Most people wouldn’t put working in oil & gas on one’s resume as the build-up to be the Secretary of the Interior - that is, the President’s cabinet position which oversees the protection of the United States’ national parks, fish & wildlife, land reclamation & Indigenous American affairs…
Maybe it was just our shared background of a stint in the finance industry - another suggested, selfish, sellout mark against one’s character in respect for & building toward the greater good of a society - that made me believe even more in her encompassing knowledge base for succeeding in this endeavor, but I am a huge Sally Jewell fan. “Oil & gas are just natural resources like everything else,” she said in an interview by Eric Lucas in the Alaska Airlines’ Beyond Magazine. Oversimplified, outdated & simple-minded as it may sound, she speaks the truth.
This paradox of mental stimuli & opposing goals that all require extreme drive & endurance to succeed in attaining the level of affluence she found in each undertaking, make her a more capable judge. Like a modern day Frank Abagnale, who better to be in charge of making game-altering decisions than the side-swapper who intrinsically knows the others’ secrets? Profit vs control, preference vs solidarity, corporate vs government…
Above those controversies though, is the mutual understanding of good business - what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, whichever role one is playing on this particular day… Because as grown-ups, we all know that, as Bob Dylan sings, The loser today, will be later to win… And the times, they are a changin’…