Today I met the Governor of Nevada,
Governor Brian Sandoval. He is in London (with his entourage) as part of a
Trade Mission to Europe. Today the focus was on ‘launching’ the new
Nevada-based Centre of Excellence for Water, which is a terrific initiative
between the municipal utilities in Nevada, the state government and the Desert
Research Institute. If you are an entrepreneur or researcher in the water
sector and you want to operate in the US market then the Nevada CoE should be
on your list of contacts.
Prior to meeting with the Governor I did
some homework. This is always useful when meeting politicians, not least as it
helps avoid putting ones foot completely in ones’ mouth. I spoke to various
people. The feedback included ‘He is a Republican who thinks like a
Democrat, which is just what America needs right now’, which sounded very
promising and was significantly more useful than the rather trite ‘He is a true
man of the people’ . The stand out comment however was the very bold and
very confident statement from a senior representative within a US water
authority that ‘Governor Sandoval will be the President within the next
10 years’. I was greatly looking forward to meeting with him.
I had been given a 30 minute slot in his
busy schedule for a face-to-face meeting to discuss water technology and the
challenges entrepreneurs face. The secret with these one-off meetings is to
make sure you are remembered. With this in mind I toyed with adopting a
Bert-from-Mary-Poppins approach (‘Eh-up guvnor, how’s it all gowin?’) vs
a Frank Underwood from Netflix’s House of Cards (‘Why Governor, that is a
marvellous idea, be sure to pass on my regards to Mr President’ ). In the
end I decided to just be me.
As we walked into the room he mentioned
that yesterday he had visited the Churchill War Rooms and that they had been
fantastic. I said that if he thought these were good then he really should
visit tunnels under Dover Castle as this is where Allies were based before the
D-Day landings at the end of World War 2. His response was so enthusiastic that
I subsequently got on the phone and pulled in a few favours. As I type, the
Governor is hopefully enjoying a special tour deep within the White Cliffs of
Dover, viewing the underground hospital and WW2 operations rooms, all given by
the Head of Operations at Dover Castle.
Having discussed the tourist delights of
the UK we quickly moved on to the challenges of innovation within the water
sector. He was exceptionally engaged (and engaging). His primary objective,
quite rightly, is to generate trade and commerce for Nevada, but his
collaborative and attentive approach was utterly disarming. I found myself
drifting between stories about quagga mussels and non-revenue water, telling
anecdotes and generally blathering on in a manner for which I have a tendency.
He kindly stayed awake and attentive throughout, and we finished our meeting
with enthusiastic promises to generally make the world a better place. I
suspect he has more ability to follow through on this than I do.
If Governor Sandoval does go the distance
and, one day, sits in the Oval Office then maybe, just maybe, some of the water
issues he has heard about will come back into his mind. Having a senior
politician who understands the importance of water, the challenges the sector
is facing and the dire need to facilitate better routes for innovation and
entrepreneurship is a very exciting prospect.
Let’s hope he makes it out of the tunnels
under Dover Castle safely….
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