2010 CCCCD Ward 3 Candidate Greg Enholm's Plan to Improve the College District

By Greg Enholm

Greg Enholm presents 19 specific, detailed proposals to improve how the Contra Costa Community College Board of Trustees and District operate.

You can reach me on my cell 925 878 5515 or by email to gbenholm@hotmail.com.

For detailed information regarding Greg Enholm's campaign activities including videos, background, and proposals, see the following:

http://www.GregEnholm.org or http://www.SmartVoter.org/vote/enholm

http://www.GregEnholm.info or Search Facebook for "Elect Greg Enholm"

The Board of Trustees of the Contra Costa Community College District has been ineffective in stopping the increasing cancellations of courses needed by the District's students. The Board has not been aggressive (nor even apparently much interested) in finding alternative sources of revenues and ways to reduce costs which would offset State-mandated budget cuts other than making personnel reductions, especially of classified staff. Having inadequate faculty and staff levels is very short-sighted causing problems in the long term especially causing students to have delayed graduations and transfers. I believe the main reason why this happened is there is no one on the Board with any significant experience in analyzing the financial condition of large organizations and forecasting what will happen to these organizations' finances in the future.

I believe that the CCCCD does not fully understand that the students are the most important people at the colleges. Without students there would be no faculty, no staff, no administrators, and no Board members. Educating students is the preeminent goal of the CCCCD. Any activity at the CCCCD which does not educate students directly or help educate students must be questioned and justified.

I am again a candidate for election to the CCCCD Board because, in addition to being a high school teacher for the past decade with many of my students going to the CCCCD after high school, I have had 17 years as a financial analyst. Three years at a utility regulatory commission followed by one year as a mortgage-backed securities analyst, then a 7-year career at Salomon Brothers Inc, rising to be a Vice President and Senior Common Stock Analyst (commonly referred to as a Wall Street Analyst). At Salomon Brothers, then the #2 investment bank in the world, I advised 100+ institutional investors (mutual and pension funds, insurance and trust companies, etc.) on their investments in 100 electric utility corporations including clients across the U.S. and in Europe and Asia. As the pressure to lie to these clients to generate business for Salomon increased, I decided to leave the firm and establish my own financial advisory company in Oakland. Being free of the pressures of Wall Street, I advised my clients for 6 more years until another firm offered to purchase my company. At that point, I decided that I would become a high school math teacher to help young people learn math to put them on the same road to success that my teachers and professors did.

What follows is a listing with detailed discussions of what I would advocate to be done by the CCCCD Board. (Not everyone knows that a single Board member has no power to change CCCCD policy. A minimum of 3 of the 5 Board members must agree on any policy change.) Let me note that I was a director of my local recreation and park board for 4 years where I learned how to "count to three" + that is find at least 2 Board members to agree with my proposals. At that Board, I led the successful effort to remove a Board Chair who was vastly over-reaching his authority. I also started the process which resulting in the Local Agency Formation Commission approving the annexation of the largest park into the City of Pittsburg to allow the City to help fund the park's renovation which is about to start. That process started when I asked the Pittsburg City Manager how his City could help fund improvements at the Ambrose Park which is surrounded by Pittsburg. He responded "Let us annex the park." I got that done.

TOPICS

1) What does the voter get from CCCCD?

2) I will never be a "rubber stamp" for the CCCCD Chancellor.

3) CCCCD must use 5 year historic and 5 year future financial data for budgets.

4) CCCCD must recognize the State will not provide adequate funding.

5) CCCCD must reach out to the Contra Costa County community to help it.

6) I want the Board to formally adopt a suggestion that Board members and administrators take at least one CCCCD course annually to have first-hand experience as our students do.

7) In applying financial analysis techniques to the CCCCD financial statements, I have noticed areas needing further analysis.

8) CCCCD Board meetings need to be reformed to include time for oversight and hearings on important topics.

9) The CCCCD Board must set up a committee structure patterned after that of the County Board of Supervisors.

10) CCCCD Trustees need to go to community meetings to discover opportunities for the CCCCD to benefit from community input and funding.

11) The CCCCD should obtain resolutions of support from as many elected bodies in the County as possible to convince Congress to "bailout" the community colleges.

12) I pledge to go to every community college in the Bay Area to solicit ideas for improving the CCCCD's operations.

13) The CCCCD Board should set up a two-member committee to investigate starting videoing their Board meetings as do many cities and the BOS.

