Free markets are not a fad.
Michael T. Burr is Fortnightly’s editor-in-chief. Email him at burr@pur.com
Somewhere in my basement, behind the camping cushions and holiday decorations, is a box containing old copies of Independent Energy magazine, the publication where I started my career. In one of those magazines, from sometime in the early 1990s, is a story featuring interviews with executives at leading turnkey contracting firms. Among those executives were Jeff Brightman of Bechtel, Bob Bibb of what was then Bibb & Associates—and if memory serves—Alan Champagne, who was at Stone & Webster.
By interesting coincidence, that’s three of the seven people I interviewed for this month’s cover story (“Build to Order”). This coincidence suggests a couple of things. First, good people stick around. Second, the contracting models that worked for independent power producers (IPP) back in the 1980s and 1990s are still with us today. In other words, good ideas stick around too.