Thrown in Deep Water
We woke up bright and early for an interview that I set up over a month ago with Mr. John Hofmeister, the founder and CEO of Citizens for Affordable Energy and author of the newly-released book "Why We Hate the Oil Companies: Straight Talk from an Energy Insider." He is the former CEO and President of Royal Dutch Shell (retired in 2008), and has been a corporate executive within energy consuming companies such as General Electric and AlliedSignal. To put this man's prevalence into perspective, we were slightly delayed in interviewing him because CNN was doing a live interview with him (in response to the BP spill) RIGHT before he headed over to speak with us on camera.
Mr. Hofmeister has interviewed with the long list of media conglomerates (that I mentioned in a previous blog), and today was no different (he had 10 other speaking/interview engagements back-to-back all day). So naturally, when Rob unloaded the equipment and out-of-the-blue said, "Whelp, good luck. See you later," I was a little nervous and taken off guard. But after all the new experiences I have encountered on this trip, no sweat.
After another slight delay, we were notified by his wonderful PR representative, Diana Espitia, that John was not going to have ample time to meet with us. She said he was very excited to have as much time as he could give, so we were offered to attend a speaking event down the road with them and then wrap up our interview following that event. This sounded like a great opportunity to shoot video of him speaking, and we had nothing else to do--so we went.
Up in the air...literally.
This was so much more than we bargained for, and I loved every single minute of it. We were John's "special guests" at the Harvard Business Alumni Club's annual end-of-the-year luncheon, and when you are the "special guest" of the keynote speaker you are definitely treated as such. Diana was like a magician and somehow arranged name tags, special equipment to set up wireless audio, seating arrangements with the rest of the guests, and a complimentary meal. This, however, is only half of it.
The event was held a few blocks down the way, and we arrived in a stylish "eco shuttle" which seemed to me like a corporate VIP, oversized golf cart. It was at the Petroleum Club on the 44th floor of the ExxonMobil building in downtown Houston, which is probably one of the tallest buildings in the city. You heard me right...44th floor. VIP. Private Harvard alumni party. Special guests. I was dumbfounded for about fifteen minutes, and was having a very difficult time containing myself looking at this corporate suite and private staff all dressed in black tie. Dumbfounded doesn't even begin to describe how I felt, actually.
After I got ahold of myself and we figured out the audio situation, we were able to sit down and help ourselves to a catered three-course lunch alongside some of the mosst powerful people in Houston. Mr. Hofmeister's speech was about 30 minutes long, and his passion was unprecedented. I have never seen an ex-corporate executive care so much about a grassroots cause, all in the name of education. It was a speech fit to fill a person up on optimism (after sifting through the apocalyptic forecast of energy policy, of course).
He discussed how we need to remove politics out of the energy sector to avoid the energy crisis we are currently headed for. Much like the Federal Reserve (which was formed to solve problems in the monetary system in 1913), Mr. Hofmeister suggests that we form an independent, non-partisan governing board of experts to regulate issues of energy in our country. He said that is the only way that we can avoid our "dysfunctional, broken, and unfixable" federal government from driving us straight into an "energy abyss." This man is fascinating, moving, and incredibly appealing to nearly all perspectives in energy discourse.
After the event (and a very responsive Q&A session following Mr. Hofmeister's speech), we piled back into the "eco shuttle" and headed back to the office. Mr. Hofmeister had to do a couple of radio phone interviews, but was able to spend a brief 15 minutes wrapping up the interview we started that morning. After answering a handful of questions in a concise and profound manner, he was off to impress some folks at Fox Business News at a live interview. Today reinforced my vocational goals, to say the least. I could get used to this interviewing-important-people thing.
Hop, skip, & a jump to the Dow
Immediately following our mind-boggling trip to the top, we took another trip to the top (19th floor of J.P. Morgan Chase building, to be exact) to meet with Susan Daker, the energy beat reporter for the Houston bureau of Dow Jones. She is a young journalist who writes about energy in the heart of the US energy capital, and she had some fascinating stuff to talk about.
One of the most interesting things that she pointed out, speaking to misconceptions within the public about oil, is that it is impossible to boycott an oil company in the way people have attempted in the past. She said that oil is a commodity, and is constantly changing hands. Just because you are pumping gas at an Exxon doesn't mean that gasoline necessarily "belongs" to Exxon. Many gas stations are independently operated, and are merely branded by a company. So you may be at an Exxon gas station, but you could be pumping gas that was refined by Shell.
Another thing she addressed is the complexity behind the price of oil. All these years I have listened to bickering about our "greedy corporations" unnecessarily jacking up gas prices for profit. That just simply isn't the case. Prices are controlled by market, the price of crude, the blend, the methods used in refining, policy, subsidies, and so much more than that. She pinpointed different blends of oils--sweet, sour, heavy, and light--which all cost different amounts to produce. After listening to the complexities of mining in Canada, and the complexities of refining in Houston, AND the complexities of regulation and political influence, I will never blame one entity for high-priced gas again.
A Side Note (that shouldn't be)
Today my privilege hit me like a train again, and once again I am struggling with what that means. When I was in Uganda, privilege is something I had to come to terms with and it has made me socially aware of my privilege back in my home country.
Today when we were at the top of one of the tallest buildings in Houston, in the company of nearly a hundred Harvard alumni, two things were evident to me:
1) The attendees were 99.9% white and male
2) All of the people serving the predominantly-white-male guests were minorities (mostly Hispanics)
It really speaks to our culture and our socio-economic make up in the US. Unfortunately, I was one of the white, privileged members of the crowd. The difference is (which is even more unfortunate) is that it would be safe to assume that the majority of those 99.9% white, privileged men probably don't recognize their privilege, let alone the lack of people-of-color around them. I wish that I could give away my privilege to someone else, but the reality is that it is what it is. However, I have the freedom to choose what I want to do with my privilege. What I will do is use my privilege to reach my potential, and tell the story of someone who can't.
One of my favorite quotes resonated with me today in the car leaving the swarm of overwhelming disparities behind: "Be the change you wish to see in the world."--Ghandi. That's the plan.
Until next time...
