased economic livelihood of a working waterfront, or the estimated conservation delta in the 1, 000ft-deep habitat of one of 60 species of rockfish.

I have been challenged every single day on the job and have loved it. Now I am heading towards the landing pattern of my internship, finalising my projects and working on ensuring that others buy into my ideas and are ready to assume full ownership of the results.
Earning the trust and respect of a diverse group of players. Trying (and most likely failing) to work my way through the deep, political waters of the California fishing industry has not been easy, but has taught me that these individuals are not too different from the hard-working people I grew up with in Appalachia. And I doubt they will be that much different from the hard-working people I will I am sure work with wherever I end up, once I have graduated.

Not Always "Us vs Them"

2009-08-07T19:45:00.004-04:00

[syndicated from my blog at blogs.ft.com/mba-blog]

I now have a little over two weeks remaining with the California Fisheries Fund and am in the process of drafting up my final project papers and presentations, a little of which I have given a window into through this blog. But more important than those white papers or recommendations that I leave with my clients will be the impression that I leave behind.

I doubt very much that I need to explain the difficulties with its reputation that the MBA degree is experiencing in the greater market place. I have spent time and effort this summer trying to dispel those myths, not only to my co-workers at the Environmental Defense Fund, but also to those of you who may be considering an MBA education, but aren’t sure that a business degree is going to allow you to make the positive impact you desire in the world.

I am coming away from my internship in San Francisco convinced otherwise. I am surrounded on a daily basis by people who dedicate their lives to issues greater than themselves and I have not felt out of place even once, neither have I felt that I have nothing to contribute. The scientists and economists around me bring great gifts to the world as “public policy entrepreneurs” through the EDF, but I have found that I do as well. So far, my MBA experience has allowed me to refine my ability to make and execute decisions and to understand the motivations of individuals that are affected by those decisions. Management, leadership and being business savvy, they are all needed in the non-profit world as well. The ability to present a different perspective, to build and drive a team to succeed, to find a need and fill it with a novel idea or product: these are skills that are needed in any type of organisation and are ones that an MBA can help teach and refine.

Overall, I am very pleased with my experience this summer: it has not only shown me just how valuable my skill-set can be, but I think I have also done my part to show the world that you shouldn’t judge a person by their degree alone. An MBA does not equate to profit-driven greed, nor to a quantitative robot. And not all environmentalists are tree-hugging socialists (although I DO love trees.)

Step One: Earn Their Trust

2009-08-07T19:41:00.009-04:00

[syndicated from my blog at blogs.ft.com/mba-blog]

When it comes to all things ocean, I am the first to admit that I am completely a fish out of water. I was born and raised in the hills of West Virginia, went to West Point to join the Army over the Navy and have yet to take the sailing classes on the Charles river, offered free to all MIT students. And while I love to eat fresh fish, especially cooked over a fire or grill, I am just not going to be able to name all 50 plus species of rock fish that populate the coast of California.
Seven weeks ago, I couldn’t tell you what a purse seine or a gill net was, (types of fishing nets) much less the differences between the two. And yet, here I am, trying to help a group of fiercely independent and rugged fishermen with their businesses.

I am currently working with a small group of fishing businesses (fishermen, unloaders and processors), to try to bring a new brand to life. I have certainly been able to bring some basic MBA skills to the table, marketing and brand management having been two of my favourite classes during my first year at MIT Sloan. I have spent countless hours on the phone talking to seasoned brand managers from industries that have similarities to this Californian local, wild fishery, teasing out the key strategies that could help my clients. Diving into their existing market to try to divine exactly what it is their customers love about fish and what it is that should give them a sustained competitive advantage if we can capture it. This is information that these guys cannot readily get on their own. Of course, if they had the time they could work it out, but they spend days out at sea, to bring in the freshest, highest quality catch, in a manner that, surprisingly, is proving to be quite ecologically sound, as well as economically beneficial.

But I digress; that is not the most challenging part. The real meat of this summer position will lie in how well I am able to convince them to trust me, that what I have to share with them is worth their time and effort to put into place. Most of these fishermen have spent their lives on the sea. They have seen increased regulation come and drive out businesses, watching their economies shrink by as much as 75 per cent in 20 years. But this challenge is also why I think we will succeed. The California Fisheries Fund is truly here to stay in these communities. By making investments throughout the value chain and then helping the businesses to grow and thrive, we are earning their trust.

