When I contacted Steve Kelley’s campaign director to arrange a meeting with Steve and Sophie Kelley, I suggested Tuesday.  She responded that they had arranged their schedule to meet me on Wednesday.  When I read her response, the part that I saw was, “They had arranged their schedule to meet with you at Pizza Nea, 306 Hennepin Ave…”  The part that I missed was, “…Wednesday at 7.”

Monday evening I prepared some questions for them, and Tuesday morning I headed for work prepared to drive down to Minneapolis from Shoreview.  I had printed my map and directions so I would have no trouble finding them.  I parked my car and fed the meter, and cursed that I only had enough quarters for one hour.  I hoped that would give me enough time to eat a quick dinner and have a nice conversation with a gubernatorial candidate.

I chose a table and the server brought water and menus for three.  I sat and waited.  I waited some more.  At 7:30, I decided to order an antipasto and started wondering whether I had the date wrong.  I cursed that I didn’t have a blackberry or phone with internet access, because I wanted to check my email to see whether I had indeed made a mistake.  At 8:00 I asked for my bill, having consumed a very tasty Polpette Napolitano and a glass of Moose Drool.  The server brought my tab and asked about my “Kelley for Governor” t-shirt (left over from 2006.)  I explained that he was the one I had planned to have dinner with.

“Oh, Rachael called to make the reservations for tomorrow night.”

I felt a bit foolish, but you must understand that I would not have been angry with Steve and Sophie for “standing me up.”  The polpette were delicious, as was the ale.  So I headed home and made plans for meeting with him on Wednesday night.  I did resolve to bring more quarters with me the next night.  I also made a note to try the Pizza Con Uovo from the menu.

On Wednesday when I arrived at Pizza Nea, Steve Kelley was waiting for me at the same table I where I had sat waiting for him on the previous night.  I told him what had happened the night before, even though the server who had waited my table the night before was not working and I could have kept my folly a secret.  He actually apologized to me. I have always liked Steve, and this is just another reason.

Center for Science, Technology and Public Policy

Steve Kelley is currently teaching at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs, and is the Director of the Center for Science, Technology and Public Policy.  When I asked him about what he was doing there, he lit up, very excited to talk about the way the Center is working to engage the public’s interest in science and public policy through the arts.

Innovation 2008 was a big event at the Center for Science, Technology and Public Policy, co-hosted by Sciencedebate2008.  Here is the description of the conference:

This conference was held on the Twin Cities campus of the University of Minnesota. It brought together academicians, policy makers, business leaders, scientists, educators, artists, students and the public to discuss solutions to the major challenges facing the United States revolving around science and technology policy, including innovation, energy security and sustainability, health sciences policy, and our ongoing economic competitiveness in a high-tech, highly-educated global marketplace.The goal of Innovation 2008 was to bring scientists together with policymakers and the public, to help move the United States toward policies that are better informed by scientific realities, and to help scientists, engineers and the scientific community as a whole become more engaged in the political process.The conference also explored ways to bridge the divide between science and the broader culture as a way to broaden public appreciation of science.

Here we lead into the topic of broadening the public appreciation of science.  So how is that done?  Bring in the arts and literature!  For the conference, Steve and his colleagues engaged artists, scientists and public policy makers to present their techniques for drawing audiences into the world of science.  Here is a video from the Keynote Event, and astute observers will recognize Lawrence Krauss, Eugenie Scott, Sheril Kirshenbaum and Chris Mooney at the front table.  These are but a few of the presenters at Innovation 2008.  Steve also made note of frequent Quiche Moraine contributor Lynn Fellman.

Regarding literature, Kelley explained to me that he uses Steven Johnson’s book The Ghost Map as a teaching tool in his class. The story is that the cholera outbreaks in London were blamed on “bad air.”  The science of germ theory had yet to be developed, and so in dealing with ways to confine the cholera epidemics the City of London tried many policy changes and engineering design efforts to steer the “bad air” from the populace.  Cholera returned several times because the efforts to contain the disease actually contributed to its spread.

One brave investigator, Dr. John Snow, determined to find the source of the outbreak (and unconvinced of the “miasma” theory of the spread of cholera), made careful records of the locations and counts of the people who contracted and died from the disease.  Through the map, he and Henry Whitehead were able to track the source of the outbreak to a common well.  From that, he was able to determine that cholera bred in water.  Snow’s persistence in presenting the evidence to a skeptical city leadership eventually led to the use of detective work and science to end the cycle of deadly cholera outbreaks in London.

Steve uses the book to illustrate the importance of working the results of research into the formulation of policy.  This has important implications for education, especially in a time of economic uncertainty.  If Minnesota and the United States are to figure out how to build our way out of this mess, we need an educated populace who understand the process of scientific education.

