Q&A

If you send me a question via e-mail (elect_robert [at] porkland [dot] org), I'll reply personally. If your question is of interest to a broad audience, I'll also post my reply here.

What follows are some questions I've been asked during the course of my campaign:

Q: Why do you want the job?
A: Actually, I wish I didn't have to run--I already have a challenging full-time career at Microsoft. This office pays only $6,000 a year, and if I'm elected, the job will absorb substantially all of my free time. However, I'm not the kind of person to just complain about problems; I go out and do something about them. Unfortunately, the problems at the Port of Seattle are acute, and have only worsened in the last four years. I believe that this is a direct result of the Port Commission being too stacked with insiders. It urgently needs an outside perspective, and I am the best candidate in the race to bring this perspective.

Q: Really? Only $6,000 per year? How will you ever live on that?
A: Fortunately, I won't have to do so. Serving as a Port Commissioner is a part-time job, occupying about 20 hours per week. I'll have to give up a lot of my free time spent on hobbies and volunteer work with other organizations, but I would not have to give up my full-time job.

Q: If you want the job, why haven't you attended candidates' forums?
A: I have attended numerous candidates' forums, but haven't been invited to as many as my opponents. Candidates who do not raise or spend campaign funds are generally dismissed as crackpots and are excluded from such forums. I will gladly speak before any community organization interested in hearing more about my campaign.

Q: You're not a professional politician. What makes you think you're qualified?
A: The Port Commission is the board of directors of the Port, and represents its owners (you). I know who owns the Port: you. I understand its business, and have solid plans to improve it. And if elected, I will faithfully represent the interests of the voters.

Q: If you're not taking campaign contributions, how can you expect to win?
A: Money doesn't always win. During the previous campaign for this office, one candidate spent over $250,000--and lost! Vote for me because I'm the type of candidate you want, not the type of candidate you think can win. Politics is a strange business, crazy things can happen, and weirdos like me can occasionally win. As the Presidential election recently proved, if voters refuse to perpetuate the status quo, change really can happen!

Q: If you're not wearing a tie, how can you expect anyone to take you seriously?
A: Here's my perspective. My day job is to run infrastructure that is critical to the operation of an $13 billion business. This job does not require a tie. The office I'm running for is a part-time job at the Port of Seattle, which (depending how you count) is a $486 million business. By comparison, my campaign should not even require pants, much less a tie!

Q: Who would you vote for if you weren't running?
A: I haven't decided yet. It's too early in the campaign.

Q: What kind of engineer are you, anyway?
A: Most engineers are very precise people, and some of them question whether anyone outside their branch of engineering are qualified to call themselves engineers. Engineers have dueling certifications, societies, and professional organizations. When we really want to settle an argument, we build battle robots and fight to the death! I am a Service Engineer, which is a type of online software engineer. I hold MCP and A+ credentials. And I'm really not interested in arguing whether your branch of engineering is bigger than my branch. After all, you'll be asking someone like me for help when your computer breaks! :)

Q: Other candidates promise to do specific, major things once they get into office, such as eliminating the property tax or creating jobs. Why don't you promise these things?
A: I think that it's important for campaign promises to be realistic, achievable, and measurable. If elected as a freshman port commissioner, I will in all likelihood be the most junior of five commissioners, a majority of whom will need to agree with me in order for any of my initiatives to be implemented. I will not have either the experience or the political standing to ramrod major initiatives through in my first term. Nor, for that matter, will my opponents. If they promise you tax cuts and pie in the sky, ask which other commissioners are voting along with them. While they figure that out, you might also ask how they plan to make up for the lost revenue. For my part, I can only promise to learn the business of the Port, earn the respect (if not the fashion sense) of my colleagues on the Commission, and leverage my experience toward making steady operational improvements.

