Portrait of Competence: Heimo and Edna Korth

Heimo Korth is "The Final Frontiersman." He and his wife Edna are the last legal full time residents of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, living far away from outside assistance and companionship. They move between three widely placed cabins every year, so as not to deplete the game as they trap and hunt for a living.

Living in the Arctic is not for the weak of heart, the government-dependent, or for faux environmentalists such as those who occupy highly-paid lobbying positions for Greenpeace, Sierra Club, and the rest of the dieoff.orgy gang. The Korths must be competent, or they will die.

Living in such a rugged environment is proof of a residual toughness living in at least a portion of western men. In case of catastrophe, most westerners could not cope without their supermarkets, convenience stores, and ATMs.

Taken from an earlier article at Al Fin The Next Level

The book, The Final Frontiersman, is quite good, written by a cousin of Heimo's who lived with the family for several months and dug deeply into the couple's lives, and those of their daughters. Most readers will be deeply moved by the well-told story of the tragedies and triumphs of the Korth family, deep in the Alaska wilderness.

Some of Heimo's story may remind you of Richard Proenneke, the first recipient of the "Portraits of Competence Award" from Al Fin. Significantly, Heimo Korth found a woman capable of sharing his life in the wilderness, and together they made a life and family in a place where most affluent westerners could not survive a week on their own without significant outside assistance. Even after the Korths are gone, their story will continue through their daughters and their families.

Of course, Richard Proenneke's story goes on in the lives of everyone who was inspired by his life. Even so, very few who read or view the story of Proenneke's (or Korth's) life will ever be able to follow in his footsteps. Competence is becoming a fleetingly rare characteristic among modern humans living in a dumbed-down Idiocracy.

Portrait of Competence: Art Robinson

Art Robinson, PhD, lives on a 350 acre farm in Southern Oregon. The Robinson family has long maintained hundreds of sheep and lambs, over a dozen milk cows, dozens of wild turkeys, and miscellaneous dogs. Robinson has raised and homeschooled 6 children on the farm: Zachary has a doctorate in veterinary medicine and Noah has a PhD in chemistry. At present, Arynne is in her third year of work toward a DVM, twins Joshua and Bethany are both in their second year of work toward PhDs in nuclear engineering, and Matthew is in his second and last year of work toward a BS in chemistry. Each of the 6 children was taking college physics and math courses by age 16 -- if not before -- and each typically took only 2 years on-campus to finish undergraduate classwork.

Art Robinson received a BS in Chemistry from Cal Tech -- where he was a student of Linus Pauling -- and a PhD in Chemistry from UCSD, where he taught chemistry for a few years before teaming with Linus Pauling to form the Linus Pauling Institute in Menlo Park. After working with Pauling for several years -- and failing to substantiate Pauling's claims that Vitamin C cures cancer -- Robinson and Pauling had a parting of the ways. Robinson and his wife Lauralee -- also a scientist -- moved to Oregon in 1980 with young sons Zachary and Noah.

Between 1980 and 1988, Robinson and his wife lived happily on the farm -- creating a family of 6 young children, operating the farm and various scientific and other miscellaneous ventures. Then in 1988 within 24 hours of developing flu-like symptoms, Robinson's wife died of hemorrhagic pancreatitis. Their children at that time ranged between ages 12 and 18 months. The older children were being home-schooled by Lauralee, and the youngest was still in diapers.

Art Robinson picked himself up from this sudden tragedy and shouldered the additional responsibilities of single parenthood of 6 young children, most in homeschool. Somehow, Art structured the curriculum and format of the school so that in fact the children were able to teach themselves, for the most part. Then, with the children's help, Art packaged the family's complete homeschool curriculum -- The Robinson Curriculum -- and has been selling thousands of the 22 CD sets a year, at $195 a set.

Sales of the homeschool curriculum plus several other enterprising ventures have put Art's scientific career on a self-sustaining basis.

Suffice it to say that Art Robinson has recovered his financial independence. He no longer needs government grants to pursue the unresolved scientific questions that were put on hold over 20 years ago. In fact, his independence as a scientist is now greater than it would be if he were still at a large research institution. Whether the institution is nominally private, or publicly funded, he points out, most scientific research is held captive by heavy infusions of federal money.

Around the time he heard that the Proceedings of the National Academy would publish the article, Art said: "If we just had a few thousand scientists pursuing their own goals, we'd really be able to get some new research done in this country. As it is, most of them are trapped."

