Since I began my journey to create a new business aimed at helping U.S. based organizations survive and thrive by becoming globally competitive, I am often asked about my qualifications. A fair question indeed, when one considers the broad range of subjects and details implied in my 20 second elevator pitch and few have the time to read my bio or two-page resume. Often, those who take the time to read bios and resumes question their value because so many are inflated or exaggerated out of desperation in these tough economic times. In many ways, I am not a bio and resume fan because they seldom get to the important characteristics and experiences that define who we are. For this reason, I decided that a brief story about important parts of my life would be far more useful to convey where both my experience and passion are deeply rooted. I call my brief story “Beyond the Bio and Resume” and it starts with very humble beginnings and progresses over thirty years to many great accomplishments. It is also a story that starts from the fact that I barely graduated from high school because I was failing English to now having a Masters Degree in Business Administration and publishing a book on Third World Country Corruption. Along with the book, I have now created a “Realty Board Game” with associated “real scoop” seminars about surviving our economic downturn by becoming globally competitive. Woven into my story are parallel paths that give me the education and experience equivalent to a Masters Degree in Technology Management, a Masters Degree in International Business and a Bachelors Degree in Global Economics. Let me begin with my story, by telling you that I was very fortunate to have had a career in telecommunications beginning with the network and customer service areas of American Telephone and Telegraph (ATT) before it was broken up, through the actual breakup and then on with one of the operating company spin offs that eventually expanded into international markets. Being in the network and customer service areas of these companies, I had the opportunity to work with almost every large business, inter exchange carrier, government organization and educational institution. Along the way, I also worked with small businesses and every manner of residential customer. In addition, working for these companies gave me the opportunity to work with unions and regulatory agencies making me keenly aware of these groups’ roles and importance in the scheme of things. Yes, I became a business leader that values and appreciates both unions and regulators. Having been involved with the AT&T legal department during the antitrust case and later being deeply involved in making the break up of AT&T happen, I became a believer that monopolies should be broken up. I know these two positions are opposite of what you expect from a business leaders. Another advantage to being in the network and customer service areas of a telecommunications was that I got to participate in national and local disaster recovery exercises. More importantly, I got to participate in real life recovery situations involving public utilities, sate and city organizations, as well as national emergency management departments. Later in my career, I was responsible for and directly involved in disaster recovery/emergency management for the fourteen states now called Qwest. After my return from Indonesia, I lead a nationwide Y2K program involving over five million customers and established emergency management functions for the Y2K Teams I lead. Throughout my career, I was involved in the management of large organizations, as well as moving people and work from one state to another and dealing with technology deployment. Most of these efforts were in direct pursuit of productivity improvements that we all knew were required because of population growth and aging issues facing our country today. After all they were originally outlined in the book Mega Trends written by John Naisbitt and published in 1980. Along the way, I made many mistakes and was fortunate enough to have superiors who made me take the time to clean them up before allowing me to move to another assignment. The experience of making things work gave me a great reputation that then allowed me the opportunity to create other organizations specifically designed to handle new technology and customer services. With a “clean up guy” type of reputation, you might expect that I was hard on people; however, I learned early on that lasting results come through empowered, engaged people while setbacks and failures come from disenfranchised and angry ones. At the end of my telecommunications career, I volunteered for a three-year in country assignment to Indonesia. I was the Chief Operating Officer for a sizable telecommunications joint venture. This assignment gave me an education in the real world of international business not taught by colleges and universities. During this assignment, I witnessed first hand a complete economic collapse that instantly bankrupted our business and turned the country into chaos. I spent my last three days in Indonesia watching from the top of a six story building as a city of over ten million people burned in all directions (Jakarta, Indonesia – May 1998). I was eventually evacuated to Bangkok, Thailand by the U.S. Embassy. According to the Indonesian government, over 500 people were killed in just 3 days and over 2000 women and children were raped – the youngest was eleven. This one experience dramatically changed my view of the world and makes me one of a few business people to have managed through and witnessed first-hand a massive economic collapse. There are two very important side stories I need to tell you that are not on my bio and resume. The first is that when I graduated from high school, I immediately joined the United States Air Force and received an outstanding technical education in radar and satellites. The military also gave me a significant amount of managerial experience. Both my technical and managerial skills were then continually advanced because the companies I worked for supported and funded continuing education and training as well as career planning and mentoring. The second important side story is that, years ago, I was a small business owner. The business did well for a while and then turned south. Eventually, I had to sell the business to keep from bleeding my savings dry because of payments on personally signed obligations. After I returned from Indonesia, I had to help close two other telecommunications businesses. Ironically, each failed on the critical issue of two many large fixed costs payments when the revenues turned down. After my telecommunications career, I went on to write my book and develop my “reality board game”. I then surrounded them with understanding third world country business seminars covering material that no college or university teaches. Within the last two years, I added seminars and consulting services on surviving and thriving by getting globally competitive because I knew that our economic slowdown was coming and wrote in my book that China had already forecasted our fall from economic power in 2025. In addition, I knew from 30 years of experience that the only way to a successful future for any of us is to become globally competitive at every level of our society. I also knew from my own research that virtually everyone knows we are not currently globally competitive and that we need to get there; however, no one was, or is, working on the question of “How do we actually become globally competitive? Before moving into the up front discussion of what is really going on with the economy, I need to tell you candidly that the most important things that happened to me along the way were the many professionally, financially and personally humbling experiences. Experiences that tested every fiber of my being and brought me to understand at the deepest level of my being these words: “There but for the grace of God go I.” |
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Beyond the Bio and Resume |