We agreed that the economic question of funding education must be seen as a societal  benefit and the perception that funding education is solely about an individual’s development is misleading.  If I need services from a business, from a store, from a hospital or even from my government, I want to know that the provider understands what he or she is doing for me.  A drop in the level of education in our communities is dangerous for everyone involved.

Sophie Kelley joined in the conversation regarding education and business.  Sophie is the Chair of the Board of Directors for MEDA, the Minnesota Economic Development Association. Here is their mission:

Founded in 1971, the Metropolitan Economic Development Association (MEDA) provides assistance to businesses owned and managed by entrepreneurs of color. Unique among economic development organizations, MEDA’s services are directed toward new and existing businesses whose owners are committed to making an impact through:

• job creation
• their firms’ growth and profitability
• community involvement

MEDA’s portfolio includes management and technical assistance, one-on-one consulting, business planning, sales development, loan packaging and financing, training, networking and procurement opportunities.

Sophie was until recently the CEO of Anchor Bank and is excited about new opportunities opening up for her. As we were talking about this, the pizzas arrived.

More on our dinner next week at Quiche Moraine.

I am reluctant to use the term “power couple” in reference to a pair of Minnesota leaders in the area of science and politics, but considering the contributions of Rebecca and Shawn Lawrence Otto, the term moves past cliché and into double entendre.  Rebecca is the Minnesota State Auditor, an elected constitutional office that I consider to be second only to the governor in terms of authority and importance. Shawn has been one of the key figures involved in the organization Science Debate 2008, originally formed to spur the large field of 2008 presidential hopefuls to have at least one debate on the role of science in making public policy.

Rebecca, Shawn and son Jake

The “double entendre” comes from the leadership role that they have taken as a team in advancing the development of alternative sources of energy to reduce reliance on coal, oil and natural gas in the Minnesota economy. They have, at their homestead, harnessed the power of the wind and the sun in conjunction with practicing conservation to show Minnesotans how to take advantage of renewable resources.

Rebecca has a solid background in science and in policy. She taught environmental science in Minnesota public schools for five years and was a state legislator from 2003–2005. I first met her in 2005 at a Think Blue event at the UAW hall in St. Paul. Tim Mahoney, the guy whose books I keep as campaign treasurer, introduced me and said I should support her in her bid for state auditor. I have to confess to a certain bias here, as hers was the only bumper sticker on my car in the 2006 campaign for state office.

As an auditor, Rebecca showed her worth before taking office. Even before the election, she reviewed the public reports of the Department of Education. Rebecca discovered millions of dollars in errors in the accounting of school funds by the DOE, and over a hundred and eighty million dollars in errors by the incumbent state auditor. Of course this embarrassed the incumbent, Pat Anderson, but it also showed us how important it is to have a watchdog in the auditor’s office. While the state is facing a huge financial crisis, our government can’t afford sloppy books. I think it is important to note that she was endorsed by Anderson’s three most recent predecessors, members of both of the major parties in Minnesota. These were Arne Carlson, Mark Dayton and Judy Dutcher.

Shawn Lawrence Otto is well-known for the screenplay adaptation and his role in producing the movie House of Sand and Fog, a movie I watched and which thoroughly impressed me long before I had met Shawn. He wrote the screenplay for the movie Shining White and has a new movie coming out in 2010, Dreams of a Dying Heart. I have also sent him a book on the history of paleontology that I would like to see made into a movie, and he has at least promised to read it.

As I mentioned earlier, Shawn formed, along with several friends of science, Science Debate 2008. The group didn’t achieve the exact aims they sought but were able to induce the campaigns of both John McCain and Barack Obama to address specific questions on science and technology in policy decisions. Most impressive in this effort is the support of the public towards hearing what the candidates wanted to do. More than 125 million people showed support for science and joined in the request to finally address science in a meaningful manner in politics. According to Shawn:

The organization’s stated goal was to restore science to its rightful place in American public policy and political dialogue.  Since President Obama used those words in his inaugural address, I think we got the message across. Before we started none of the candidates were talking about science at all. So our greatest achievement is that we transformed the way America talks about science and restored some of its importance to policy discussions.  By the time we were done, Senators Obama and McCain had both participated. The initiative made over 800 million media impressions and President Obama put together a top-notch science advisory team expressly to answer our “Top 14 Science Questions Facing America.”

His answers formed the initial basis for the Obama science policy, and all of the Obama Administration’s appointments in science were early Science Debate 2008 supporters, including Steven Chu, Jane Lubchenco, John Holdren, Harold Varmus and Eric Lander.  I think we helped elevate science and research as not only a priority, but as the path to the future, in his policy thinking.  Since then, when we saw that much of the science funding had been cut from the Senate version of the stimulus bill, we mobilized again and were a major part in getting that turned around and restoring some $7 billion in research funding through NSF, DOE, and other agencies that fund university, lab, and corporate research.