A Measure of Success

2009-07-29T14:31:00.002-04:00

[syndicated from my blog at blogs.ft.com/mba-blog]

One of the first tasks I was asked to tackle for the California Fisheries Fund was the challenge of measuring the performance of the fund and its mission impact. Not in strictly financial terms, either. The goals of the CFF are three-fold:
Increase conservation measures supporting commercial fish stocks and their natural habitats.
Help revitalise California’s coastal fishing communities after decades of economic decline.
Assist fishery related businesses to make the transition from open-access to a catch-share based management regime.
Capitalised currently at $5M, you’ll notice something missing from those goals: nothing about earning the investors a financial return. While the goal of the fund is to remain solvent and self-supporting, this is a mission-driven, financial instrument, providing low-cost capital to higher risk businesses in need.
And nothing quite like it exists anywhere else in the world. So where was I going to begin? Not knowing what I didn’t know, my first step was to examine the existing state of the fund and I dived into the loan files of our current portfolio of borrowers. I wanted to know what the businesses we were helping were all about. This meant looking through financial statements, re-examining the business plans presented with each application and building a simple model to understand the various dynamic interactions at play within the fishery: economic, environmental, and social.
Not a simple task, but a mental exercise I found very helpful as I then took a step back and began the thought experiment of examining the fund fully deployed:
What are the impact goals we want to see? What actions are we as a fund taking? What are the intermediate outcomes that might be measurable? At what cost? Where will the data come from? Who is going to be doing all of this measuring in the future? As a start-up, the CFF still has only two full-time employees plus two interns for the summer. That is not a lot of staff to go around.
So what can we hope to do? Analyse the system and then simplify and standardise a proposed group of metrics. I don’t have the answer yet, but am making steady progress. Working with a group of PhDs and other fishery experts, we are taking an innovative approach to this unique challenge and focusing on what should be measured and can be measured. Business as usual for the EDF.

Following that vision thing...

2009-07-29T14:29:00.003-04:00

[syndicated from my blog at blogs.ft.com/mba-blog]

Everyone who works at the Environmental Defense Fund wants to change the meaning of the term “business as usual”.
The EDF was founded with its original intent to do just that, through whatever means necessary, to force those who were harming the natural environment to stop and pay society for their ecological “sins.”
You might even be familiar with its old unofficial slogan, “sue the bastards”. Despite this history, the EDF may currently be the leading proponent of market-based solutions and for working with corporations to find “the ways that work”. How did this happen?
This morning I found myself yet again in the conference room, this time with Fred Krupp, the president of EDF for the past 25 years. With these questions in my mind, I was priveleged to hear at first hand from the man who was instrumental in that change.
Which is where I get to the vision thing. Fred has had his eye on the ball pretty much since he was a kid in New Jersey. He has been focused on the environment his entire career, starting as a lawyer, activist and then as the director of EDF.
Something that seems to me to be more important than keeping his eye on the ball, however, has been his ability to know where he wants to hit that ball. He has harnessed the deep desires of the environmental movement for change and focused on the outcomes that everybody wants.
What he ceased caring about in the late 1980s was the methods used to get there. Inspired by the wild-eyed entrepreneurial spirit that resides in the American business world, he has helped transform what it means to do business in America. Together with a crack-team of economists, he helped create and enact the idea of cap-and-trade for pollutants, which has been a run-away success for acid rain pollution and is likely to do the same for carbon dioxide, eventually.
This type of vision took courage. Courage to stand up to much of the environmental movement he had been a part of for his entire life, as well as having the tenacity to fight through the barriers that entrenched corporate interests had put up against change. Who knows how many countless hours he spent laying out and selling this idea to stakeholders at all levels of our economy?
These are a few of the lessons I am learning this summer. This is true leadership.

Who wants to be a rock star?

