Last week was an another eventful week for yours truly. The first event that occurred was the annual meeting of the San Diego Economic Development Commission, which took place at the Hyatt Aventine in La Jolla. The program featured speeches by the mayor and other featured dignitaries, including city council and county commissioners. The parting event was a speech by David Gergen, who flew out from Washington D.C. for the event. Gergen is a rather upbeat guy who has been an advisor to a number of Presidents, including President Nixon, who he said had both good traits and bad. Gergen at the present time seems to be aligning himself with Barack Obama, who he feels has the right kind of program and is outspoken enough to carry it off. I was frankly happy to hear other people besides me speak for a change. I only had to stand one time.

The second interesting thing that happened was I did my first ocean sampling on the boat on the way to Oceanside. We took water samples off Point Loma, Del Mar, and Oceanside. The results are being looked at by a friend of mine at the Venter Institute. Although my sampling techniques are crude, they should improve in time. I’m hoping we got at least three good results.

The third event was a barbecue that my son threw at his house in Del Mar on Saturday night, where the folks who work with him on the VACIS program were well represented and a good time was had by all.

I especially want to congratulate Mike Daniels, who recently received the Northern Virginia Technology Council’s Michael G. Devine Hall of Fame Award for his leadership and contributions to the region’s technology business community. Mike was instrumental in acquiring Network Solutions for SAIC and helping me get the support from the board to complete the purchase. As you know, Network Solutions had a contract for the administration of the embryonic Internet. Mike saw the potential where many others did not.

You might find the Journal Report on Energy in Monday’s (June 30, 2008) Wall Street Journal to be of interest. It covers a variety of energy topics including the future of nuclear power — the case for and against — and the status of solar, wind power, and even scum power (turning algae into fuel). Scum power is of course a topic Craig Venter is interested in, and he usually is right in his hunches. The future of natural gas is also discussed, along with Hawaii’s efforts to become an incubator for all sorts of renewable energy projects, and the possibility of reactivating many of the thousands of old oil pumping sites now that this approach is becoming economically feasible. Some concluding remarks are provided by Representative Roscoe Bartlett, former CIA Director James Woolsey, Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Alexander Karsner, and retired MIT professor and nuclear engineer Robert Hirsch on their concerns about the current energy crisis.

– Bob

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Last week was interesting for me in that the climate has changed completely in San Diego and it has been much hotter. Like other parts of the country, we now have to rely on air conditioning to cool our homes and events. One event where I would have enjoyed more air conditioning was on Sunday at Malin Burnham’s house. Malin founded the Burnham Institute for Medical Research and he had a lunch gathering at his home in Point Loma, followed by a panel discussion on the future of genetics held at the Evans Garage museum near the airport. The Evans Garage has more than a dozen vintage cars, all in tip-top condition. Most of the cars date from around 1900-1915 and none were current brands, having long ago either gone out of business or been swallowed up by one of their competitors. The four speakers were Craig Venter of the Venter Institute located here in La Jolla and in Rockville, Maryland, Erkki Ruoslahti from the Santa Barbara branch of the Burnham Institute, Nobel Prize winner Kary Mullis — a distinguished researcher at Children’s Hospital and Research Institute in Oakland — and Robert Kline, chairman of governing committee of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Palo Alto. John Reed from the Burnham Institute served as moderator.

