Santa Monica, the Pentagon, and Qatar

All this week, TTLA runs an interview with Michael D. Rich. Rich is the executive vice president at the Santa Monica-based RAND Corporation, the region's preeminent public policy institute.

Friday: An Introduction

TTLA: Backing up a bit now, could you speak again about the scope of work RAND takes on?

MR: In the national security realm, our work typically falls into four broad categories. One, you might think of as geopolitics and broad national security and military strategy. The second one involves force "? force structure, force employment; sort of tactical issues, how many of what kinds of equipment and that sort of thing. The third involves new technology. We don't actually design or build anything, but we do a lot of the evaluations that help the military express requirements and make trade-offs and basically ask the industry to develop. And then the fourth and probably the largest area just in terms of the number of people is the collection of resource management activity. So, manpower, personnel and training, compensation, retirement policy, and military health care. Logistics, R&D policy, cost analysis methods and so on. Each year we're trying to improve upon some of the things that we've done in the past. And so much of it "? cost analysis methods, logistics concepts and techniques, certainly a lot of military manpower policy is based on RAND research methods.

TTLA: That's been the case since RAND's beginning?

MR: Yeah, all of this from the very beginning. Well, I should qualify. Take military manpower policy. The military really never had to worry about pay, benefits or anything before 1971, when the draft ended. If it needed more people, it just drafted more. If it needed to reduce, it just opened the door "? most people didn't want to be there in the first place. But you know, after '71, all of a sudden the military had to worry about markets "? you know, what people are being paid in the civilian economy, what would get them to join and stay? What ought to be in salary "? they call it military pay "? what ought to be in bonuses, what ought to be in retirement and so on? They didn't have the labor economics expertise. So they did turn to RAND for that. So all of the workings of the all-volunteer force are based in large part on RAND. Over time, other organizations have grown up and the military built up its own capabilities. But that's an enduring area as the challenges change.

So that didn't go back to the very, very beginning, but a lot of other things do go back. Like trying to understand how do you define American interests and what are the possible threats to American interests? What does that mean for the strategies of the United States? And so on. That sort of been a continuing theme that we don't think we'll ever be done with, as the world changes.

And there's a whole host of sort of comparable examples on the non-national security side. In fact, [RAND has put out] a little book called, "Sixty Ways RAND Has Made A Difference." But not necessarily the 60 most important ways "? there are a few whimsical ones, because a guy here invented the wind surfer, so we threw that in there.

TTLA: From windsurfing to other travels. You're listed as "Cochair, RAND-Qatar Policy Institute Board of Overseers." What's going in with RAND and Qatar?

MR: I think what we're doing in Qatar is an exciting and potentially influential "? it's too early to say "? but potentially influential activity. Our main activity there, and the one we started with is assisting the leadership of the country in reforming what we would call K through 12 education. That's how we began. Later they expanded it to college education. Because they recognize that that's where the teachers are trained. And the K through 12 system is dependent on good teachers.

But this was a country that had, I think it's fair to say, an antiquated education system. And it wasn't well adapted to turning out graduates who had the kinds of problem solving and critical thinking skills necessary for this century. And the leadership is very forward-looking. They realized that although [Qatar] is very rich in oil and especially natural gas, that it also needed to have a citizenry to compete in the global economy. And [the leadership] were extremely open first to a diagnosis of the school system. So that they would have a kind of an unvarnished, hard-hitting critique. And then they were open to our suggesting some broad sort of structural changes that they could consider to redress the problems. And they ended up choosing some combination of the most advanced, ideas that we had, initially starting with what we call in the United States a charter school model. Where the government would continue to finance education but wouldn't have a monopoly in running the schools. Private operators could come in with government funding and operate schools. And ultimately they are even considering getting out of the business of operating schools and having what we would think of as a voucher system.

