Safety at the Speed of Life- Blog 7

Last week, I began a blog series on the importance of building safety into our global trade processes. I discussed the scope of our trading in the global markets, our response to the need for new tools and strategies and the importance of collaboration in implementing these new strategies. I would like to close this series by sharing one more story about safety, speed, and Olympic athletes. This one is a tale of devotion to the safety of our country and sheer speed on ice. It is about a true hero of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games — Derek Parra, a Mexican-American speed skater from San Bernardino, California.

Prior to the Games, Derek was an employee at Home Depot working in the flooring and electrical department. He is a regular guy who at the time would eat Fig Newtons the night before each race.

This regular guy represented our country during the 2002 Games in two monumental ways. In the opening ceremony, Parra was chosen as one of eight U.S. athletes who carried in the tattered flag that flew over the World Trade Center. In his book, Reflections on Ice, he wrote about this experience. Let me include an excerpt:

When it came time to begin the procession I touched the flag for the first time and felt a physical sensation unlike anything I had ever experienced. If it is possible to feel your soul being touched that is what I felt. As we carried the flag out before the capacity crowd and worldwide television audience the silence was deafening. I’ve never before heard such stillness. I was some place emotionally I had never been before; some place spiritually I didn’t know existed. While in this instance that flag represented so much death, it seemed also to stand for life, love and the hope of a nation.

I was there and he is right.

Powerful words about the safety of our homeland from a great Olympian.

A few days later, Parra fulfilled the hope of a nation by demonstrating that nice guys do finish first. He had a breathtaking and world-record-setting performance in the 1,500-meter race. In a stunning time of 1 minute 43.95 seconds, he bested the favorite skater from the Netherlands and captured gold for the United States.

Derek Parra carrying United States flag.

After winning the race Parra said, “You give up so much, hoping for a moment like this, and it happens.”

He skated the perfect race. He embraced safety, mastered the ice, and skated at the speed of life. His fleet power made him at that moment the best in the world … ever.

In the next 12 to 24 months something far more significant than an Olympic gold medal is at stake. It is the future of product safety in the United States. There are two competing and divergent philosophies ready for battle. This battle is not entirely about safety; it is a surrogate battle about U.S. philosophy on trade.

I believe that opening world markets has brought enormous benefits to consumers — lower prices, greater variety, and more choice. We will achieve safety and speed by harnessing the power of consumers who rapidly and harshly punish those who produce poor products. The game plan is to develop high, science-based standards, demand absolute transparency, reward independent certification, and rigorously enforce high-risk products.

Others would have government inspect everything. They want to stop products at the border and increase point-of-entry government inspection. Not only does such a course mean higher costs and taxes, it means consumers would be denied timely access to an abundance of safe products at lower prices. Frankly, underneath their government-centric view lurks the spirit of protectionism and the illusion that they can use the inspection process to slow or reverse global trade.

If you care about the future of the United States in the global market, you have to weigh in here. Now is the time. This is the medal round.

In a global market there are three ways to approach change: You can fight it and fail; you can accept it and survive; or you can lead it and prosper.

We are the United States of America; let us lead.

Comments

This type of broad, expensive, and ineffective policy seems extremely common.

Security researcher Bruce Schneier pioneered an interesting term: Security theater. You see, the average American has no background in the many specialized fields which affect him (whether it be technology or importation of goods). His only knowledge of this issue is likely to come from a TV scare blurb designed to increase ratings by frightening him. Security theater is designed to win his approbation without concern to the actual effectiveness of the policy involved.

Sadly, this often places the informed at a disadvantage, arguing against confused belief with facts and figures. The futility of mass inspection seems obvious to me, but that feeling is obviously not universal. However, by painting a vivid picture of the products we need that could be blocked and ts that could be blocked and by sharply highlighting better tactics, you may yet prevail. Thankyou for continuing to fight.

Posted by: Stephen | July 30, 2008 at 10:02 AM

Dear Sir,

"Remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end." Scott Adams, dilbert creator

Leadership is not only about getting things done, it is about moving, not just ordering, people to get the right things done.

Part of this is getting the right folks together - like on a blog and then letting them know what needs to be done.

Yes we can gather in groups and parties. We can have the tenacity of bumboot snail, we can have great ideas and passion but "A cause without action is like a dream - warm and fulfiling and will pass as quickly."

Hopefuly we will choose not only to embrace change but lead to where the US adn other countries are safe. Safe in trade deficits, safe in products, safe from Bird Flu and other bugs not being delivered along with the goods.

The US got a wake up call in the 70's and now again with foreign dependence on oil. Hopefuly we will have cheap goods without becomming totaly dependent on others for cloth, medical supplies, electronics, cars, etc.

Regads,
Kobie
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller

Posted by: Kobie | July 31, 2008 at 08:26 AM

Please tell us more why you think I have committed abortion by taking birth control.

Posted by: Eileen Hyatt | August 06, 2008 at 11:34 AM

Wow. Frankly your plan sounds like a public health nightmare.

"We will achieve safety and speed by harnessing the power of consumers who rapidly and harshly punish those who produce poor products."

How many people have to get sick before a product is recognized as unsafe? Individuals have very little power to diagnose pathogenic organisms and chemicals that may be present in foreign goods and/or foods. Americans should be able to rely on Public Health officials to do the wide-scale screening for which individuals have little capacity. That is the point of having a goverment... doing the big things that individuals (who have their own jobs and families to concentrate on) can't.

This shouldn't be about trade policy ideologies but about public health and safety. Your JOB should be about public health and safety.

Posted by: Rowan Fairgrove | August 06, 2008 at 06:42 PM

It is my understanding that when asked if it was your policy to characterize the use of birth control to prevent pregnancy as being the same as abortion your response was "no comment." I appalls me that your response was so blatantly anti-womans health concerns. Please understand that the majority of women in the United States believe that the use of birth control is a private matter and should be between her God, her doctor and herself and that government has no right to interfere in private and personal matters. If you believe to the contrary, I call upon you to make your beliefs known to the world at large and I will be calling for your resignation to the highest authority.
Sincerely,
Ruth E. Stemper
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Posted by: Ruth E. Stemper | August 06, 2008 at 11:38 PM