PHOTO: Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, Inc.
As mentioned previously in this editorial series, the June 28 visit by U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper and his staff — to the Pagosa Springs Medical Center (PSMC), and Pagosa Springs High School — consisted mainly of storytelling sessions.
The Senator noted, correctly, that storytelling is an essential element of political change. (Or of maintaining the status quo, for that matter.)
The photo above, of Stéphane Bancel, is related to an interesting ‘side story’ shared by Senator Hickenlooper near the conclusion of the board room conversations at PSMC.
During his meeting with PSMC staff, Senator Hickenlooper discussed his impression that the stark divisions between Democrats and Republicans are beginning to soften, and senators are, in his opinion, becoming more willing to work cooperatively across the aisle.
“I tell everyone around the state, ‘You’re the luckiest person in the world, to live in the state of Colorado, in the United States of America, at this moment in time.’ All we ever hear about are the challenges, and how awful it is, and how we fail at all these different things. But the bottom line is, I think people are going to look back on this year and say, ‘Holy smokes, I was in the right place at the right time.’
“Some of the science, and the medical innovations that are coming out, are just breathtaking. Really, really exciting.
“I’ll leave you with this last story. I met with the head of Moderna. The CEO. The company that did the vaccine. The messenger RNA vaccine worked, and they made a couple billion dollars…”
The Senator didn’t mention the CEO’s name, but we know the name. Stéphane Bancel. As a result of generous taxpayer funding for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, Mr. Bancel now has an estimated personal net worth of $3.9 billion.
Moderna was founded in 2010, and had never made a profit prior to developing its vaccine, but it’s profits in 2021 alone were estimated at $12.2 billion. So… slightly more than the “couple billion” suggested by the Senator?
But the story gets better.
“Now the CEO has his own non-profit. He put all the money he got into his philanthropy. And they think that within a year, we will be connecting Alzheimer’s — which is a major problem — more than to exercise, more than to how active you keep your mind… to sugar.
“And the hot, young scientists in his lab are referring to Alzheimer’s as ‘Type 3 Diabetes’.
“He said, in the next 12 to 18 months, you can expect some big studies — longitudinal studies — are going to be coming out and are going to be pretty compelling…
“Think about how our whole… all of our advertising… sugar is everywhere. I’m addicted to sugar!”
The people sitting in the PSMC Board Room broke out in sympathetic agreement.
“We’re at a moment of greatness. Great things are going to happen.
“But they’re not without challenges.”
The Senator and his staff made their next stop at the Pagosa Springs High School ‘Career & Technical Education’ (CTE) program, headed up by Tor Hessman — a collaborative program partly supported by local nonprofit Build Pagosa.
The program has been the lucky recipient of various grants, including funding for apprenticeships in the building trades.
On the tour of the CTE building, the Senator met students involved in carpentry, drafting, welding, auto repair, graphic design, and culinary skills.
A couple of carpentry students had designed and produced a CNC-routed wooden plaque in honor of the Senator’s visit, which they happily presented to him.
He joked that it might fit in his suitcase. But perhaps not.
Stepping outside, Mr. Hessman led the Senator to another, somewhat larger, student project — a duplex currently under construction that will hopefully house Archuleta School District employees at some point in the not-too-distant future. The structure will consist of two modified 40-foot shipping containers joined by a stick-built central area, and will conceivably be placed on a vacant 50-acre parcel owned by the School District, immediately west of the high school.
Obviously, this is part of the District’s attempt to address the severe workforce housing shortage in Archuleta County.
From there, we moved into a classroom in the CTE building, where a number of local business owners and community leaders were waiting for a chance to address the Senator.
A few common themes, from the speakers:
1. The difficulty finding qualified (or even, simply willing) employees.
2. The lack of workforce housing for people making an average wage in Pagosa Springs.
3. The benefits of government-funded or foundation-funded job opportunities for the community’s young people.
And one more theme. Could the Senator find more money, in Congress, for these needs?
Here are a few comments, taken from Senator Hickenlooper’s response:
“We can’t ignore the fact that we’ve got school teachers and firefighters and a whole raft of important parts of our community who are being priced out of our market. The key here is, if there’s public money going into it, it can’t be a gift. If someone buys into ownership of a house that’s been subsidized [by public funding] there has to be some kind of cap on how much profit they can make — so the next school teacher or firefighter can afford to buy it…
“And on another side of the issue. And I’ve changed my perspective completely — I was a restaurant owner, and I’ve been anti-union my whole life. But ever since we’ve seen a decline in union membership, our workforce has been paid a lot less money. And that’s just a fact. You look at the graph, and it tracks exactly.
“So I’m encouraging unions to be more reasonable, and to be part of the community, but I think we need to take care of the workforce.
“All of the inflation people complain about, it’s largely the price of commodities like oil — a price we don’t control. I don’t care how many more wells we drill in the United States, we’re not going to change the price of oil in this world.”
That’s an interesting comment, coming from a former petroleum geologist who, as Colorado’s governor, bent over backwards to support the oil and gas industry.
The Senator continued, talking about the business cycle in a capitalist country:
“I’m a capitalist through and through,” he laughed. “But we need to take a hard look at the wages we pay people… I think we need to be a little more aggressive in what we pay people. And again, I know, as a small business person… I know some of you are thinking, ‘He’s sold out!’
“But I think it’s the greatest good for everybody…”
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.