Day 13 Reflection

Barry Lawrence

5-21-10

Day 13 Reflection

Today we heard from Kate Finnerty, Redlands alum class of ’99, and her co-worker Blair at Energetics Incorporated. After Kate graduated from Redlands, she knew she wanted to do something on the East Coast, so she went to grad school at George Washington University to get her Masters in International Affairs through the school’s night program. While attending nigh school she worked as a paid intern for the governor of Delaware at her Washington office. By making herself an asset to the functions of the office, Kate became the office director and got to work on many high profile issues that sometimes involved international travel. Despite her seemingly great job with the office of the governor, and being that no job in this city is by any means permanent, Kate eventually moved on to her current position at Energetics where she does planning and analysis for the Department of Homeland Security. Her duties include planning and writing strategic defense and crisis reactions for a number of companies that make up the eighteen subsections of our critical national infrastructure. Essentially, Kate could be referred to as a “ghost writer” for the Federal Government and DHS.

Blair had a slightly different approach to work in the government and how she got to Energetics. A native of New York, Blair went to work for the Internal Revenue Service office in New York. From there she went to work with the State Department through special security contracting as a consultant. After attempting several times, Blair now has a job with the DHS, finally reaching her goal of working for a Federal Agency, and will be starting in the next two weeks. She was able to get this job through a seemingly unlikely connection, further reinforcing the point both Kate and Blair made several times that we are to never burn bridges and keep as many and all options open in a field and town where connections are everything.

Day 12 Reflection

Barry Lawrence

5-20-10

Day 12 Reflection

Today alumni Chris Bohanon, class of ’86, and his associate Andrew VanderJack from VanNess Feldman spoke on the importance (and lack thereof) of having a law degree in the public policy game. Chris had a variety of jobs in Washington, including his current for a law firm, without a law degree. Andrew on the other hand, does have a law degree and was able to give us some insight into why one would and should choose to pursue a law degree when aiming towards a career in Washington.

Chris got his first working experience in politics as a campaign worker for senate hopeful from his home state. Even though his candidate did not win the election, his work on the campaign trail was enough to help him land a job as a staffer for his local congressman for the enormous salary of 18k a year. Albeit unusual for this town, Chris stayed with his congressman until he decided to retire in 1994. After trying to work for a congressman from another state, Chris found it difficult to stay focused and passionate about his job being so disconnected from his constituents, so from there Chris went to work for a rural electric co-op of sorts. Since joining VanNess, Chris works on what he calls “coalition building”, a form of lobbying that involves getting like-minded clients to join forces and work together to present their statements with more strength. Even though Chris does not have a law degree, he is still able to make a difference through a law firm lobbying for his clients, although he does admit a law degree would grant one more freedom to pursue different fields of study in Washington.

Andrew, on the other hand, does have a law degree, although he took a while deciding to obtain it. Born and raised in Alaska, Andrew has a particular affiliation with the underrepresented native peoples of Alaska. After a few years of “exploring” different career fields, Andrew decided to go for a law degree after all. He does admit that lawyers are often overpaid, under focused money-grabbers, but since he has a particular goal and direction for his law degree, to help the native peoples of Alaska, he is able to use his law degree to represent his clients in a congress that all too often overlooks them.

Day 11 Reflection

Barry Lawrence

5-19-10

Day 11 Reflection

Gavin Fulmer, University of Redlands Alumni, class of ’99, spoke today on his experience with the National Science Foundation. A government agency often overlooked, the NSF has a budget of nearly 7 billion dollars to promote scientific discovery and education in America. While most Americans do not even know it exists, the NSF plays an incredibly important role in ensuring America is and continues to be a competitive global player, be it in technology, medicine, fire power, and everything else; an argument can be made that all stems from the sciences and a focus on scientific methodology and thinking in everyday life. Despite frequent opposition to “big government” and government programs that exist for the sole purpose of handing out government money, especially without any contractual direct end product that the government can use, there is little, if any opposition to the NSF because of its overarching importance to our country’s economic and social superiority, even survival.

Founded in 1950 by a congressional vote, the NSF was established to “promote the progress of science” in America. The primary means by which the NSF achieves these goals is through the admission of grants and fellowships that directly support educational and research in hard and social sciences. Out of some 40k grant and fellowship proposals per year, the NSF approves around ten thousand. Even so, the foundation is responsible for dishing out somewhere around $261k per day. One interesting point that Dr. Thorson brought up during class regarded the public’s access to data and information obtained through research conducted under federal grants and fellowships. In other words, since the taxpayer is financing almost seven billion dollars worth of science related research, shouldn’t we as taxpayers have access to the information obtained through the testing and research WE funded? Interestingly enough, there did seem to be a reasonable amount of publications with data from federally funded programs, but it was by no means representative of what could be called transparent, and I believe a substantial effort should be put forth to gather non-personal data information and assemble it on a government website where every taxpayer can have access to it in order to promote a more transparent system.

Day 10 Reflection

Barry Lawrence

5-18-10

Day 10 Reflection

Today we met with Vonda Matthews, wife of Jason Matthews whom we had met with the first Friday of our stay. Mrs. Matthews is currently the Legislative Advisor for a program called COPS, which stands for Community Oriented Policing Services. COPS is a program run under the Department of Justice where they specialize on getting grants for and setting up additional training and equipment services for police forces around the United States. While the program had met its original directive to increase police on the ground and better educate them, the department was oddly enough not allowed to “sunset” as originally planned because of the overarching value the program was to improving the effectiveness of police forces. Despite the programs lack of congressional authorization, constant budget battles, and political indifference, the program today is as strong as ever, doing much more than ever intended to encourage better policing.