14) Gerrymandering must be avoided in the 2010 Census data redoing of the Ward boundaries.

15) I convinced the CCCCD Board to appoint a Library Commissioner for the first time in 20 years. I also offered to have the CCCCD Board post a video of their 2010 Board Retreat on their website. I helped the CCCCD avoid being accused of violating the Brown Act regarding sign-in sheets at Board meetings.

16) As a teacher, community leader, and financial expert, I will fill three "vacancies" on the current CCCCD Board.

17) I believe the CCCCD Board should grant all legally allowable powers to the Student Trustee.

18) Attention must be directed at the question of when the CCCCD Board elections should occur or even adopting rank-choice voting.

19) Attention must be directed to why the CCCCD website apparently contained inaccurate voter information (apparently then used by the Contra Costa Times in a recent article) and why the inaccuracies have not be corrected with 2 weeks to the election when they were told about the problem a month ago.

TOPICS DISCUSSED

1) I have thought about a very basic question which I have not yet seen addressed by the CCCCD Board: What does the voter get from CCCCD? That is easy to answer for a City Council: Police, road maintenance, building permits/inspection, etc. For a school board, every parent knows her or his children will receive a "free" education in the K-12 school. The recreation and park districts offer what their name implies as do the sanitary districts. But what does the CCCCD voter who voted for the 2002 and 2006 CCCCD bonds? My most recent property tax statements show a cost of $11.34 and $19.95 annually compared with $119.22 for the Mt. Diablo Unified School District 2002 bond and $19.68 for the MDUSD 2010 Bond. When I talk with voters, they have not mentioned the cost of the two CCCCD bonds. They only mention how they know someone (a CCCCD student or a parent of a CCCCD student) who complains that students cannot get the courses they need and it takes far too long (3-4 or more years) to graduate or transfer to a university. These problems are clearly budgetary and financial with the core reality being that the State Legislature is unwilling to raise enough revenues and allocate them to community colleges to assure every student can get the courses the student needs and graduate or transfer within the historic 2-3 year periods. But I still do not have a comprehensive answer to the question I pose. My one observation is that rarely do I hear any complaints about the quality of the education received. My current conclusion is that voters accept that we need community colleges in this County and the major problem is having adequate numbers of courses available so students can get the courses they need to graduate or transfer in a reasonable period. Again, these are budgetary and financial matters not educational ones.

2) I want to make one point clearly. I will never be a "rubber stamp" for ideas proposed by the CCCCD Chancellor. That determination was developed during my years constantly challenging utility executives who were planning activities I believed were not in the interests of shareholders. For instance, I would have consistently voted against the ridiculous idea of the "Regional Training Institute" proposed by Chancellor Charles Spence and accepted by the Board. I would have voted no at every point and would likely have sought out a judge to issue a restraining order to prevent what eventually became a waste of one million tax dollars.

3) The CCCCD must stop using two year data (current and one forecast) for its budget process. In the private sector, it is typical to use 5 years of historical data with 5 years of forecast data. There are probably CCCCD accounting faculty who could help the District's financial staff make the transition quickly. Having 5 years of historic and forecasted data allows for the Board to better plan for future problems and windfalls.

4) The CCCCD needs to recognize that the State will continue to reduce funding below the level needed to maintain appropriate course offerings to allow students to graduate and/or transfer to university on time. The only readily-available source of funding in the short-term to establish that minimum level is to ask for, and receive, a "bailout" from the U.S. Congress just as was provided to Wall Street firms, banks, insurance companies, General Motors, Chrysler, and others. Our students are this Nation's future. They deserve the same help given to corporations which saved the jobs of people with million-dollar annual salaries and bonuses.

