My Story to President-Elect Obama, via Change.gov
Monday, December 1st, 2008In a nutshell, I am a divorced Computer Systems Analyst / Developer. I have experience in small to mid-sized businesses in security, consumer electronics, graphics presentation hardware, steel girder, joist and deck manufacturing, and materials handling industries. I have experience in teaching, training, sales, programming, quality & environmental management systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and internal auditing. I have a unique talent for computer forensics and interpersonal communications. I instituted the student advisory board at DeVry/Toronto and the Lab Committee at DeVry/Chicago, both in an attempt to improve communications between faculty and students, during a period of rapid growth in student enrollment. These activities led to an investigation of DeVry/Toronto by the Ontario provincial government, resulting in student loan fraud being uncovered, and DeVry/Toronto having to return $1 million. I was also a volunteer advocate with the Pee Dee Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, where I primarily worked with the Alternatives to Violence program–a wife-beater re-habilitation program for men and women.
I have listened to President Elect Obama’s speeches and proposals with great enthusiasm. His campaign offered hope, where McCain offered anger and hostility.
In response to your request for ideas on economic survival and environmentally-friendly energy alternatives, I have a few suggestions, as outlined below.
1) Create a national bullet train transportation system. This can be built on top of existing rail systems. Some will require upgrading or replacing, since some railroad companies, like CSX in South Carolina, removed all west-bound tracks. Bullet trains from NYC to Chicago, to LA offer an alternative to congested highways and unreliable airlines. These could be an electric/diesel hybrid–electric for short runs (like subways) and diesel for cross-country bullet trains.
2) Promote telecommuting for knowledge workers. Help reduce the need for office space and commuting to work. Provide incentive to companies to use telecommuters.
3) Build a series of green cities, from scratch. Find the best green engineers and contract cities to be built in three waves. First, one city in one year, then two, then three, for a total of six cities in three years. Using as much green construction technology as possible.
4) Find out what happened to the “first-reported” fusion reaction in France. Why hasn’t there been news of subsequent reactions?
5) Invest in NASA. Find a replacement for the space shuttle–it is 1970s technology. Private industry is on the verge chartering space flights in jet-like vehicles at a price of ~$250K per ride.
6) Do a web search on the Manpollo project and author Greg Craven for well-delivered seminars on global climate destabilization (yes, please rename global warming and global climate change to global climate destabilization).
7) Since 25% of the air pollution in California reportedly comes from China, I recommend a pollution tax be charged directly to the Chinese government, until they implement an environmental management system, like ISO 14001. I would also bring this matter to the G20 nations, and propose some sort of environmental alliance, so it is more than just a protocol or accord, like Kyoto. This would be similar to NATO, unless the UN will provide something better.
8) Extend environmental standards to the global community. This could be implemented by requiring importers of foreign-manufactured goods to use only government-approved exporters, which would require the exporters to meet environmental standards and have an EMS in-place. Approvals could be administered by the private sector (on five year contracts), performing surveillance and compliance audits at regular intervals. This could begin as a simple fee to get registered, then evolve as the infrastructure grows.
9) Extend interstate public transit (not the unsafe/unsanitary buses, like today). The hardware could be government-owned, but operated by the private sector (on five year contracts).
10) Impose a carbon tax on the big oil companies and manufacturers of internal combustion engines, along with a carbon tax credit for green energy research and manufacturing. Wall street looks for healthy companies to spend 7% of their revenue on research and development. A company spending 5% of their revenue on green research should pay little to no carbon tax
11) Changing course, I recommend the labeling of genetically-modified foods as a requirement (60% of our produce is now genetically-engineered) Also, impose tougher labeling requirements on pesticides used on foreign-grown food
12) Replace Sarbane-Oxley with something that represents a better understanding of technology by the government. According to SOX, there is nothing to stop me from writing a program to print myself a cheque for $1,000,000.00–it just stops me from changing how the cheque looks. This legislation is a joke in the IT community and should be an embarrassment to the American government. This legislation was to prevent more fallout from Reaganomics, like Enron, and what did we get? Lieman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and AIG collapsed. Is SOX working? I think not.
I grew up in Canada, just outside of Toronto, I spent 1995 in Chicago, 1997 - 2007 in South Carolina, and now resied in New York state.
Thanks for your time,
–Patrick