Category: Editor’s Memo

Energy always has been a bit of a mystery to me. Even though it’s such an inextricable part of my daily life, I have only the vaguest notions of how, say, electricity is produced, commoditized and then delivered to my home. In fact, I’m reminded how much I’m in the dark about energy every time that I’m, well, literally in the dark. All it takes is just a few hours without power to make me realize how little I understand it and how much I depend on it.

In the cover story, we attempt to shed some light on the broad and complex topic of energy. The story isn’t intended to be a comprehensive survey of the business or an endorsement of one fuel source over another. Rather our aim is to capture the energy sector through the prism of the Owen community—alumni working in the industry and the growing connections between their employers and the school.

In some sense, a university is as good a backdrop as any for understanding energy. At the heart of each is the idea of harnessing untapped potential. Take, for example, the rivers and lakes that feed hydroelectric plants across the U.S. In their natural state, these waterways may serve many purposes, but only when properly channeled do they generate power for the greater benefit of society. Likewise, students arrive on campus brimming with promise and ambition, but what helps them live to the fullest of their abilities is the direction they receive from faculty and others.

I’ve had the good fortune to report on this transformative process at Owen for the past five years. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the process helps spark a strong current that connects everyone in this community. Call it what you will—enthusiasm, camaraderie—it’s an energy unto itself, albeit a different sort than what’s mentioned above. Yet it burns just as brightly in its own mysterious way.

Among the rewards of editing Vanderbilt Business is the privilege of being a part of this very energy. I may not fully understand where it comes from or how it connects one person to the next, but I do know that its pull makes it harder to say goodbye.

I’m sad to say this issue is my last: I’m joining the staff of Vanderbilt Magazine, and my talented colleague Nancy Wise will be the new editor. As excited as I am about this next step in my career, I’ll miss working with Owen’s faculty and staff on a regular basis. I’ll also miss not being able to bring to light more of the stories that make this school so extraordinary.

The inventor Buckminster Fuller once said, “Real wealth is ideas plus energy.” If that’s so, then there are few places as prosperous as Owen. This community has both energy and ideas in spades, and I’m the richer for having been a part of it. Thank you for making these past five years so illuminating in the fullest sense of the word.

When looking at most world maps, we take for granted our points of reference. North is up, south is down, and the U.S. is in the top left corner, just as it was when we first learned geography in grade school. Not everyone, though, subscribes to this point of view.

For decades, a group of trailblazing mapmakers has tried changing the world as we know it by changing how we see it. Their so-called reversed maps depict what seems like an upside-down world, where countries in the Southern Hemisphere have supplanted their neighbors to the north. The underlying message is that the perch from which we view the world is an arbitrary one. North is still north, of course, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it should be at the top of the map. Nor should countries at the top be considered “above” everyone else—either literally or figuratively.

After graduating from college, I learned this firsthand, but without the aid of a reversed map. Torn over my job prospects (or lack thereof), I did what many 22-year-olds with wanderlust do: pick a place on the globe and go. Joined by a couple of friends, I set out for Chile, a country I knew very little about, with the intention of staying a year. My thought was that I would teach English to pay the bills and travel around South America at every opportunity, all while brushing up on my Spanish.

I ended up doing all of these things, but the experience as a whole left a much deeper impression on me than I ever could have imagined. During the course of the year, I made lifelong friends and gained a lasting appreciation for the culture. I also came to realize that my preconceived notions of what it means to be American were limited at best. In truth, our New World neighbors have rightful claim to that name as well, for in spite of our differences, we share a corner of the world with a common pioneering spirit.

Of all the discoveries I made that year abroad, I probably learned the most about myself. It’s ironic that I had to travel halfway around the globe to get to know the person in the mirror better, but that’s exactly what happened. Finding a new vantage point from which to view the world afforded me a much better understanding of my place in it.

I imagine the inaugural class of the new Americas MBA for Executives program, which is discussed in this issue’s cover story, will come to a similar realization. One of the program’s main selling points is the exposure to business practices in Brazil, Mexico and Canada, but the unspoken value is the personal journey that will accompany those experiences. By immersing themselves in those cultures, the students will be letting go of the familiar and looking at the world—and themselves—with a whole new perspective.

In other words, they’ll be doing those trailblazing mapmakers proud.

