Teaching Public Policy at UCLA in the 80's was a great experience.  The leader made it both challenging and exhilerating and we really felt we had accomplished something, actually contributed to advancing the ball forward.  It was fun going to the UCLA conference center at Big Bear and interacting with the best minds in academia, business and government on critical issues of the day-- my specialty was transportation.  Minds could actually be changed in that environment.  It gave hope that intractible issues could be solved when the right stakeholders were in the room and given common purpose.

In the sessions we would get pretty heated, but all it took was a break and a walk in the woods or by the lake to regain perspective.  We miss the leader of those groups; he returned to run the public policy center at Berkeley.  Thanks, LeRoy Gramer.