Alan Macdonald paper

In his presentation last Wednesday, Alan Macdonald provided us with a look inside a high-stakes public affairs campaign, one whose opponents, allies, and audience ranged from the Air Force to the late Senator Kennedy to the citizens in the towns surrounding Hanscom Air Force Base and the Soldier Systems Center in Natick. Macdonald described his task as come-from-behind: It was all but decided, a foregone conclusion, that Hanscom would close. But in the end, he helped see that didn't.

Mass Development, of which Macdonald was a senior vice president, launched a steering committee to keep the base open--and to spare from elimination the 33,000 jobs it supports.

Macdonald said that the difference between the Hanscom effort and the efforts of other military bases, many of which met failure, was that "we were better." It is hard to believe, though, that Macdonald's triumph was only a matter of magnitude. There must have been some strategic variation from team to team.

It was obvious and predictable that everyone facing the Base Realignment and Closure proceedings would focus on intensifying their base's good (a corner of the Rank Model). After all, in situations like these, you can't go directly after your opponent. Had Macdonald and his peers launched a "close Fort McPherson in Georgia instead of Hanscom" campaign, it is possible they would have lost popular support and the sympathetic ear of the Air Force. Therefore, Macdonald's organization focused on intensifying their good and--subtly--pointing out that other bases did not do as good a job as them in some areas: employee talent and intellect being the foremost.

One thing Mass Development's pitch did extremely well was presenting Hanscom as a part of Massachusetts--not a wart on its face, but an organ in its whirring body. This integration suggested to the Air Force bigwigs that the base would not be easy to shut down, and that if it came to that, relocating its programs may result in diminishing returns wherever they moved Hanscom's responsibilities.

The central part of this argument was that Massachusetts is different, and that Hanscom is different. Massachusetts has a glut of people with higher degrees and research institutions, as well as good schools and towns where people want to live. Hanscom Air Force Base's influence is not confined to its physical boundaries, but requires and thrives on collaboration from area businesses--high-tech companies that are prolific in the Commonwealth.

In convincing the Air Force of Hanscom's unique character, Macdonald's team was able to redefine what was in the military's best interest, and win the struggle to keep the base open.

Some in our class expressed reservations over the morality of Macdonald's mission: keeping a military base operating instead of allowing it to shut down.

Though I don't support a rampant war economy, I believe that Macdonald was not doing anything wrong, and that he believed in what he was fighting for. If Hanscom was moved, 33,000 Massachusetts workers would have lost their job or had to chase it out of state.

These people have families and mortgages and consumer debt and kids in college. Mass Development's triumph is something to be proud of. Even if some of their jobs involve researching and developing lethal weapons, someone else would do it if Hanscom didn't. Macdonald helped preserve what these workers had in Massachusetts.

However, he seemed to waver slightly when it comes to his current job at South Shore Hospital. He said that a lot about the healthcare industry disturbs him, a lot of which, working for a hospital, he may see firsthand.

Part of the justification process for Macdonald is the fact that incredible things happen in the hospital every day--people are born, people die, and people are saved. Fresh off his Hanscom victory, Macdonald realizes that institutions are malleable. Just because some things about the healthcare industry disturb him does not mean that it is inherently bad or evil, but merely broken, perhaps.

Macdonald reconciles the cognitive dissonance of objecting to some of his industry's ethics by working to make that industry better for hospitals and for its patients. His work on federal hospital reimbursements, and on a South Shore hospital alliance, are an example of that.