5) In the past, back 30-60 years, it could be argued that Contra Costa County residents and voters were unwilling to help the CCCCD. Now, with large numbers of CCCCD graduates still living in the County and the voters having approved bonds in 2002 and 2006, it is time for the CCCCD to reach out in three ways to involve the community in our community colleges. First, a committee (called "Course Enrollment Forecasting") comprised of senior executives in foundations, industry, business, government, nonprofit organizations, needs to be formed preferably with many former CCCCD students. This committee would look 5 to 10 years out and forecast what courses should be offered by CCCCD. More importantly, these executives would commit their organizations to having their employees take those courses paying the full cost as a major expansion of the currently minor "contract education" offered by CCCCD. Second, another committee (called "Community Outreach") would be comprised of, again preferably former CCCCD students, who are now in public relations, journalism, and similar fields to recruit members for the first committee and raise awareness of CCCCD, and secure financial assistance from, the community. In 2006, a poll paid for by the CCCCD as part of the effort to have voters approve a new bond issue discovered that 50% of the County residents did not know enough about the colleges to rate them on an A-F scale. About half of the voters I speak with personally do not know much, if anything, about what the CCCCD Board does. Imagine having half of a city's residents be unaware of the city's council. Let me emphasize that no changes in the current CCCCD committees would occur as a result of these new committees being formed. Those committees would continue their work as before with the new committees providing additional suggestions. The third committee (called "Workplace Innovation") would be comprised of former CCCCD students who are now what are usually called "efficiency experts." This committee would welcome suggestions to improve CCCCD operations from anyone at CCCCD from the Chancellor, employee unions, faculty, staff, and students which would benefit by having professionals review them. Any ideas would be sent to appropriate current internal CCCCD committee(s) for them to act on the ideas. The goal of this committee is to reduce CCCCD costs. The CCCCD would benefit from the expertise of acknowledged efficiency experts at a small fraction of the cost of hiring similar consultants. Note that potential committee members would need to meet criteria established by the CCCCD Board and would be approved by the Board to fixed terms. Ideally, committee members would rotate among these three committees and the already existing Citizens Bond Oversight Committee mandated by State Law. Chancellor Helen Benjamin has praised the work of the CBOC in writing but the law requires that CBOE members must leave after 2 years on the CBOC. With the new committees, these volunteers who are now experts on the CCCCD would be able to join one of these new committee rather than let their expertise be wasted.

6) I want the Board to formally adopt a suggestion that Board members (and eventually all administrators) take at least one course per year at CCCCD. I took courses in 1998 at Los Medanos College. In Summer 2010, I took a course at Contra Costa College. Now I am enrolled in courses at Diablo Valley College and Los Medanos College. I believe I am the first Board candidate ever to take courses at all three colleges within a year of qualification as a candidate. Having Board members (and eventually all administrators) take courses at the colleges is one way to assure that the Board members (and administrators) have first-hand knowledge of what happens to CCCCD students in the courses they take.

7) I have already started applying my academic and professional financial experience to the CCCCD. I do not have access to the same kind of detailed information I did when I was a financial analyst in part because the CCCCD does not create or maintain for the public the same kind of information required by Federal and State laws of corporations. However, even with the limited information available, I have discovered several ratios which would justify additional analysis either by me or by District staff. I believe that I will be able to accurate forecast the financial condition of the CCCCD just as I did for 7 years on Wall Street and 6 years with my own firm for electric utilities. Note that electric utility companies are quite similar to community colleges from a financial perspective because both groups rely on the State to set their revenues and review their costs. Also both groups have experienced significant increases in competition from private firms not subject to the same controls mandated by the State.

8) It is time to overhaul the way the Board meetings are conducted. Far too much of the work done at Board meetings is conducted as "committee of the whole" work. Look at the County Board of Supervisors. They have the same number of Board members as CCCCD: 5. They are responsible for many more activities but cover virtually the same geographic area. The main difference is that the BOS has two-member standing committees (http://www.co.contra-costa.ca.us/index.aspx?NID=1739) to review material before it is placed on Board meeting Agendas. The CCCCD Board needs to follow the BOS lead to establish two-member committees to review both routine and pressing material before it is placed on the CCCCD Board Agendas. I am personally acquainted with all 5 Supervisors. I met John Gioia at a Marin County fundraiser in 2000. Federal Glover has been my Supervisor since 2000 and I have been his Library Commissioner since 2004. I met Susan Bonilla shortly after her impressive win in the 2002 Concord City Council election. I know Susan's successor-elect Pleasant Hill Mayor Karen Mitchoff. I met Mary Piepho when she was the Chair of the CCCCD Bond Oversight Committee in 2004. I used to buy groceries in the same store as Gayle Uilkema where we met often. Thus, I expect to learn from these personal connections what can be transferred from the BOS to CCCCD.