...Art took over Access to Energy in 1993, at the request of its ailing proprietor Petr Beckmann, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Colorado. Beckmann had printed the newsletter on his own press for 20 years. A defector from Communist Czechoslovakia, he valued the First Amendment highly—and exercised it through a printing press in the basement. Until recently, Noah continued to print the newsletter on the same press, which was hauled from Boulder to Oregon. The letter was always a lively read, and Robinson has preserved that quality. It is something you gladly reach for in the mailbox. A subscription costs $35 for individuals, $150 for tax-subsidized organizations (one or two do pay full freight).

...Art's warrior instincts also came to the fore after his daughter Arynne enrolled at Southern Oregon University. To graduate, she was told, she had to take a course called "colloquium," an exercise "specifically designed to destroy her faith, her innocence, her self-respect, and her happiness in her way of life," Art says. Advance placement had allowed the boys to skip this insult. So why not remove her from the school? As it happened, the science faculty was excellent, the university's proximity was convenient, and his tax dollars were paying for this travesty. "What can a student do if the science, engineering and mathematics courses are held hostage by the 'humanities' departments?"

Art informed the university administration that they faced law suits, adverse publicity, and "an ever increasing telephone, fax, and letter campaign." The first two did not worry them, Art says-they had the lawyers and the media. But the third did. It would have involved many thousands of inquiries, and they would be needing extra telephone lines and secretaries. The president backed down at the last minute. "We won this fight without firing a shot," Art told his friends, "but only because we were prepared to shoot." And they were able to do so only because a large number of his subscribers and home-schooling friends "were available to help.

... _IndependentScientist

Robinson and his son Noah -- also a PhD chemist -- work together studying the molecular clock of aging. They have their own lab on the farm -- complete with a very powerful mass spectrometer, and other instruments. They have published multiple papers together in various journals, including the National Academy of Sciences Proceedings and the Journal of Peptide Research.

Art has also been instrumental in countering the mass hysteria of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, circulating a petition against CAGW with tens of thousands of scientists signing. Many more potential movements and enterprises are being worked out and knocked about inside his head -- much to the chagrin of the dieoff leftists of the world.

Most information for this story comes from A Scientist Finds Independence

Other information comes from an update on the Robinson Curriculum home site.

If you take the trouble to read either of the above links, you cannot help but be impressed by the multi-dimensional nature of Art Robinson's life. And still the impact of Robinson and his children (and his late wife) continues to reverberate through their work and through all of those who are influenced by their story, their curriculum, and all of their other numerous ventures and projects.

Burt Rutan, Portrait of Competence

Born Elbert L. Rutan in 1943 and raised in Dinuba, California, he began building model aircraft as a child. He graduated from California Polytechnic State University with a degree in aeronautical engineering in 1965 and landed a job as a flight test engineer at the US military's Edwards Air Force Base, not far from Mojave. "It was unbelievable training for a youngster," he says. Rutan later set up an aircraft design company and in 1982 went on to found Scaled Composites to enable him to realise his own creations, including SS2 _NewScientist

Long before inventing SpaceShipOne and Voyager—the first aircraft to circle the world nonstop and unrefueled—Burt Rutan revolutionized the practice of homebuilding airplanes with a 700-pound, composite oddity built with a set of step-by-step directions as simple as the recipe on a box of cake mix. _AirSpace

Burt Rutan is busy in Mojave, California, building a fleet of spacecraft for Richard Branson. Rutan is a full-spectrum aerospace designer, from single engine hobby planes and jets to round-the-world without refueling experimental craft to spaceplanes for tourists to safely get a taste of black weightless space. But more than that, Rutan is a man who thinks for himself, and goes his own way. His competence has been tested and proven in many ways, and Rutan is a thousand times better as a role model than any politician or film / sports celebrity.

Rutan is a megastar in aerospace circles. Over the last 40 years he has overseen the design and construction of more than 40 novel aircraft, including the record-breaking and ultra-efficient Voyager, which in 1986 flew non-stop around the world on a single tank of fuel.

In October 2004, financed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, he secured a place in the history books when one of his aircraft, the waif-like White Knight, carried another of his designs, a rocket plane called SpaceShipOne (SS1), up to 50,000 feet. From there, SS1 was launched to the edge of space, winning Rutan the X Prize, an international contest to build the first privately funded crewed spacecraft to fly to an altitude of at least 100 kilometres and return safely to Earth twice within two weeks. _NewScientist

As an aerospace engineer, Rutan has to understand basic mechanics, aerodynamics and fluidics.  As an inventor, he knows how to generate good ideas and how to recognise bad ideas early enough to prevent serious problems.  As a pilot, he must have a firm grasp of atmospheric mechanisms as well as basic meteorological phenomenon.  As an enrepreneur and businessman, he must be competent at finance and management.  As a competent individual, he things for himself and refuses to stampede with the crowd.

