I am a lucky man. I have had the fortune to be working in the Gulf Coast these past few months doing my part to restore the area after it suffered from the world’s largest oil spill this past Spring and Summer. I work as a member of the Incident Management Team. I work with hundreds of other professionals from industry, government, consultancies and the community. We are all tied together by something magical. Some call it “being on a mission.” Others call it “the most fascinating and challenging job I have ever had.” I call it “an opportunity.”
There is more gray hair here than I had seen in one place before. Clearly age and experience was something desired by all who made the staffing decisions. These are also people who in their prior life, used to sit across the table from each other as untrusting antagonists. But here we sit side-by-side and contribute whatever we can to accomplish the same objective, a Gulf Coast that is restored at least to its previous health as quickly as we can get it there. We have had amazing successes, and I hope that story eventually gets out.
But what I want to comment on here is this. We are people of all sexes, sizes, political persuasions, nationalities and life styles. While we may disagree at times on how to proceed, we continue to work together and develop deeper respect for each other and the roles we play. I would hate to see what we are accomplishing here be lost. States of emergency tend to do that, bring people together. 9/11 did that. This oil spill is doing that too.
The challenge in front of us as the response to the spill is winding down, is how to prevent the antagonistic distrust from returning. I am working on that. Hope you will be able to see how that turns out. Clearly we have only climbed a few steps on The Ladder of Trust. I just hope we don’t decide to climb back down. The environment and economy both depend on that.
