If the Founding Fathers
The qualities and decision-making
processes of our nation’s Founding Fathers
could serve today’s utilities well.
n Washington, D.C., the political center of the country and home
to AGA, it is not uncommon to hear
people ask, when thinking about a hotbutton political issue, “What would the
Founding Fathers do?” Be it a Supreme Court
ruling, legislation before Congress, or a social
issue such as school prayer or school choice, the question
always arises, “What would the Founders have done or
thought about that?”
Which got me to thinking. Working for the trade association that represents the natural gas utility industry,
but also working as a syndicated columnist who writes
about historic topics, especially early American history, I
found myself wondering, “How would the Founders have
run a company such as a natural gas utility? Which of
them would have taken on what roles, and what talents
would they have brought to their jobs? Are there similarities and useful lessons in the way they ran the country
and the way AGA’s members run their companies?”
To attempt to answer these questions, I have taken what
I know of our most famous Founders—George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison,
John Adams and Benjamin Franklin—and assigned them
executive positions in a modern-day energy utility.
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George Washington
President and CEO
This is a no-brainer. Washington was the greatest leader our country has ever had, but the
qualities that made him great in politics would
have easily transferred to the corporate world.
First, Washington was a visionary. He
understood that, as the head of the nation’s
first government under the U.S. Constitution,
practically everything he and his administration did would set a precedent that would be
followed by succeeding administrations, and
he kept that in mind with every decision he
made. He was also a strategic thinker, and
when he made a decision he believed was right
he stuck with it despite intense pressure to
change his mind.
The Jay Treaty of 1794 perfectly illustrates
this quality. The Jay Treaty, named after John
Jay, whom Washington chose to negotiate the
contract, was the result of an altercation with
the former mother country, Great Britain,
which—being at war with France—was preventing American merchant ships from trading with France. This so angered Americans
that they clamored for war with Britain, and
when they learned of the terms of the treaty
that Jay finally negotiated with Britain they
erupted in rage because Jay had conceded to
Britain the overall right to dictate the terms of
America’s foreign trade.
But in return Jay had averted war and had
gotten from Britain a promise to remove all
forts, military equipment and soldiers from
the American continent, something they previously had refused to do. From a “big picture”
Operated a Natural Gas Utility…
standpoint, Washington believed the treaty
met his two primary objectives. It avoided a
war with Britain that Washington knew his
young country was unprepared to fight, and
it finally removed the British presence from
America forever. Eschewing political popularity in favor of what was good for the country,
Washington used all of his clout to get the
treaty passed, to the nation’s long-term political, economic and military benefit.
Washington, like all great CEOs, also encouraged open debate among his advisers, and his
“cabinet” meetings (the word cabinet wasn’t used
back then) were freewheeling affairs in which
everyone was encouraged to speak his mind. But
Washington always made the final decision.
Finally, Washington was an excellent judge
of talent and part of his genius—which every
great CEO must have—was that he knew what
he knew, he knew what he didn’t know and,
most important, he knew who did know the
things he didn’t.
Alexander Hamilton
Chief Financial Officer
Hamilton is a perfect example of someone
who knew something about a topic, finance,
in which Washington and the other Founders were clueless. Yes, there were a lot of great
political thinkers in America in 1789 when the
Constitution went into effect, but there was
only one great financial thinker, Alexander
Hamilton, whom Washington wisely chose as
his treasury secretary.
Today one of the greatest challenges facing
utilities is access to capital. That would have
been no problem for Hamilton as CFO. In
fact, he invented our financial system, and he
originally based it on raising capital by issuing
long-term bonds that were traded on the open
market. This gave the government access to
capital at relatively low interest rates.
In Hamilton’s system the key was good
credit, which could be earned only by punctually and promptly making payments on a
nation’s debt. This could be done reliably only
by establishing a central, national bank, which
most members of Washington’s administration, including Thomas Jefferson, strongly
opposed. But Washington, knowing what he
didn’t know but knowing who did, sided with
Hamilton and signed the legislation establishing the country’s first national bank, the First
Bank of the United States.
Within 10 years the country saw unprecedented prosperity as new capital, much of it
coming in from overseas, financed exponential
By Bruce G. Kauffmann
American Gas april 2010
35
Thomas Jefferson
Vice President, Communications
Another no brainer. The first thing to be said
is that you would want this guy writing your
company’s mission statement because the one
he wrote for the country, better known as the
Declaration of Independence, was the greatest
ever penned.
Jefferson was a brilliant communicator, at
least when it came to the written word. He was
not a great orator, but that is
the CEO’s job anyway. Jefferson could write a speech,
a press release, an op-ed, you
James Madison
name it, with the best of them,
Vice President,
not only because of his “felicGovernment Relations
ity of composition” (as John
Adams once put it), but also
Whether at the state, local or
because he was a voracious
national level, every natural
Thomas Jefferson likely
reader and thoroughly steeped in
gas utility cultivates good relations would have embraced
today’s many new commuthe public issues of the day. At his
with elected officials. Madison,
nications and social media
beloved home, Monticello, Jefferwhile only a so-so president—he
technologies. A technoson installed a reading dais in his
lacked the leadership qualities of a logically savvy inventor
himself, Jefferson created
dining room so that he could read
Washington—was an exceptional
a polygraph—a copying
until the rest of his family joined
politician and lobbyist. At the Con- machine—in which two
were connected in such
him for dinner.
stitutional Convention in Philadel- pens
a way that when Jefferson
phia, he was the one
Jefferson was both a stratewould write something on
who always came up with the right paper with one pen, the
gic thinker and a highly skilled
second pen would copy it on
compromise, and when the votes
tactician. He not only envisioned
a separate piece of paper.