Like most intelligent and independent thinking persons, Rutan is something of a skeptic when it comes to politicised science.  Take the climate catastrophe movement, for example. Rutan has done an intensive investigation of the phenomenon of "climate change" and has a lot of ideas on where things have gone wrong in the climate crusade.

My study is NOT as a climatologist, but from a completely different prospective in which I am an expert. Complex data from disparate sources can be processed and presented in very different ways, and to “prove” many different theories.

For decades, as a professional experimental test engineer, I have analyzed experimental data and watched others massage and present data. I became a cynic; My conclusion – “if someone is aggressively selling a technical product who’s merits are dependant on complex experimental data, he is likely lying”. That is true whether the product is an airplane or a Carbon Credit. _WUWT

In fact, persons from dozens of different backgrounds are trained to be competent at collecting, massaging, and analysing complex data. So when such a person of proven competence points out that data is being mismanaged to promote a political and economic agenda, other competent persons would take notice.

Living in a culture that makes a fetish of in-your-face incompetence -- as long as it is politically correct -- finding truly competent individuals going about their business without seeking the limelight is refreshing.

Making the Right Choices When Time is Short

H/T Kurzweilai.net

The above is a vivid computer animation / recreation of Flight 1549's adventure involving a flock of Canada Geese and an unscheduled landing in the Hudson River. The animation is accompanied by radio transmissions between pilot and air trafic controllers (ATC), and between ATC and ATC. Follow the events in real time and decide how long it would have taken most pilots to make all the right choices -- in time.

Such finely detailed competence is generally domain-specific, although persons who learn to think clearly in stressful situations can often transfer that skill to a range of situations. Pilots, surgeons, EMS workers, ICU / ER workers, supervisors in large power and industrial plants, heavy construction engineers and supervisors, etc. etc. all need to be competent to keep people alive, healthy, and prosperous.

It doesn't help when the political leadership is not only incompetent, but doggedly insistent on following a path of economic destruction.

Portrait of Competence: Sully Sullenberger

Chesley B. Sullenberger has logged over 19,000 hours piloting various aircraft. He graduated from the US Air Force Academy in 1973 and flew nearly 7 years as an Air Force pilot, mainly in the F4 Phantom fighter, leaving the service as a Captain. During his Air Force years he also acquired two masters degrees, one from Purdue in Industrial Psychology and one from the University of Northern Colorado in Public Administration.

After leaving the Air Force, Sullenberger went to work as an airline pilot for US Airways, where he has worked since 1980. He has developed safety protocols for airline safety, helped the US NTSB investigate airline accidents, and runs a safety consulting firm.

From a Time Magazine 2 Minute Biography of US Airways Flight 1549 Pilot Chesley Sullenberger

58 year old pilot Sullenberger was not expecting to land in the Hudson River that day, he did not make a practise of it. But fate decided to cripple the engines on Sully's airbus (150 passengers, 5 crew) minutes after takeoff. Only five minutes separated the sudden disabling of the planes engines from the successful landing in the Hudson.

Sullenberger's moment of deliberate thought probably went something like this: He needed to make a decision about where to land. He had to carefully weigh the risk of not being able to make the Teterboro airport against the risk of landing in freezing water. The decision required him to weigh numerous variables. How quickly was he losing altitude? Could he clear the George Washington Bridge? Would he be able to steer the plane without thrust? He probably had only a few seconds to consider all this information, but Sullenberger wisely realized that the Hudson was his best option. _LAT

He was doing his job, and he did it without taking a poll, without leaning on advisors, without a teleprompter or an army of flacks running interference. It was all on his shoulders and -- with the help of his similarly experienced and competent co-pilot -- Sullenberger put the jetliner in the water exactly as necessary to maximise the safety of passengers and crew.

After the cabin crew led most of the passengers through the wing exits and onto the wings, Sullenberger went through the entire plane twice to make absolutely sure that no one was left onboard. He was last to leave the plane.

Competence like that doesn't come from being able to talk a good game, or from being able to charm people at a cocktail party or a political rally. Such competence is an everyday matter of fact routine in hundreds of different jobs, at most every airport, hospital, military base, EMS and Fire Dept., factory, power plant, school, construction site, etc. But it is rare for such competence to be celebrated by the news media or the public.

