The U.S. Has That Certain Warm and Wholesome Feeling of a Family-Run Business

Since my career as a marketing consultant began in 1981, I’ve had the pleasure of working with some incredibly bright and wonderful people, and now that I’m focused exclusively on helping companies in cleantech, the basic “goodness” of the individual client has risen even further.  Yet there have been a few times when I’ve been introduced to a VP Marketing somewhere and after a few minutes began to wonder how an imbecile like this could have possibly risen to that level in a corporate hierarchy–usually to learn later that he or she is a relative of the CEO, a board member, or some major shareholder.

As we’ve observed to our collective horror, the Trump administration is rife with such nepotism; most notably, we have the Trump children and Jared Kushner.  And here’s a brand new one:  Eric Trump’s brother-in-law received a promotion to a leadership position in the U.S. Department of Energy this week, despite not having a background in the energy field. Kyle Yunaska, who is Lara Trump’s brother, was named chief of staff within the Energy Department’s Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis, according to E&E News.

Interesting, under the Obama administration, this is the precise part of the DoE that was tasked with dealing with climate change. Here’s a guess: there will be a tiny shift in focus here.  Just a guess, obviously.