But along the way, they did some remarkable things. They created the first "? with our guidance "? but they ended up creating the first tests in the Arabic world for students in every grade. Every year, every student is tested, no sampling and so on. In Arabic, in English, in math and science. And they began adapting the curriculum and the teacher training programs "? it's been a remarkable thing to see. I think they're still in year four or five, so it's quite early. And it's a small country. But if they are successful in sustaining this reform, and it does pay off as everyone expects with the achievement levels of the kids at the school, it could pave the way for changes not only in the Middle East but in a lot of other parts of the world that don't have the kind of modern school system that today's economy [demands]. It'll be a while before we can actually point to that, but the early indications are it'll be very influential [program].

That led in the Middle East to, especially in Qatar, to [RAND's] work on health care reform. Introduction of public health ministries and programs for nearly the first time. Work on environmental issues there, and so on. So it's been a good experience for us. Something like 5% of RAND's overall activity is in the Middle East.

TTLA: And you personally go there regularly?

MR: Yeah, I go regularly, probably five, six times a year. We oversee our work in the Middle East and especially in Qatar with a board. And I am the co-chair of that board, along with the, essentially the queen of Qatar "? the wife of the Emir.

TTLA: How has the landscape changed there in the last five, six years?

MR: Tremendously. They have a tremendous growth movement, along with some of the other places in the Gulf. They started a little bit later than, say, nearby Abu Dhabi and Dubai, so it's not quite as developed. But rapidly developed, and they had a major milestone in December [2006] , when they hosted the Asian Games which I had not really paid much attention to. But I think even larger than the Olympic games in terms of numbers. It's a lot of sports they play in Asia but they don't play here and are not in the Olympics either. And I think more athletes and so on. And that was not only major stretch for them in terms of infrastructure, but they pulled it off. And so it was, I think, a major step forward. They even competed for [hosting], I think, the 2016 Olympics. They didn't make it into the final rounds, but they're going to try again. Which is kind of amazing to me "? the Summer Olympics, [to possibly] have it in the Middle East.

TTLA: What about debriefings? With all the government connections you must have, are you formally asked to give reports, informally asked, or left alone?

MR: We're left alone. It's important for us to interact with our clients in the Middle East as we are private citizens, a private organization. That's not an off-base question, but there's a lot of people who even in the United States think RAND "? and it's possible that public television and National Public Radio have the same sort of view that you're a government employees. But we try to counter that just by saying? in fact we just do work for the government. We're a private organization, there are no government officials on our board, the government doesn't appoint anybody here.

It's sometimes hard for other organizations or citizens of other countries to understand that. But we're completely independent, so there's no reporting to the government. The problem with that is that it would imperil our reputation for objectivity. [Clients are] really sort of coming to RAND for the technical expertise and the rigor of our methods and the objectivity.

TTLA: So even during the Soviet era, or with China, these kind of conversations that even our government might not have been formally having, but RAND was sort of facilitating "?

MR: There have been a couple eras in RAND's history. I mean, we've only worked for countries other than the United States in the last, I'm guessing, 15 to 16 years. In the main part of the Cold War, all of our work was for the United States government.

At the end of the Cold War we realized that it was important for us to continue our diversification and add non-American clients. And I think there were several reasons for that. I wasn't involved in it, but the reasons that I had "? it's trite now to say it "? but you know, in the `90s, it became clear that there was almost no domestic problem that didn't have an international dimension or connection.

And so we realized the more we knew about the policy problems in other countries, particularly ones that we were trading with or likely to trade with, like European and Asian countries, the better prepared we were going to be to address problems in the United States. Second, we also realized that many times in our work for U.S. clients, we were studying Singapore or Sweden or England or the Netherlands for ideas. And so we thought, it's going to be a great source of ideas to float back into the research on U.S. problems. And then the third reason was talent. I mean, I think at one time, maybe you could create and maintain a world-class intellectual organization with just American citizens, but you know, now, of course, you want to look around the world. And so we thought it would give us good access to top-flight talent. So we began in the Netherlands and there was a kind of historical reason for that. We had done a study for the government of the Netherlands, I think in the `70s, that was our first study for a client outside the United States. And this one was on the issue of water management. The Netherlands, most of it is below sea level, and so they had a tremendous problem with their system of protecting the land. They have barriers in the sea and canals and dykes and dams and it was ready for modernization. And nobody could agree on the right way to modernize. Like what was the best solution, as I understand it, for the farmers was absolutely the worst one for the shipping industry; and what was best for the shipping industry was worst for recreational boating.

