MY TURN: About Regan's 'Fact Check'

I read Mr. Regan’s “Fact Check” opinion in Friday’s Coeur d'Alene Press. His life story is eerily similar to my own … without the wealthy parents part. I enjoyed the “projection” discussion where Mr. Regan informs me that psychologists coined the term “projection” for a phenomenon where a subject projects their life experiences onto others.

Unlike Mr. Regan, I spent my first two years in junior college because I was poor. I then transferred to a university and worked 40 plus hours a week as a counselor in a juvenile hall while going to college full time. After graduating I had several rather inconsequential jobs before my wife and I had an opportunity to start an analytical laboratory with a few family members.

We started the business when I was 22 years old, using money from an SBA loan collateralized by my father’s property. Our company did environmental testing, sending teams all over the world working for private industry and governmental entities.

I bought out my family members and continued building the company, eventually selling it. Probably, similar to Mr. Regan, my task was to design and build equipment to collect samples from high pressure, high temperature, toxic and explosive environments that had never been tested before. Welding ornate metals, machining and blowing glass and quartz plus the chemistry involved after the samples were collected were my responsibility.

Fortunately, my wife and I were able to hire many talented employees with backgrounds in math, biology and chemistry with a platform of good scientific principles.

Mr. Regan discusses success and suggests people who aren’t successful can’t validly criticize those who are. Whereas our monetary goals were met in similar timeframes, I don’t consider monetary worth to be the sole arbiter of “success.”

People are social animals.

If a member of society provides a service that enriches their community, I am both humbled and appreciative of their contribution and aspire to be as successful as they. Yes, I may have a higher net worth, but value to the community isn’t necessarily measured by personal net worth.

Mr. Regan states the mission of the KCRCC “is to enhance freedom and prosperity by promoting fiscally and socially conservative candidates” who will implement the KCRCC platform. If we look at the accomplishments of the KCRCC mission, we currently have NIC as an example of their fiscal responsibility.

KCRCC has championed an inept group of trustees that have cost taxpayers millions of dollars with zero benefit to the community. NIC has two paid lawyers implementing the KCRCC platform. One had his feelings hurt.

The initially overpriced and underexperienced lawyer decided to crank up his fees to reimburse himself for any disgust he might incur. Where is the fiscally conservative watchdog within the majority NIC board to thwart that?

Now we have a second lawyer with no school experience and too proud to respond to any questions prior to hiring. The commonality among the circus at NIC is they are promoting the KCRCC platform to the detriment of the community they should be enriching.

I don’t know about Mr. Regan, but we donated the government funds we received to local charities during the COVID episode because we were successful enough not to deserve them.

A Dec. 9, 2020, article in the Coeur d'Alene Press entitled "Government handouts are evil — except when they’re not."

“Regan, president of Regan Designs, collected $74,800 — even though his loan request showed zero jobs reported.” These PPP funds came from the taxpayers.

• • •

Doug Albertson is a 40-year resident of Coeur d'Alene.