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Gary Edwards

Character Matters and Mitt Romney has it - 1 views

Romney ODF Massachusetts-Lesson Massachusetts-RFi Microsoft OOXML

started by Gary Edwards on 17 Apr 12
  • Gary Edwards
    #1 Gary Edwards on 17 Apr 12
     
    The following eMail message is being forwarded around the Web and it does confirm my own personal experiences with then Governor Romney in 2005-2006. The issue then was the Massachusetts Open Government initiative where the Governor Romney sought to establish an efficient and open information technology infrastructure based on emerging SOA concepts - Service Oriented Architecture. This was an early Web-Cloud based platform concept where Open Standards and Open Source Systems and Applications were at the foundation of a highly integrated and interoperable stack of components. Romney had committed a Million dollars to study the existing information infrastructure, and test the emerging SOA initiatives. A 300 page report finalized the results of this year long study.

    Important to this study was the problem of replacing the proprietary and application/platform bound Windows compound document formats with the OASIS Open Document format. I was one of the original members of the OASIS Open Document Technical Committee, representing the OpenOffice Community. In that capacity i came to know Sam Hiser, who started the OpenOffice.org Markting Group. Sam also participated in the Massachusetts Study, and actually wrote the 300 page report.

    The lessons of Massachusetts are many, and actually account for my current work focus on the Visual Productivity Platform and the Visual Document model that drives it. But more importantly, i was privleged to see Governor Romney at work, identifying a serious problem, organizing a team, creating a plan of action, and then empowering and backing his team fully in the midst of incredible heat and controversy. It was awesome and inspiring that such a politician exists. He is the ultimate problem solver. Able to make decisions and take action. Able to create, command and fully empower high level work groups with the most capable and expert people possible.

    So when i saw this story of his other heroics, i thought i should recount my own first hand experiences. Anyone doubting the political heat the Massachusetts RFi (Request for Information) and ODF plug-in for MSOffice created, should Google it. The short story of how it ended is that Romney and his IT team did not waver or fail. The problem came down to Sun Microsystems and their refusal to cooperate with the IBM and Oracle plan to save ODF in Massachusetts. Incredible story with a sad ending. But nevertheless, a tribute to Romney and his team.
    .........................................................................
    The facts behind a current political ad about saving the life of the missing daughter of a former Romney partner at Bain Capital.

    Sometimes, this facet of Romney's personality isn't so subtle. In July 1996, the 14-year-old daughter of Robert Gay, a partner at Bain Capital, had disappeared. She had attended a rave party in New York City and gotten high on ecstasy. Three days later, her distraught father had no idea where she was. Romney took immediate action.

    He closed down the entire firm and asked all 30 partners and employees to fly to New York to help find Gay's daughter. Romney set up a command center at the LaGuardia Marriott and hired a private detective firm to assist with the search. He established a toll-free number for tips, coordinating the effort with the NYPD, and went through his Rolodex and called everyone Bain did business with in New York , and asked them to help find his friend's missing daughter.
    Romney's accountants at Price Waterhouse Cooper put up posters on street poles, while cashiers at a pharmacy owned by Bain put fliers in the bag of every shopper. Romney and the other Bain employees scoured every part of New York and talked with everyone they could - prostitutes, drug addicts - anyone.

    That day, their hunt made the evening news, which featured photos of the girl and the Bain employees searching for her. As a result, a teenage boy phoned in, asked if there was a reward, and then hung up abruptly. The NYPD traced the call to a home in New Jersey , where they found the girl in the basement, shivering and experiencing withdrawal symptoms from a massive ecstasy dose. Doctors later said the girl might not have survived another day. Romney's former partner credits Mitt Romney with saving his daughter's life, saying, "It was the most amazing thing, and I'll never forget this to the day I die."

    So, here it is: Mitt Romney simply can't help himself. He sees a problem, and his mind immediately sets to work solving it, sometimes consciously, and sometimes not-so-consciously. He doesn't do it for self-aggrandizement, or for personal gain. He does it because that's just how he's wired. Many people are unaware of the fact that when Romney was asked by his old employer, Bill Bain, to come back to Bain & Company as CEO to rescue the firm from bankruptcy, Romney left Bain Capital to work at Bain & Company for an annual salary of one dollar. When Romney went to the rescue of the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics, he accepted no salary for three years, and wouldn't use an expense account. He also accepted no salary as Governor of Massachusetts.

    Character counts!! Wouldn't you rather have a guy like this in the White House than what we have now? (And yes...that's worth reading again!)

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