Here's to everyday, largely uncelebrated competence. It's there, waiting for when it will needed. But it took work to develop, and takes time and effort to maintain.

While society shines an adoring spotlight on celebrities, sports stars, and the chosen messiah du jour, remember that somewhere out there are genuinely competent people who are making your relatively affluent and pampered lives possible, mostly in spite of what the media stars are doing.

When you least expect it, the fecal matter will make contact with the rotating metal blades. You will want all the competence around you possible, when that happens.

In a superficial society like ours, how is it that we still have people like Chesley Sullenberger? If there are more such competent and conscientious people in the pipeline, where do they come from? Are they really as rare as they often seem?

Portrait of Competence--Richard Proenneke

Richard Proenneke moved to Alaska when he was 34 years old. He worked hard and after 18 years he retired to a remote wilderness area called Twin Lakes. He made many of his own handtools, and constructed his cabin on the lake himself, with local materials.

Following his discharge from the Navy Proenneke went to school to become a diesel mechanic. The combination of his high intelligence, unique adaptability, and strong work ethic turned him into a very skilled mechanic. Though quite adept at his trade, Proenneke succumbed to the call of nature within him and moved to Oregon to work at a sheep ranch.

Proenneke eventually decided to attempt a start at his own cattle ranch. With an unnamed friend, he moved to Shuyak Island, Alaska in 1950. Proenneke soon discovered that Alaska is not ranch country and he abandoned this venture.

For several years Dick worked as a heavy equipment operator and repairman on the naval base at Kodiak. Proenneke spent the next several years working throughout the state of Alaska as both a salmon fisherman and diesel mechanic. He worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service at King Salmon on the Alaska Peninsula. His skills as a mechanic were well-known and extremely sought after, and he was able to put away a modest nest egg for retirement. Although his living for the most part came from twisting bolts and welding steel, his heart was always in those far away peaks that lost themselves in the clouds.

After some thought on the matter, and a serious accident while working as a diesel mechanic, Proenneke decided he would like to retire in the wilderness of Alaska, specifically at a place called Twin Lakes. In the summer of 1967, Proenneke was dropped off at Twin Lakes for the season so he could fell timber, black spruce logs required for the building of his dream retirement home.

....Proenneke spent May, June, and July of 1968 building his cabin by hand and with nothing but hand tools. The cabin was complete with windows, one of which was designed and built of PET film by Proenneke himself to face the lake and not fog up. He also built furniture including chairs, tables, a desk, and a bunk; a log cache built up on poles to store food and goods that needed to be kept away from wildlife; a stone and mortar fireplace; and many decorations such as a plaster of paris wolf track and moose and caribou antler decorations.

Proenneke's bush pilot friend, Babe Alsworth, returned occasionally to bring food and orders that Proenneke placed through him to Sears. While Proenneke lived largely off the land, he enjoyed things like red beans, bacon, and seasonings, all of which he proclaimed to be life's real luxuries.

Several times during his life at Twin Lakes, Proenneke was attacked by brown bears. He also became quite adept at taming animals, befriending a squirrel, a weasel, many birds, and (almost) a wolverine.

Proenneke remained at Twin Lakes for the next 16 months, when he left to go home for a spell to visit relatives and secure more supplies. He returned to the lakes in the following spring and remained there for most of the next 30 years, coming to the lower 48 only occasionally to be with his family, for whom he cared a great deal.

Source.

Dick Proenneke lived for thirty years away from civilisation, living off the wilderness and surviving by his wits and hard work.

Contrast Proenneke's successful coexistence with a dangerous wilderness, with the sad story of Christopher McCandless, a healthy young man who starved to death after only 112 days living in an abandoned schoolbus, over an Alaska summer. Chris was intelligent--a graduate of Emory University. He managed to kill a moose with his .22 rifle, but did not know how to preserve the meat, so most of it spoiled. He was close to a river full of fish, but apparently didn't know how to catch fish for food.

Proenneke went much farther into the wilderness than McCandless. He made a 30 year retirement out of the wild, and prospered. Proenneke was a much older man, without a college degree. But Proenneke was competent in a way that McCandless--and entire generations of McCandlesses--never could be.

Proenneke was an old school American. McCandless was a product of the new school--the school of neotenous incompetence. Chris wanted adventure, and was both intelligent and resourceful. But he lacked the competence and common sense he needed to survive less than four relatively mild months in Alaska. Chris is representative of what a modern college education can do for a person. He had great self-esteem, and big dreams. He was egalitarian in the best traditions of political correctness. But he was incompetent for the situations he put himself into.