Craig Venter told us that he thinks genetics offers the possibility of an unusual but ingenious answer to our energy problem. He believes that meaningful amounts of algae that is genetically engineered to create oil-like molecules can be grown. This was the best seller of the conference, and he has been promoting the idea with the likes of Barack Obama, who feels that something drastic needs to be done to counter the devastating impact the oil and gas monopolies are having on the economies of all the world’s countries. Erkki Ruoslahti discussed the possibility of using nanotechnology to insert just the right amount of medicine into a cancer victim’s diet to attack the disease — all done non-invasively. He has conducted a variety of experiments to establish the veracity of this process. These ideas are in the final stages of development and testing, and results look good. Breakthroughs are not unexpected as the research continues. Kary Mullis is an expert in the biochemistry side of genetic research, pioneering the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) methodology that has enabled genetic researchers to synthesize large quantities of specific copies of the DNA molecule very quickly. He has an interesting way of generating ideas which is to put the problem in his head and then think not directly about it — but indirectly — until a solution comes to him. He said it was a sure thing with him, and he highly recommended it to other people. Perhaps I will try this suggestion and see if I can also win a Nobel Prize in the process. Robert Kline led the discussion of the financing of these genomics projects. Robert informed us that not much government funding is going to private institutions working on genetic problems these days. Most research, development, and start-up funds are coming, if at all, from private sources — the medical research budgets have been severely curtailed by the Iraq War. States such as California are stepping in to float bonds for several hundred million dollars for the stem cell initiative. This technique using state funds will work for nonprofit research institutes but not for profit-making institutes.

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The big event last week was the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards, which occurred on Monday night and took place at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in La Jolla. A couple thousand people attended for this local Entrepreneur of the Year award. There were winners in five different categories. The business products and services winner was Valorie Seyfert, president and chief executive officer of Cuso Financial Services LP. The award for consumer products and services was won by Andrew Clark, CEO of Bridgepoint Education. The third category — the life sciences category — was won by Jay Flatley, president and CEO of Illumina Inc. Illumina is a manufacturer of many high-tech genetic products primarily meant for medical use. The high technology and defense award was won by Patrick Henry, chairman and CEO of Entropic Communications. The company is a pioneer in connected home entertainment technologies. The last category in which an award was made was environment and real estate which Alan Gold, president and CEO of BioMed Realty Trust Inc., won. The thing that distinguishes his products is the fact that the real estate that they have for sale is all environmentally friendly. All in all, it was a tremendous evening.

The U.S. Open golf tournament took place on South Torrey Pines golf course here in San Diego, and has just been completed. After 91 holes total, it was won by just one point by Tiger Woods, who played brilliantly even though he had an injured right knee. Everything is back to normal now up on Torrey Pines, including the military jets from Miramar, which temporarily diverted their path away from the golf course during the tournament.

– Bob

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We continue to dig deeper into the new Network Solutions book project. I realize it’s impossible to write a book on the topic without getting involved in many of the technical details about what makes the Internet work. Accuracy in what we report is very important, and having gone through much of it I know that various interests differ on what really happened at that time. Many have their own personal files, telephone records, and such, so we should be able to piece together an interesting story. Most of the people involved are still alive and there’s a reasonable chance they will be willing to cooperate if they can find the time. As in the case of developing a plan for The SAIC Solution, we solicited the advice and counsel of our blog readers along the way. My intent is to do the same here because the contributions of the blog readers turned out to be quite important to formulating a credible story. Let us know what you think, including if you think the project should include certain information you want to be sure we don’t omit, is too ambitious, or shouldn’t be done at all. This is a particularly opportune time to tell this story as the 40th anniversary of the Internet is coming up in October 2009 — about the same time we plan to publish the book.

On Monday night the local San Diego office of Ernst & Young sponsored a gala event for the Entrepreneur of the Year award. I presented the trophy for the technical award. Several hundred people attended at the Hyatt in La Jolla, including people from all the companies involved, their sponsors, their venture capital folks and business advisors, and family and friends. It’s one of the spectacles attracting local attention and I’m honored to be a part of it.

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We’re considering three new book-related initiatives through FED. The first one is a paperback version of The SAIC Solution. We will be talking with the publisher about that soon. The time scale on this is probably about a year, after we have sold the remaining stock of hardcover books. The second book is the story of Network Solutions — from the early days of the ARPANET, through to today. This book interests me greatly, although I fear that it will not be easy to write since there will be so many political constituencies which must be treated with an even hand to avoid hurt feelings. We will try to involve Emmitt McHenry, who started Network Solutions; myself; Mike Daniels, who discovered Network Solutions and did most of the negotiations on the acquisition. We will talk with Bill Roper, who now runs VeriSign, which acquired Network Solutions and now runs the registry. It’s one of the registrars, but not the only one. We have begun to set up a framework within which we can operate and with any luck the book will be done in about a year. The third book is Employee Owners Speak Out, which will initially be based on a series of articles submitted by former and current SAIC employees such as Bill Scott, Carl Albero, Jim Russell, Matt Tobriner, and any others who might like to contribute. This book will be dedicated to establishing convincingly the power of employee ownership from the employees’ perspective, which is unique. We will be providing additional details about this third book — and invite your participation — in a future blog posting.