And so RAND, after decades of attempts by others, sort of cracked that problem and did an award winning analysis that helped the government. And so we had some nice connections in the Netherlands and so in the early `90s we started a subsidiary essentially in the Netherlands. And now it's headquartered in Cambridge in the U.K., with a small office in Brussels. We don't have one in the Netherlands any more, but that was our first overseas foray.

And then the Middle East office, Qatar, the work started in 2001 or 2002. And then our office began in the fall of 2003, so [we marked] our fifth anniversary.

TTLA: And RAND's heading into mainland Asia now?

MR: We don't have any plans on the drawing boards, but we do work in Singapore and Japan and Korea, and a little bit in China. And so one day I think we will have work there. And we might work in Mexico "? perhaps one day we'll have an office in Mexico, as well. So I think we would like to do that, we see the advantages, all the three advantages: Learning things to help us in the United States; learning just about problems overseas that affect the U.S.; and then getting access to non-American talent. They've all proven to be true where we are, so I think we'll want to continue to expand.

TTLA: So we saw what happened to New Orleans and we see what hasn't happened to the Netherlands. And we see what LAUSD's reputation is compared to growing improvements you're describing in Qatar. Is it easier to work with international clients?

MR: Sometimes it is. I'll just give you an example in the education one. I have heard for years RAND researchers propose to a school district the idea of a survey. You know, why not survey every so often the constituents of a school district "? parents and employers and even the teachers and so on and so forth? I don't know of a single instance where that recommendation has been accepted. Maybe it has, but it's an unpopular recommendation. We made the same suggestion in Qatar; they adopted it.

And so there are some things that turn out to be easier. But of course, you know, there's a lot of things in a monarchy that they can do, and I think the challenge here "? and it's not a gripe or a complaint "? we just have to be smart enough to figure out and have the staying power to figure out how to get the recommendations that flow from research, compatible with bureaucratic pressures and political pressures and so on. And that's, you know, one of the things we're supposed to be good at. We're certainly committed to it. And just because it's harder doesn't mean it's not an important thing to do. But we are at the vanguard of trying to understand how do you introduce pay-per-performance systems in schools, which a lot of people think have a lot of promise. How do you measure achievement is a complicated challenge. How do you take achievement levels into account when you make resource allocations? We had a tough assignment from the superintendent of the Pittsburgh public schools where we have an office in Pittsburgh, who said, "I've got to close schools. Which ones should I close? How do I decide that analytically?" And we were able to come up with a defensible means of doing that. And so many times the contribution that RAND makes is measuring something that has never been measured "? figuring out how do you measure, how do you collect the data, what the measurements are? How do you eliminate bias or at least be explicit about the uncertainties of bias so that people can take them into account?

A lot of times, that's basically the contribution of RAND. I think one of the other big achievements in the last year or two is figuring out the first method that I think is reliably giving people an ability to understand where there's racial profiling going on in various police activities, whether it be stops or what's done after a traffic stop, or what's done after a stop. You could measure; you could count the number of stops and decide. Count up how many were of white motorists or African American motorists or [otherwise]. But whether that was too much, compared to what? And no one could figure out how you would do the comparison. So now we've got a method that I think people have accepted as reliable and unbiased. And I think we'll see a lot of progress, so there it was not only the initial application of method, but I think the method will live on as a major contribution to identifying policy changes.

Continuing Friday: Success, Shareholders, and Wrestlers

Photo of RAND HQ copyright and courtesy Brett Van Ort, 2008