School board members are no exception. What we needed at Maritime was an institutional cerebral cortex. We called it the Office of Policy and Plans. So far so good. But the problem in many organizations is that the board or CEO isn t really interested.
Policy wonks plans aren t used.
The organization waddles into the tar pits of ignorance. With responsibility for military sea lift during the mid-1960s it was necessary to set up shop in Saigon and meet with General Westmoreland. I asked if we could try some innovations. He smiled, If you can get any good out of this war, be my guest. And so Maritime accelerated research and development of containerization, surface effect ships, hydrofoils among other things.