Q: You talk a lot about a "short and medium term focus" toward "operational improvements." Can you provide some examples of these improvements?
A: Gladly, although they're far from exciting:

  • "Intermodal transportation connections" doesn't make a good sound bite, but ask any former Port of Seattle customer why they moved to Tacoma and this issue is likely to top the list. The Port has made improvements in the past five years, but there is more work to do.
  • I'll encourage the Port to turn over non-core functions to the private sector, where reasonable and appropriate.
  • Anyone who has been to the airport has probably marveled at how such a large parking garage can be so empty. I'll advocate adjustable rates for parking (with a predictable daily maximum) that take supply and demand into account--just like your privately operated neighborhood parking lot.
  • I'll encourage airlines to develop realistic schedules. Eight planes cannot take off from Sea-Tac all at once, no matter what the schedule says.
Obviously, it's easy to take pot shots from the outside, and my considerable operations experience proves that it's crucial to clearly understand a problem before you start to fix it. That being said, small incremental changes in process can very often yield massive cost savings, so I will be focusing on the "little things" that add up to big money over time.

Q: Why did the Municipal League rate you "Not Qualified" the last time you ran for this office, "Adequate" this time, and "Good" for a Legislature campaign several years ago?
A: The Municipal League has been consistent only in their inconsistency when rating me as a candidate. One of my opponents, the former chair of the Municipal League, was rated "Outstanding," and was the only candidate in any contested Port Commission race to receive this rating. I have posted a detailed article about this topic here.

Q: Have you received any endorsements?
A: Yes. However, I don't think people should blindly follow endorsements when voting, and I have written a detailed blog post about my thoughts on this matter. While endorsements are nice, what ultimately matters is yours - your vote on Election Day!

Q: I heard you want to cut jobs, wages and benefits for Port workers. Is that true?
A: Absolutely not. Who other than "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap would want to preside over an era of layoffs and pay cuts? Actually, I would like nothing more than to hire the best people in the industry and pay them better than anyone else so they won't ever leave. And this is actually possible; after all, someone has to be on the top of the pay scale. There is, however, only one way to achieve this: by running a better, more efficient business than anyone else, and by taking more market share than anyone else. This means that we'll need a new way of working together at the Port. Labor and management all work for the same organization and it takes an entire team cooperating to run a better business than the competition.

Or there's another way, and one more closely aligned to the Port's present trajectory. We can follow the example of GM and Chrysler, achieving Pyrrhic labor and management "victories" over minutiae and work rules. We can have constant distractions and fruitless negotiations and infighting while simultaneously running the business into the ground. And ultimately, someone's going to need to stop the bleeding. By then, it'll be too late to fix the problem--Port customers will be gone and the long-fought battles just won't matter anymore.

I think we're at a crossroads. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that the Port is--in places--out of step with the market, and this needs to be addressed now. For example, it can't continue to be impossible to fire poor performers even in the face of overwhelming evidence of misconduct (and to be clear, I think this applies to both labor and management). It can't be an expensive hassle to do business with the Port of Seattle. And as technology and the business changes, the Port workforce needs to be flexible enough to learn new skills and take on new challenges. We can choose to have the best people in the industry and the most efficient, well-run operation in the business, or we can be something less than that. I hope Port workers will accept nothing less than being the best!

Q: Which countries outside the US have you visited?
A: Experiencing the world, its cultures and its people is endlessly fascinating to me. I easily have the most global experience versus any candidate in the race (both personally and professionally), and I'm glad I asked for a passport with extra pages! In North America, I have visited Canada, Mexico, Haiti, Guadeloupe, and Martinique. In South America, I have visited French Guiana and Suriname. In Asia, I have traveled China, Hong Kong, Japan, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. I visited South Africa last October, and have been all over Europe (UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, the Principality of Sealand, the Czech Republic, Greece, Denmark, Belgium, The Netherlands and Cyprus). Australia rounds out six of seven continents, and you can throw in New Zealand (one of my favorite destinations) for good measure. Believe it or not, I am not independently wealthy; I'm just willing to fly economy class on obscure airlines and stay in very  basic accommodations. We are all citizens of the world, and the Port of Seattle is our gateway.