The floodwaters that devastated Middle Tennessee in early May left their mark in more ways than one. The physical destruction was sudden and overwhelming: Lives were lost, and many homes and businesses were in ruins once the muddy water subsided. The psychological impact, however, didn’t recede quite so easily. For weeks afterward the unseen effects of the disaster—the shock, worry and fatigue—continued seeping into the lives of everyone in this area.

Fortunately my family and I were spared during the flood, but I’m still haunted by pictures from those days. One in particular that has stayed with me is that of the Grand Ole Opry stage door half-submerged in murky water. The photo, which appeared in various media outlets, is what you’d expect from a snapshot taken in difficult conditions; the lighting is poor, the image a little shaky. Yet it resonates with me nonetheless because of a personal connection I feel toward it.

During the late ’70s and early ’80s, I had the privilege of spending many hours backstage at the Opry House just steps from that very door. At the time my father sold advertising for WSM, the AM radio station that broadcasts the show, and I’d often tag along when he entertained clients. Some of my earliest memories are of standing offstage watching Roy Acuff and other stars of that era perform.

These memories are what first came to mind when I saw the photo of the door. My heart sank as I thought of all the history washed away and of the monumental rebuilding task that lay ahead—a task incidentally that David Kloeppel, BS’91, MBA’96, President and Chief Operating Officer at Gaylord Entertainment, writes about here. Gaylord has worked doggedly to restore the Opry House to its former glory, and remarkably it is now open for business once again.

While I never really doubted that the Opry would someday return, I did wonder if it, and Nashville for that matter, would ever be the same. Now that time has afforded some perspective, I realize how shortsighted that was of me. The question wasn’t so much if but rather how our community would change, and I’m happy to say that in many ways it has been for the better. A page of history may have been lost in the flood, but in its place a new one is being written—one that reflects our compassion and resolve.

There’s no better symbol of this than the stage door itself. In salvaging the door, Gaylord decided to preserve the mark left by the flood and display it for all to see. Aside from being a historic curiosity, I’d like to think that the mark serves another purpose altogether—to signal a high point of sorts. It commemorates not the depths to which we Nashvillians sank as a community but rather the heights to which we rose, buoyed by neighborly love, perseverance and the promise of new beginnings.

In seventh grade I learned to avoid using the word “great” whenever possible in writing. My English teacher argued that it was a trite adjective. Of course she was thinking more of its popular usage (as in “he’s great at tennis”), but even in its formal sense the word has lost some luster through the years. In a way it’s ironic: A word, which by its very definition should be reserved only for the rarest of occasions, has been used so often that its meaning is now diluted.

Why the English lesson, you may ask? When the recession struck in 2008 and references to our so-called “Great Recession” became commonplace, I began to wonder about the implications of tacking that word onto the front of our economic problems. I’ll grant that it’s a clever turn of phrase—one that stands out in this age of sound bites by recalling the Great Depression. Yet I can’t help but feel as though we’re being premature, as well as a bit presumptuous, in likening this downturn to what happened 80 years ago.

As unprecedented as this recession is in terms of its scope and complexity, the Great Depression stands alone in severity. No turn of phrase, regardless of how catchy it is, should imply otherwise. During the Depression the Dow dropped almost 90 percent over a three-year period, and unemployment reached an astonishing 25 percent. By comparison our downturn has resulted in a 50 percent drop in the stock market (which has since rebounded considerably) and just under 10 percent unemployment.

Numbers tell just one part of the story, though. To get an idea of how difficult it was then, I only have to look to my own family. During the 1930s my great-grandparents were among the hundreds of thousands who migrated to California in search of work. For the better part of a decade they went from one backbreaking job to another, and their home was often a dirt-floor tent. My grandfather’s stories about his childhood were like something straight out of The Grapes of Wrath.

It’s little wonder why we refer to these individuals as the Greatest Generation. Even if you disregard World War II, the Depression was more than enough to earn them that nickname. Perhaps our desire for a similar distinction explains why we’ve latched on to calling this the Great Recession. Whether we admit to it or not, we all have high expectations for our lives and wish to be part of something historic, even if it comes about through hardship.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “To be great is to be misunderstood.” Those words still ring true today, but not just in the way he intended them. Somehow we have misinterpreted the true meaning of greatness. Applying that label correctly requires perspective—something we are in short supply of these days. We ourselves can’t say if we’re living in great times. That’s for a future generation to decide.