Thank You. Mr. President

October 12, 2006

“I really appreciate that. Thank you.”

With true earnestness and heart-felt sincerity I did not think I’d get or warrant, I had simple phatic communion with the President yesterday. We were in a receiving line at the Advancing Renewable Energy Conference in St. Louis. “We” were about 200 or so conference-goers composed of DOE and USDA PHD economists, agronomists and staffers, renewable energy industry association members, business leaders and others who were fortunate to be close to the podium. There were about 1000 conferees in the Hall whose expertise covered Wind, Solar, Ethanol, E85, Biodiesel, and other abstracts and permutations of bioenergy.

Mike Johanns, Secretary of USDA, Sam Bodman, Secretary of DOE were there too.
(How often do you get the President and 2 Cabinet Level members in the same space at the same time?) I don’t think anyone can quibble about the Administration’s commitment to our Energy Independence, not with these guys passionately pushing the Agenda.

Concern for the future of Renewable Energy from an Oil Man, as the President described himself, was refreshing. But like others in the audience, including Partner Keith Sanderson and I whose careers started in the Mining business 30 years ago, it was important to share the same communion and passion. There were others in the audience there who had been working on the Renewable Energy “experiment” for the last 30 years who never gave up the hope for a brighter, less oil-dependent future. Their time for recognition had come. We are grateful to them.

When I reached out to shake the President’s hand, I said “Thank you for all you’ve done for us sir.” Distracted by the line-of-hands, he first looked forward to the next person in the receiving line, then looked back to me and said, “I really appreciate that. Thank you.” He then looked ahead, looked back at me again with a quick glance, smiled and moved on.