2009-07-27T12:36:00.002-04:00

[syndicated from my blog at blogs.ft.com/mba-blog]

Five weeks ago, I left the comforting environs of Cambridge, Massachusetts and MIT Sloan for the unknown challenges awaiting me with the California Fisheries Fund.
Anticipating a huge cultural shift, I was prepared for pretty much anything, other than the highly professional, financial district high-rise in San Francisco where the CFF is co-located with the EDF.
I was also not expecting that I would find myself using nearly every subject I covered in my first year of MBA studies. Within the first two weeks.
No, that is not an exaggeration.
In my role so far, I have used pretty much everything taught to me during MIT Sloan’s (in)famously quantitative Core, including accounting, data modeling and statistics, micro-econ and intro game theory, marketing, organisational processes, finance. Check, check and check, check, double-check. And how about branding, sustainable business strategies (S-Lab), and systems dynamics? Again: check, check, check. Is this unprecedented? When talking to my closest friends and classmates at other internships, absolutely. I think I have used a broader-based set of skills than any MBA intern I know (hopefully not mis-using them!), including all those folks who ended up in management consulting roles, tech start-ups and especially you out there in investment banking.
So let’s take a look at how that has been possible and take you back a bit to those first few days, when I first ran into this bunch of economic thought leaders, PhDs in Marine Ecosystems and entrepreneurs. I arrived and found myself climbing a three-day cliff of a learning curve about catch-shares, a highly innovative fishery management system the EDF has been backing and which is finally gaining traction in the US regulatory system due to its success around the world in defeating the Tragedy of the Commons. The training was called “So You Want to be a Catch Shares Rock Star?” and to this day is one of the most well-structured and informative training sessions I have received anywhere, with a great balance of theory and practical application.
But more to the point, this training was geared at folks who have been immersed in oceans issues such as fishery management and declining commercial stocks for years. I had been through a two-day simulation exercise in MIT Sloan’s S-Lab, but was certainly not even close to the level of expertise of my colleagues. Intimidating? A bit. Intellectually challenging? Indeed. But awesome and inspiring? Absolutely!
After three days I had a good grasp of the underlying policy situation surrounding California’s coast groundfish fishery and of the market forces CFF was trying to harness through its innovative lending structure. And that is when the fun really began.

Tree-hugging, Dirt-eating Druids? Not so much...

2009-07-24T12:55:00.002-04:00

syndicated from my blog at http://blogs.FT.com/mba-blog

Did I just hear those words? Having been distracted by the brilliant 28th floor view of the Bay Bridge, I was quickly thrust back into reality.

As I was sitting in on a conference call with the Director of the Environmental Defense Fund’s (EDF) Corporate Partnership Program, the title referenced phrase is how he described the expectations of his business “partner,” FedEx’s chief engineer. It wasn’t too far off from the sentiment I was expecting when I first arrived here five weeks ago, although I must admit I didn’t hold quite the negative bias about it. After all, I had searched out and taken a summer position with an explicitly environmentally oriented organisation for a reason.

In many ways such a position was what I wanted and felt I needed. My lofty ideals and bend towards public service have definitely pushed me more towards the John Muir Trail than to Wall Street. And so, my expectations weren’t too far astray from the thoughts permeating the mind of that engineer.

Much to my surprise, that was not at all what I got. Before the next days and weeks allow me to divulge all of my secrets, let me first start off by recognising that this is a serious organisation, hell-bent on finding “the ways that work,” by which the EDF means economically sound solutions to our most pressing environmental woes. And I quickly learned they have the right kind of people to get the job done.

During my first days in San Francisco, I found myself in EDF’s Ocean’s Program, surrounded by not only PhDs and other experts in marine biology and climate science, but by economic thought leaders and successful entrepreneurs with 20 plus years of business success behind them. Great! But I was in strange waters; I was the only MBA student in the office, among a dozen or so other interns, ranging from undergrads studying biology and economics to other Master’s candidates conducting research in marine ecosystems and even a second year law student working towards his J.D. After nearly a full year of business school surrounded by mostly future techies, management consultants and bankers, I was a fish out of water.

As I said before, this is a serious and broadly skilled group of experts. With my limited technical expertise and relatively short experience, how was I going to jump and make a difference in ten weeks? My unique position with the fledgling (and also quite unique) California Fisheries Fund would provide the perfect opportunity to do just such a thing. This has proved to be a fast-paced adventure through business and politics, with gorgeous views along the way.

The MBA Job Hunt

2009-05-02T18:45:00.004-04:00

We all know that MBAs aren't getting the best rap on the outside world these days, due to bang-up jobs by the likes of (do I really need to spew the cherry-picked list of failures here?).
In any case, I have decided to put up this job search mash-up I... ummm... mashed together for one of my MIT classes. For all of you MBAs out there still looking for gainful employment, check it out.

MIT 100K &... the Mad Scientist

2009-03-06T15:49:00.000-05:00