Richard Lesher - Voice of Business: The Man Who Transformed the United States Chamber of Commerce

VOICE OF BUSINESS

VOICE OF BUSINESS

The Man Who Transformed the United States Chamber of Commerce

Richard Lesher with Dave Scheiber

Indiana University Press

Bloomington and Indianapolis

This book is a publication of

Indiana University Press

Office of Scholarly Publishing

Herman B Wells Library 350

1320 East 10th Street

Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA

iupress.indiana.edu

2017 by Richard Lesher with Dave Scheiber

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-0-253-02699-6 (cloth)

ISBN 978-0-253-02710-8 (paperback)

ISBN 978-0-253-02723-8 (ebook)

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To my childrenDouglas Alan, Laurie Lynn (so sadly no longer with us), Betsy Lee, and Craig Collin; my grandchildrenKathryn, Sarah, Rebecca, Jennifer, London, and Danny; and my great-grandchildrenVivienne, Philip, Kamryn, Hallie, Nixon, Ada Jane, Charlie, and Sammy.

I am so proud of all of them and they are the primary reason I undertook this project.

Contents

Acknowledgments

A JOURNEY LIKE MINE is impossible without becoming indebted to lots of people, beginning with Agnes, my wife of thirty-five years, whose love, assistance, and guidance have been essential.

My mother was my guiding light throughout my life. My grandparents were a source of great learning and love in my younger years. My sister, Doreen, was always there for me.

I was so fortunate to have good teachers in my public school education and wonderful role models and mentors at the three great universities I attended: Pittsburgh, Penn State, and Indiana.

My success at NASA, the National Center for Resource Recovery, and the United States Chamber of Commerce would not have been possible without the support of hundreds of staff members and members of the board of directors.

I also wish to thank Lonnie Taylor, Larry Kraus, Meryl Comer, Steve Lebowitz, Jeff Joseph, Bob Kinzie, Carl Grant, Dr. Mike Gaudiose, and Osvaldo Dos Santos for their sincere contributions.

Finally, I cannot fully describe my indebtedness to Dave Scheiber for his exceptional and professional work and who was a real pleasure to work with.

Introduction

I T IS HARD for me to believe that twenty years have passed since I sat down to share my thoughts and ideas in the pages of a book. The last two decades have been a wonderfully full and meaningful period and given me ample time to reflect on the many memorable events in the life I have been fortunate to lead.

For a boy who survived the rigors of a highly challenging, Depression-era childhood in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, it has been a remarkable journey. The road would one day lead to the heart of NASA when man walked on the moon, and ultimately to the heights of government and public policy with the United States Chamber of Commerceaffording me a front-row seat with seven US presidential administrations, myriad foreign leaders, and key moments in world events during the final decades of the 20th century.

You will read all about that and much more in the book you hold in your hands. But first, I think it would be worth revisiting the theme of my last effort, the 1996 work entitled Meltdown on Main Street: Why Small Business Is Leading the Revolution Against Big Government. From my vantage point as president of the US Chamber of Commerce, I felt compelled to make the case against oversized government regulation that had run amok.

Instead of supposedly helping people navigate the challenges of daily life, an excess of rules and regulations was having the opposite effect: increasing frustrations and burdens of the working class. Its amazing how some things never seem to change.

My contention in 1996 was precisely the same as it had been nearly twenty years earlier, when, in 1975, I was named to lead the US Chamber. As I maintained in Meltdown on Main Street, The national spirit of enterprise and initiative has been hamstrung by maddening regulatory red tape and bureaucratic bungling. Laws purporting to help our way of life have wound up harming it.

I advocated strenuously that we must be guided not by an abundance of policy making, but by self-reliance, individual responsibility, and personal initiative. Those principles mirror my own storythe tale of a bold and independent child who came from meager means and faced many difficult obstacles, with nothing handed to him along the way as he charted the course of his life.

Not surprisingly, I feel just as strongly today about the need to push back against big government as I ever did. It is a never-ending fight, and one that began in the early days of our nation, when Thomas Jefferson noted in 1787, The natural progress of things is for the government to gain ground and for liberty to yield. I have such great pride in our democratic way of life and remain a staunch proponent for restoring the power of the individual and businesses in the face of ill-conceived, poorly implemented, overreaching government programs and policies.

I understand that we also need to be compassionate both as a nation and as individuals. Being anti-big government does not mean we are unfeeling or unconcerned with the needs of hard-working Americans, who are fighting to stay afloat and support themselves and their families. We can give effective help through acts of understanding, generosity, respect, and selflessnessboth by dedicated individuals and societal groups, and by fostering in each of us the spirit of self-determination, a core principle of our democracy.

Clearly, certain defined policies and programs are intrinsic to the goals of a democratic society, but in no way is there justification for the governments tendency to attempt to solve all of societys problems and limitations. Such efforts may be rooted in noble intentions but too often fail to address the realities of life and have dismal results.

My belief in the vital importance of business and private enterpriseas opposed to being some sort of necessary evil as many regard itlies at the heart of my first book, Its Everybodys Business, published in 1980. At the time, American business had endured a long period of being beaten down, disrespected, and viewed in a negative light, but it was poised for a renaissance. And I was privileged to have the opportunity to help restore its luster by remaking the mission of the Chamber, empowering it as an effective voice of business, and working hand-in-hand with the administration of President Ronald Reagan amid the dawn of a new conservative movement in this country.

I have been a proud champion for business in Americaand an undaunted crusader for capitalism around the world, especially in the late 1980sa time of profound change in our history when young people living in oppressive nations hungered for a chance to experience personal and economic freedom.

All of this is why I have wanted to document the many steps of my life so that my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildrenand generations of progeny still to comewould know more about me and the values by which I have lived my life. Even in a book you cant tell the whole story, but I tell quite a lot of it in these pages. And my hope is that the lessons I learned along the waythe value of hard work, facing issues head on and treating others with a kind heartwill benefit anyone.