Michael Giberson
The world has plenty of empire builders, but Rob Bradley Jr. – founder and CEO of the Institute for Energy Research – apparently isn’t one of them. He wishes IER were smaller and his work was less relevant. At his blog, MasterResource, Bradley has posted an interview of him done by Stephen Hicks, a shorter version of which appeared August 2010 in KAIZEN magazine.
Here is the part from which my title comes:
Bradley: … And I founded an organization that has grown from basically a “think bucket” (as one journalist put it) to a bona fide Washington, D.C.-based think-and-do tank. The Institute for Energy Research (IER), a 501(c)3 educational nonprofit, used to be just me working out of my house, but now also has a 501(c)4 advocacy affiliate, the American Energy Alliance. I am still CEO, but the main operation is now in Washington under the direction of our president Tom Pyle.
Kaizen: That is something to be proud of.
Bradley: In one sense, yes. But remember that spiraling energy intervention, almost all of which I’m against, is behind IER’s growth. Our funding comes from the productive sector to try to neutralize the forces of coercive energy transformation. So in a nonpoliticized, ideal world, IER would be smaller and I less relevant. But the general economy would be stronger, so we would all be happier, right?