9) With a logical committee structure, Board meeting time would be freed up for oversight of CCCCD operations, input from students and the community, and consideration of the future direction of the CCCCD. I believe that the Board should also conduct Public Hearings (scheduled to assure maximum attendance) at the colleges, San Ramon campus, and Brentwood center to actively solicit ideas from anyone concerned about the CCCCD and its future. These meetings should include members of the 3 new committees mentioned above. Why would I believe this would be a worthwhile activity? I was selected by the Concord City Council from 25 applicants to be one of 3 individuals living outside Concord to be members of the 22-person Naval Weapons Station reuse planning committee. Over 2 years, we held 30+ public meetings to actively seek out community members and organizations to guide our effort. That effort resulted in a plan ("clustered villages") which was adopted by the Concord City Council. In my 18 years of living in Contra Costa County, I am unaware of any effort by the CCCCD to reach out to County residents as did the Concord City Council. It is never too late to start soliciting the input of County residents. I also met individually with the Mayors of the cities near the Weapons Station including Pittsburg, Clayton, Martinez, Antioch, and Oakley by attending the monthly Mayors Conference meetings. I cannot recall ever seeing a CCCCD Trustee at these meetings.

10) Because of my 2 years of work on the Weapons Station committee, my 4 years of elected service on the Ambrose Board, 6 years of elected service on the County Democratic Committee, and my 6 years of being on the County Library Commission, I have had extensive consultations with people across the County and beyond. These contacts will be useful to me as a CCCCD Trustee to find people to serve on the 3 new community member committees as well as find resources for the CCCCD. While on the Ambrose Board, I attended an East Bay Regional Park District Board meeting. At that meeting, a PG&E representative stated that PG&E had set aside money to help urban park districts. Because I followed up on that idea, the Ambrose District received a $50,000 grant from PG&E to upgrade the District's pool. I expect many more successes like that one as a CCCCD Trustee.

11) Here is an example of how the contacts I have developed over my 18 years of living in Contra Costa County can benefit the CCCCD. I was moved to action by a front-page article "College Enrollment Dips" in the February 25, 2010 Contra Costa Times. I submitted a "From the Community" article which was published in the March 6, 2010 Saturday Readers' Forum with the headline "Lawmakers must help community colleges." I then used my connections with city councilmembers and other elected officials to convince the city councils of Pleasant Hill and San Pablo to pass resolutions supporting Federal funds for our community colleges. I also had the Los Medanos Community Healthcare District and the Bay Point Municipal Advisory Council pass resolutions. Unfortunately, when I asked the Pittsburg council, their City Clerk called the CCCCD and thought she was told that the CCCCD was not interested in having a resolution passed. That surprised me and it took far too long for me to find out that the City Clerk misunderstood what the CCCCD representative said to her. The CCCCD representative said that the District itself is not seeking approval of a District-sponsored resolution at this time. He said nothing about resolutions not sponsored by the District itself. Unfortunately, I could not convince Chancellor Benjamin to have that CCCCD representative call the City Clerk back and explain the misunderstanding. I consider it is the District's responsibility to correct misunderstandings of its communication. Because of this misunderstanding, the City Clerk has refused to place the resolution on the council Agenda. With the time lost to this misunderstanding and the arrival of elections, I have stopped asking councils for resolutions. It was my hope and belief that every city council in Contra Costa County would pass a resolution supporting Federal funds for our community colleges to avoid class cancellations and delayed graduations and transfers. I had also hoped that our Senators and Congress members could use these resolutions to convince Congress to provide a "bailout" for community colleges nationwide.

12) I have visited other community colleges to see how they operate including Peralta, Chabot-Las Positas, Napa Valley, and Santa Rosa. If elected, I will arrange for me to have formal tours of all community colleges in the Bay Area and beyond. During these tours, I will actively seek suggestions as to how CCCCD could improve its operations.

13) One idea I have gained from visiting other community college districts is that the CCCCD should set up a Board committee to investigate providing video of Board meetings over its website. I believe the experiences of Contra Costa cities such as Antioch, Concord, Pittsburg, and Pleasant Hill as well as of the BOS offering video of their council meetings over their websites need to be considered as well as the 10 years of experience gained by the Peralta Community College District.

14) I am very concerned about what appears to be gerrymandering of the CCCCD Wards. I am only familiar with Ward 3. I do not understand why an area of Concord is missing from Ward 3 while a similar-sized area of Walnut Creek is included. Why not swap the two areas so that all of Concord is in Ward 3 and all of Walnut Creek is in Ward 4? Recall that the 2010 Census data will be used by the CCCCD Board to set boundaries for the 2012 election. I will work diligently to urge that the CCCCD Board set appropriate boundaries which do not needlessly divide communities among the 5 Wards.

