The politics of NMC’s BDC

The Issue: Denial of funds of NMC’s Business Development Center by the ex-BDC chief who now heads the overall program out of the University of Guam.

Our View: The adolescent vengeance game isn’t going to benefit the intended recipients — young scholars and entrepreneurial prospects — of these isles.

It is mind boggling that the former chief of NMC’s Business Development Center, Mr. Jack Peters, has seen fit to derail a program he successfully administered during his stint with the Northern Marianas College.

A quick glimpse into his trail of vengeance demonstrates that it is all personal and denying a successful program its requisite funds to continue is the way to get even with those who stood in his way while at NMC.

Without a doubt, it’s a case of Mr. Peters’ inability to separate people from issues taking preference over vengeance rather than supporting a program that has seen great success over the last several years.

For those of us who are wary of the dire need to shift local paradigms from everything that is government into the essence of private sector development, the BDC is the fulcrum to gradually realign a wrongful mind set by demonstrating to young business prospects and scholars that there are better things outside government.

This is the very venue, in concert with other undertakings to strengthen the business school at NMC, to change reliance on the biggest employer here — the local government. This goal involves a lengthy process that warrants constant refinement. It’s a mind-numbing undertaking after decades of listening to a failed legacy of the US Department of Interior’s that we must lay our livelihood at the knees of the local government. It’s an unhealthy legacy that local leadership wishes to change because we know that government is never in the business of making profits. This is solely the purview of private sector development.

The program must go on for even the new detractor has proven that in fact it was a successful undertaking while he was in charge. It is senseless to play even at the personal level only to ruin our hopes in the obvious need to teach our young people that you can be your own boss and still rake-in some decent profits. That Mr.
Peters has apparently built his own demise is not an excuse to derail a highly successful program for the people of these isles. He needs to learn separating people from issues in an effort to restore or reinstate funds for NMC’s Business Development Center. Si Yuus Maase`!