were counted over
America as a continental nation,
a particular issue, his side was almost always
he helped make that dream a reality by getting
the winner. This was in part because he did
Congress to approve the Louisiana Purchase,
his homework. Before anyone else had even
which added to the country, among several
thought of what should be in this or that parother states, the natural gas- and oil-rich
ticular bill, Madison had written an entire draft
states of Louisiana and Oklahoma.
of the legislation, meaning that the subsequent
Jefferson was also a political wunderkind,
debate was always on his terms.
and in today’s natural gas utility (as with most
companies) it is essential that the vice presiBut Madison’s real genius was his
courtesy and his self-effacing manner. He dent of communications work well with the vice
president of government relations on a wide
would always concede the merits of an
variety of issues. Since Jefferson and James
opponent’s argument before thorMadison were lifelong friends and political soul
oughly demolishing it. Nobody
mates, that would not have been a problem.
disliked Madison, even when, as
Finally, Jefferson would have embraced
usually happened, he beat them.
today’s many new communications and social
Politics and advocacy are about
media technologies—web sites, blogs, Twitter,
relationships as much as ideas,
perhaps even Facebook (although he was an
which is why Madison often got
intensely private person). Along with Ben Franklegislation passed that was good
for the country. But just as often lin, Jefferson was the most technologically savvy
American of his time, as a tour of his home,
he prevented bad legislation
Monticello, and the many inventions and laborfrom being passed, which is the
saving gadgets that it contains, will prove. One
much more common challenge
of those inventions was a polygraph—a copying
for today’s natural gas utilities.
growth, including infrastructure growth such
as new roads, canals and bridges. A utility CEO
today looking for new ways to access capital
to finance infrastructure growth would do
well to model Hamilton, who also brilliantly
cultivated ties to the country’s moneyed class,
just as today’s CEOs must cultivate ties with
members of the financial community.
And not incidentally, as hard as his enemies
looked for it, they never found a hint of financial
impropriety during Hamilton’s
entire public career.
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American Gas
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machine—in which two pens were connected in
such a way that when Jefferson would write something on paper with one pen, the second pen would
copy it on a separate piece of paper.
John Adams
Senior Vice President
and General Counsel
Anyone who read David McCullough’s highly
acclaimed biography, “John Adams,” or saw the
wonderful HBO adaptation of it, knows that
Adams was brilliant, mercurial and thin
skinned. Not your typical vice president
package, but not knowing where else to
put him—and he had to be included—
this seemed the most appropriate position. He was, after all, our first (senior)
vice president, and no one except
Washington sacrificed more for his
country, which is a highly prized quality
in a senior vice president.
If the company president couldn’t travel to
make a speech, Adams would go willingly.
Need a senior executive to mollify an irate
politician? Adams could turn on the
charm when he had to, and in a social
setting, his wife, Abigail, who was both
a graceful hostess and a political junkie, would
have been a tremendous asset. Want an adviser
you can trust when deciding whom to put in
positions of authority in your company? Adams
engineered the election of George Washington as
commander of the army that won the American
Revolution, and he chose Thomas Jefferson to
write the Declaration of Independence.
Adams was also, not incidentally, a great lawyer, which every company needs. Indeed, whatever legal problems a gas utility might face today,
they would pale in comparison with the legal
challenge that Adams faced in representing the
British soldiers who fired on unarmed civilians
in Boston in 1770, in what became known as the
Boston Massacre. This massacre, which resulted
in the deaths of five innocent colonists, occurred
at the height of strained relations between
Britain and its American colonies, and given the
number of witnesses who saw the British soldiers
fire their weapons, no colonial lawyer in Boston
would touch the case.
Adams took the case and won it, earning the
outright acquittal of six British soldiers and
brilliantly using a legal loophole to get a murder
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charge reduced to manslaughter for two others.
That is definitely the kind of lawyer you want on
your side when going in for a rate case.
Benjamin Franklin
Vice President of Operations
and Engineering
Given his background, Franklin undoubtedly
would have started out on the electric side of the
business, but even on the gas side he would have
been a terrific pick as vice president of operations.
He was a born engineer, he loved to tinker
and safety was always a priority. Indeed,
because most Americans in the mid-18th
century heated their homes by burning
wood in open fireplaces—which was both
dangerous and inefficient (it took a lot of
firewood to heat a home comfortably)—
Franklin invented what became known as
the Franklin Stove. Made of cast iron, it was far
safer than the conventional home heating appliance and used much less fuel. Franklin would
have been a lock to receive a lifetime safety
achievement award from AGA.
Vice President of Regulatory Affairs
As for the vice president of regulatory affairs,
unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on
your viewpoint) there were no regulatory affairs
in America in 1789 because there were no regulations. The Founders lived in simpler times,
but if I were staffing a natural gas utility—or
any company for that matter—in today’s more
complicated business world, give me Washington’s vision, gravitas and leadership; Hamilton’s
financial genius and capacity for hard work;
Madison’s political savvy; Jefferson’s communication gifts; Adams’ sense of duty and legal
acumen and Franklin’s engineering proficiency
and operational safety expertise. I would happily be both a customer and a shareholder of
that utility.
BRUCE G. KAUFFMANN is editorial director of American Gas and the author of a nationally syndicated,
weekly newspaper column on American and world
history. A collection of his columns, Bruce’s History
Lessons: The First Five Years (2001–2006), can be
purchased at any online bookstore, including Amazon
and Barnes & Noble, or by visiting www.historylessons.net and clicking on the Amazon link.