15) Here are three examples where I have influenced the CCCCD Board to take action. First, I proposed in April 2010 that the CCCCD ask to appoint a Commissioner to the County Library Commission on which I have served as East County Library Commissioner since 2004. A vacancy on the Library Commission occurred when the Youth Council was dissolved. The Youth Council had selected one of the 29 Commissioners (5 from the Supervisors, 19 from the cities, one each from business and labor, one appointed by the County Superintendent of Schools, one from the Friends groups associations). I suggested to the Library Commission that the CCCCD which operates the second largest library system in the County (4 libraries compared to 25 for the County agency and 3 by Richmond) be invited to appoint a Commissioner. The Commission and the Head Librarian agreed. At the May 2010 meeting, the CCCCD Board accepted the invitation and sent a letter to BOS Chair John Gioia asking to appoint a Library Commissioner. I am also actively trying to have the Board include on its website video I took of its 2010 Board retreat held in June. I have been producing television programs since 1980 when I took the TV Broadcasting course sequence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I have had three cable television series shown on Comcast public access television: IN BAY POINT (50+ one-hour programs); EAST COUNTY CHALLENGES (50+ one-hour programs) and DTV: DEMOCRATS IN ACTION (63 one-half-hour programs). I also warned Chancellor Benjamin and the Board in an email that it appeared to me that the CCCCD was in violation of the Brown Act Government Code Section 54953.3 because visitors were required to sign in at a guard desk downstairs as a requirement for attending the Board meeting which is held on the 6th Floor. That section states quite clearly that any sign-in by those people attending a Board meeting must be voluntary. Chancellor Benjamin acted quickly to resolve this potential violation by having a framed statement that it is not necessary to sign-in to attend the Board meetings.

16) As a teacher, community leader, and financial expert, I will fill three "vacancies" on the CCCCD Board. None of the current 5 Board members have significant experience in those areas. I also have been a student at two major universities (University of Florida and University of Wisconsin-Madison both in the same class as UC-Berkeley) as well as the second-tier California State University, East Bay where I earned my teaching credential. I have extensive experience as a student at these three universities which allows me to better understand where our community college students will go if they transfer.

17) I believe that the CCCCD Board should grant all the powers allowed by the Legislature for the Student Trustee listed at California Education Code Section 72023.5. I consider our students to be the most important people at CCCCD. Without students, there would be no faculty, no staff, nor administrators. If the Legislature believes that a power can be given to the Student Trustee, I believe it should be given by the CCCCD Board to demonstrate the commitment the Board has to students and assuring that students' concerns are heard at the Board. These optional powers which can be granted by the Board include making and seconding motions, attending closed sessions not including personnel or collective bargaining matters, receiving compensation, serving a term starting on May 15 rather than June 1. Given that only one current CCCCD Board Member, Tomi Van de Brooke, has supported increasing the Student Trustee's powers, I recognize that having the current Board vote for more powers is unlikely. The specific Education Code can be read at the following URL: http://law.onecle.com/california/education/72023.5.html.

18) I want to observe that this is a single office election with three candidates. That means, mathematically speaking, the "winner" could have only 34% of the votes thus being rejected by 66% (33% for each "loser") of the voters. Does that make sense? Perhaps ranked-choice voting should be used in this kind of situation. Or perhaps the College Board and County Board of Education elections should be moved to the Primary to allow a run off in November.

