PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS
On behalf of the Partnership for a Drug Free America:
A byproduct of broadcast deregulation in the early 1990’s was a significant falloff of pro-bono public service advertising allocation by the “big three” networks. The reasons for this were fairly straightforward as the networks were facing significant competition from cable news and entertainment channels and were forced to utilize much of the ad space that had been allocated to PSAs either revenue production or for self promotion. An interesting anecdotal piece of evidence underscoring this situation was the fact that the single largest “purchaser” of ad space during the 1996 Atlanta Olymipics was NBC itself – self promotion had thoroughly surplanted PSAs. By contrast, during the 70’s and 80’s PSAs were regularly broadcast during Olympic events.
The Partnership had developed a solid track record of bringing together pro-bono creative work from the major ad agencies to produce its ads targeted at kids and parents and was by default the victim of a great deal of this above described falloff. A solution to the problem lay only in the ability to compete for the ad space in the open market. In an initiative that Speaker Gingrich initially said was “dead on arrival” on Capitol Hill when first proposed by the Clinton Administration and ONDCP, Third Coast Managing Partner Russell Smith managed the effort to put together a congressional strategy that resulted in fiscal year 1998 Treasury, Postal Service and General Government Appropriations of $195 million. That Appropriation was followed by no less than $185 million in Treasury Postal Appropriations for each of the succeeding three Appropriations cycles (FY’99, FY’00 and FY’01) that Smith represented the Partnership. That Appropriation has been maintained to this day annually to fund a resurgence of these PSAs for the Partnership and ONDCP. Regardless of one’s opinion of ONDCP and its mission, this was by all accounts a major political victory that has a billion dollar plus legacy that endures to the present day.
On behalf of the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute (ONAMI):
Third Coast Managing Partner Russell Smith put together a strategy to leverage the collective interests of over 40 public and private sector participants and beneficiaries of ONAMI including the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, Portland State University, Pacific Northwest Nuclear Laboratory, Intel, Hewlett Packard, FEI and numerous smaller firms to create a legislative solution for parity in regional research and development centers whose funding was authorized in the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act. The Act authorized multi-billion dollar appropriations for several fiscal years beginning in FY’05 but unfortunately had no provisions defining the regional research centers that were to receive the authorized funding. As a result, centers like ONAMI were faced with the prospect of having to work the Appropriations process in each successive fiscal year that the funding was authorized or attempt to fix the authorizing legislation itself.
The group called upon Smith for assistance and the resulting strategy successfully inserted language drafted by Smith into S.189 (21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act) defining the very specific character of the research centers and mandating no redundant work be done at any of the centers. The language, because of Smith’s involvement, was so specific and described the characteristics of ONMAI so tightly that they were guaranteed to become one of the ten chosen centers to carry out the directives of the authorizing legislation – a victory whose rewards to ONAMI can be measured in the tens of millions.