I had an interesting long Memorial Day weekend. I spent some time with John Ellis and Bob Freedman discussing the new sailing adventure Craig Venter plans for later this year. We have given them some money to help plan the adventure, and the question now is if we want to participate more in future activities. As you know, I have taken an interest in genome research. If I could go with them part way on the trip, I might be able to have some fun while learning how to prepare samples along the way, which is suddenly interesting me. It’s not that I am no longer interested in the other topics I have studied all my life, it’s just that this new area of knowledge presents me with a new challenge and is an area where I would like to make a contribution.

This past week has been busy. I’ve spent my time doing some tasks that were very interesting, and some tasks that were kind of mundane. As for the interesting tasks, I spent Monday morning working with my daughter on the DARPA SBIR program, helping her examine — with the aid of some technology consultants — companies for development and transition funding by the government. We reviewed about 15 companies. There were companies that specialized in new power sources, ones that had new software algorithms, and others that offered new computer network security and intrusion detection technologies.

On the more personal side, I have been practicing for my driving test, which they don’t make easy for an 83 year old. Saturday night we attended a large event at the beach home of Saleh Hassanein and Zandra Rhodes. Saleh was celebrating his 87th birthday and he was alive and well with lots of enthusiasm. He spends a great deal of his time working with a wide variety of charities in San Diego and I know him through the Cardiovascular Center at UCSD, which has been very helpful to me.

Last Thursday Ron Arnold, Bill Proffer, and I took the boat to the Coronado Yacht Club and rented a cab which took us to the Brigantine Restaurant. Coronado is a tremendously beautiful place and I always like going there. It was a good adventure and very stimulating.

As for the mundane tasks, as I write this, I’m not sure how I’m going to get home today. Ralph’s car is broken and I didn’t drive mine because of a doctor appointment in the morning. I’ve learned, however, that things have a way of working themselves out. I have physical therapy this afternoon which I look forward to since it has such a profound effect on my physical well-being.

Now you know absolutely everything that’s happened with me in the last couple of weeks. We had more than 400 visits to this blog last week, but only one message. Why don’t you tell us what you are doing? It’s probably more interesting than what I just told you.

P.S. Since MA and Betty didn’t bring me back a nesting doll from Russia, I have discovered that a selection of nesting dolls is available through Amazon.com in case any of you are interested.

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I’ve been spending a little time trying to keep up with the America’s Cup and how the next competition will be handled. It appears that after a final decision is made by the New York Supreme Court or some appellate court, a race will be scheduled this year. Where it will be held is not clear from what I have read. Some writers indicate that it needs to be conducted in the Southern Hemisphere. If you have better information, you’re welcome to post it on this blog.

I thought you might be interested in how many individuals visited the blog last week. There were 266 total visits made by 196 individual visitors. 590 pages were viewed, or about 2 per visit.

From my standpoint, things have returned to normal here in La Jolla — if there is any such thing as normal. My wife and daughter returned from Russia, where they had a great time discovering the wonders of St. Petersburg — going to several operas and ballets, seeing the Hermitage, going to the czar’s hunting lodge, and eating at very good restaurants. They returned with many pictures, a few souvenirs, and a variety of impressions about the people and the city of St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg is clearly unique and it must be one of the two or three most beautiful cities in the world. I haven’t received all my gifts yet, but they brought me a very beautiful dinner bell which is already coming in handy. More gifts to follow. Here are a few photos from the trip.

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