19) As you may know, I tried without success to point out to Chancellor Helen Benjamin that the voter data listed on the CCCCD website appeared to be inaccurate to me. Apparently, she had some kind of investigation made and sent me an email including the following statements: "I sincerely regret that you feel we are not satisfactorily meeting your needs. We are doing the best we can and regret that we may not respond as quickly as you might like." As of this writing, the only change I can see is that the words "Generally represents" have been added to each Ward which does not even remotely begin to correct the problem of misleading the voters. Dr. Benjamin continued "In the meeting we had with you to answer any questions you had about the district, you mentioned that you thought there was a difference in the ward boundary lines as shown by us and by the county elections department. We followed up and learned that there was not a problem necessarily with the lines but that six voters were incorrectly placed in the wrong ward. Those have been corrected. Thank you for bringing the issue of the boundary lines to our attention." I clearly told her to review the voter data (that is, what areas were included in each Ward) not merely the boundaries. She concluded her email with "Can you tell me if there is information you need from us that you have not received. We stand ready to respond." I have either sent her or had her on a cc for at least 11 emails I have sent to County Clerk Steve Weir trying to determine why the voter area information on the CCCCD website is different from that maintained by the District. Dr. Benjamin has not responded to any of these emails despite her statement that "We stand ready to respond." Why is this an issue? It appears that the Contra Costa Times relied on the official CCCCD website for its Sunday, October 17 article on the CCCCD election thus joining with CCCCD in misleading voters regarding which Ward they will vote in. By my estimate the CCCCD has "misplaced" at least 10,000 voters from Ward 3. Mr. Weir seems to have confirmed this. Yet, the apparently incorrect data remains on the CCCCD website with a few meaningless words added. Are the 5 Board members unaware of the inaccurate information about the areas they represent on the website? Do they not even attempt to verify the information presented about them? I am reminded of how long it took (including a Contra Costa Times editorial) to have the CCCCD Board close the Regional Training Institute at a cumulative loss of one million tax dollars. If this District cannot even maintain accurate information for voters on its website about what Ward the voters are in, I would say not much has improved since the RTI fiasco, the DVC grade changing scandal, and the DVC accreditation nightmare. I firmly believe that, as a new Trustee, one role I must assume is to insist on regular oversight of the administration of the District to undercover and correct incorrect information being given to the public.

GREG ENHOLM'S QUALIFICATIONS TO BE ELECTED THE CCCCD BOARD WARD 3 TRUSTEE

Most problems, and especially the most important ones, confronting the CCCCD are financial. I was a financial analyst for 17 years, earning an international reputation in utility finance. For three years (1981-84), I was a financial economist at the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSCW). My work's goal was to protect ratepayers from unneeded rate increases and to assure that the financial condition of the utilities was strong enough to continue to provide service to their ratepayers. I was active in ending the fuel adjustment clause which allowed electric utilities to pass fuel costs on to ratepayers with no review as to reasonableness. I also worked to develop criteria to prevent utility holding companies engaged in nonutility activities from damaging the financial condition of the utility company. My work led to State Legislation restricting utility holding companies activities. I also was the lead staff member on a national committee of regulatory commissioners, led by the PSCW Chairman, who developed a report to advise State commissions across the country to control nonutility activities to prevent unnecessary rate increases for ratepayers.

In part because of my work at the PSCW but mostly because one of my former professors ended up on Wall Street, I was a mortgage-backed securities analyst for one year at the start of Merrill Lynch Mortgage Capital Inc, a subsidiary of Merrill Lynch & Co. That company, 24 years later, helped create the mortgage crisis of 2008. Fortunately for me, I recruited to become a junior common stock analyst at Salomon Brothers in June 1985 specifically because of my PSCW work. At Salomon Brothers, I was given additional responsibilities and promotions until I reached the level of Vice President and Senior Common Stock Analyst (Electric Utilities). I advised 100+ institutional investors (mutual and pension funds as well as insurance and trust companies and others such as the Government of Singapore) on their investments in 100 U.S. electric utilities. I published 40+ reports from 2 pages to 200+ pages annually. I travelled extensively to visit clients and meet with utility executives including to Europe and Asia. I was quoted frequently in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times as well as in major regional newspapers. I appeared on CNN and FNN. In 1992, I made the decision to leave Salomon and established my own financial advisory firm in Oakland CA. I continued to advise about 50+ clients as well as be an expert witness in regulatory and court proceedings on utility financial matters. During this time, Public Utilities Reports published two books which I co-edited. These books are now available in more than 60 libraries worldwide including UC-Berkeley, the Harvard and Yale law schools, and libraries in Australia and South Africa. To see the specific libraries, go to http://www.worldcat.org and search Gregory B Enholm.

After accepting an unsolicited offer by a securities firm to buy my firm, I decided to retire from the financial analysis business in 1998 and become a high school math teacher. I made that decision because I could not possibly have had the career I enjoyed without the assistance of my math teachers and professors. What they taught me allowed me to learn complicated economics and finance concepts at university and apply my knowledge as a finance professional for 17 years. I have enjoyed being a teacher for the past 10 years. I am 56 years old. My plan is to retire at 62 and devote my time to public service.

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