Outside of her own experience with the DOJ and COPS, Matthews spoke on how to get a job in Washington, and where to go from there. As far as Matthews was concerned, an internship on Capitol Hill would be the most favorable place to start for a young undergrad or recent graduate. Her reasoning behind this statement was founded in knowing that every agency in Washington interacts with Congress somehow, and needs people who know how its works and can contribute to Congressional relations. The second place Matthews advised us to look for work was the USAJobs.gov website, where the federal government lists internship and career openings. Thirdly was an internship with a particular agency that one would like to eventually work in as a direct form of getting involved and getting know in a future workplace.

Day 9 Reflection

Barry Lawrence

5-17-10

Day 9 Reflection

Today we heard from Robert Greenberg, CEO and Founder of G&H International Services, Inc. Contrary to how most of our speakers have presented until now, Greenberg had a prepared PowerPoint presentation on his involvement with a project he calls “Government 2.0” which can best be described as our government, in the future, integrated totally and seamlessly with social media to form a more efficient flow of data to and from the government.

While it took me a good amount of time to grasp these new and foreign concepts, I think I have a good handle on it now. We are at a crossroads where technology is used in our everyday lives, but it doesn’t fit together with other tech too easily, especially when dealing with the government bureaucracy and all of its agencies. This can be especially apparent and tragic when one looks great disasters such as the earthquake in Haiti or Hurricane Katrina, where many agencies were involved in relief and aid, but the communication between the government and all of the aid organizations what virtually nonexistent, especially when it comes to raw, useable data that our advanced technology could use to assist us. By creating a useable platform for companies and agencies to use their current data systems and still be in control of what data is shared, while getting the various existing platforms to communicate seamlessly in real-time, we can have a dramatically more efficient government machine that can actually be helpful in times of need.

The most interesting part of this proposal (to me anyways) was its possible uses in policy making. Using an example of an out of date police doctrine in New Zealand, where a policy was essentially put up on the internet and encouraged input from the people, everyone was able to give there input into what would be regarded by many as an example of a streamlined direct democracy. I could immediately see prospects for America to better streamline it’s democratic system using such social media technology, and I can’t wait to see what Greenberg and his team do with it.

Day 8 Reflection

Barry Lawrence

5-13-10

Day 8 Reflection

What a way to end part one of our trip. Today Kathryn Buechel spoke on the down to earth details of how to get a job and be successful in Washington. Buechel has had quite a successful career of her own in Washington, starting as a recipient of the Tinker Scholarship and interning with a congressman, where she cought the ever-present “Washington Bug”. After graduating in the fall (good move) of 2004, Buechel moved straight to Washington looking for work. After three weeks she found a position as a staff assistant for Congressman Nunez. While working for different members over the past few years, Buechel went to grad school part time at John Hopkins and received her masters degree. She stressed the importance of education and especially continuing one’s education after the bachelors level. In this day and age, especially in Washington, we all have to be on the cutting edge and do anything and everything to set yourself apart from the crowd. Currently, Buechel is working for the California State University system here in Washington as a lobbyist (basically, I do not remember her official title).

As far as pointing us in the right direction for a sustainable and enjoyable career in Washington, Buechel had many helpful tips and tricks. Primarily, especially if one is looking for a job on the hill, one has to know how the system works and is structured. This ranges from knowing how a senate office should be structured and how it is actually structured, as well as how the job market works in Washington. Much to my surprise, there is no “monster.com” for jobs on the hill; openings are reveled only to people who are already in the “in crowd” on the hill and positions are filled rather quickly through personal networks and contacts. Another surprising fact is the lack of regulation for discrimination and employment rights for Capitol Hill jobs. There is no oversight mechanism, jobs pay very poorly for the amount of work and are often relatively temporary compared to most career jobs. All things considered, there are still people lined up outside the building to get a chance to work hands on with policy and the policy makers.

Day 7 Reflection

Barry Lawrence

5-12-10

Reflection Day 7

Sam W. Brown Jr., a man best described as one who has done it all, spoke with us today about his life, his experiences in school, politics, and the private sector, and quite a few stories as well. Brown himself calls his career “less of a career and more of a series of lurches”, which I can comfortably sympathize with as I find myself often “lurching” in many different directions as time goes on (in fact, my being on this particular trip could be described as a lurch towards politics!). One of his seemingly most rewarding lurches was towards his involvement in real estate investment and development, although he did not delve much into that part of his life due to the topic of this class being concentrated elsewhere. I am attempting to meet with Mr. Brown to discuss this and other aspects of his philanthropic life at another time, but he is a very busy man despite his current stage of “retirement”.

Politically, it was very refreshing to see and hear from a man whose involvement in public policy stemmed from sheer interest and dedication to the greater good of mankind, rather than an attempt to achieve the mythical power, fame, and fortune that most seem to think is at the end of the political road. I am not, by any means, assuming any or all of the speakers we have heard from in this course are guilty of this offence, however I do know quite a few people that seem to think this is true. In any event, it seems that Mr. Brown, having a passion for public life rather than a financially dependent career, was free from the conventional binds and limitations many experience in public life. For example, his experience as the State Treasurer of Colorado would have been career damning for a person who really needed that or another public job to survive, but Mr. Brown stuck to his guns and could afford to do so. On many aspects of his life in terms of work abroad, I found myself guilty of ignorance when he was speaking about places I have never heard of and events I never knew took place, so most of my time listening was spent jotting down historical facts than political analysis and thought.