This is among the smartest type of stimulus spending because it creates high quality jobs in universities, labs, corporations, suppliers, and construction contractors right now, and leads to the innovations like transistors or the internet that can create entire new economies.  Over half of our economic growth since WWII has come from science and technology, and we have really shortchanged ourselves in the last 8 years, so this is an important new investment that will lead to new prosperity, cleaner energy technologies, a healthier environment, and better healthcare.

The Science Debate 2008 push is still strong and was most evident in the formation of the Obama plan to rebuild the American economy. Shawn was on top of the actions in both the Senate and the House of Representatives and sent updates to those of us who are members, so that when the time came to call or write our representatives and senators, we knew the facts. Thanks to Shawn’s efforts, we were able to stem cutbacks in proposed funding for science in the bill.

Of course, Quiche Moraine is largely about Minnesota, and in our state we are in need of people like the Ottos. I have been out to their farm twice for political fundraisers, and it is a beautiful site. It is welcoming in both the winter and the summer. They have large south-facing windows to capture the warmth of the sun in the winters and natural stone as a feature to insulate their home. In the summer, the stone lends a cool air so that air conditioning is a rare necessity.

Shawn has sent me some additional details on the home and its energy saving features.  Watch for a separate post here on Quiche Moraine.

Perhaps the most notable feature that greets visitors on arrival is the turbine wind generator that provides their electrical supply and, in fact, returns power back to the grid. The Ottos return so much power to the electric company that their electrical bills are often close to zero.

Most of our electricity comes from the big Jacobs wind generator in the back yard. It generates a peak of about 15,000 watts (15 kilowatts) in a 25mph or faster wind. This is enough power to light 250 60-watt light bulbs or about 10 houses worth. The wind turns the 24′ diameter airfoils of the propeller, which turn a big alternator, which generates three-phase wild AC current. Wild means the voltage goes up and down with the wind speed – its not tamed to a constant 120 volts, like normal house-pet type electricity. This wild power comes down the tower and to the house through some cables we buried underground, where it enters the garage and hits a big mess of electronics called an inverter (the big metal cabinet in the garage) that turns it into normal line quality electricity. If we are generating more than we happen to be using at the moment, it gets sent back out our lines to Connexus Electric Cooperative, which buys it from us at the retail rate. If we are using more than we are generating at the moment, we draw part from the generator, part from Connexus. It’s a sweet system that supplies about 80% of our power. Connexus makes all their power by burning coal, which of course pollutes the air and puts mercury into our lakes, so we feel pretty good about this rig. All told, we figure we are generating enough power to prevent the burning of about 14,000 pounds – about 7 tons – of coal every year. Plus it’s a big charge, so to speak, watching it turn. We always know what’s up with the weather, which way the wind is blowing and how hard. It’s a more intimate connection with the sky. We like it.

As land and business owners, Shawn and Rebecca Otto have put into practice the benefits of green energy and energy-saving architectures. This lends authority to the work that the State Auditor’s office has put into publishing the fantastic article on how local governments in Minnesota are able to save money in the long run by implementing best practices utilizing conservation and modern energy production tools.

I have read through the Best Practices Review: Reducing Energy Costs in Local Government (pdf). Published in July 2008, the 132-page report details the ways in which municipalities can retain functionality and service to their communities by investing wisely in proven technologies to save money when budgets are tight. The report includes case studies, including reliable estimates on the time to payback of investment of these processes.

One case study details the process by which the Blue Earth County designed and has built a new Criminal Justice Center using a green initiatives model. When completed this spring, the county will seek to have the building certified as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). The goal is to not only expand the capacity of people-warehousing, which is what many people see as the purpose of jails, but to actually create a building that will be a money saver for the county in the long term. This project is a national example of how municipalities are able to perform the functions of government while respecting the specter of cost to residents.

To my mind, the role of state auditor extends far beyond bean-counting and the pursuit of errors in the books of counties, municipalities and nonprofit agencies. I see the auditor as a leader in directing all of the various state agencies in not only saving money but providing more services than standard budgeting would allow. It takes leadership to suggest to a county facing another property tax levy increase that by investing in modern, green technology, they can save their residents money in the long run.

Green technology is a key tool that Minnesota will need to utilize in this blue economy, and I am comforted to have such a “power couple” in Minnesota’s plans for the future.

Additional Resources on Shawn Lawrence Otto and Rebecca Otto:

• Post Election Report to Science Debate 2008 Supporters
• Science on the Campaign Trail
• Rebecca Otto’s Official State Auditor for the State of Minnesota Bio Page
• Rebecca Otto’s campaign site
• Rebecca named one of the Women Taking The Lead to Save the Planet for the National Women’s History Project