This is a transcript of the Spur of the Moment episode “The life of a food lobbyist with George Franklin.” It is provided as a courtesy and may contain errors.
George Franklin: Get involved, make a difference. Whatever your interest is, if it’s water policy, if it’s ag policy, if it’s environmental, whatever it is, this life is not a dress rehearsal. It’s the only one you get.
Jocelyn Hittle: Welcome to Spur of the Moment. The podcast of Colorado State University Spur Campus in Denver, Colorado.
George Franklin: And that’s also important as far as how you treat people that are on the other side because they may be your friend today. They might be your foe tomorrow. And you need to work with people. Give them the respect, understand they’re advocating a position they believe in, and treat them accordingly.
Jocelyn Hittle: On this podcast, we talk with experts in food, water, health, and sustainability and learn about their current work and their career journeys. I’m Jocelyn Hittle, associate Vice Chancellor of the CSUs Spur campus. Today we have a special guest hosted episode where you will hear a conversation between Kristin Kirkpatrick, managing Director of CSUs, spur Partnerships and Advancement, and George Franklin, author, speaker, longtime lawyer and lobbyist, and former Vice President of Government relations for the Kellogg Company. George has written numerous books, both fiction and nonfiction that draw in his experience working in Washington, including Raisin brand and other serial wars. And so you think you want to run for Congress? I hope you enjoy the wide ranging conversation between Kristen and George in this special guest hosted episode of CSU Spur of the moment.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Welcome to Spur of the Moment. I’m today’s guest host Kristen Kirkpatrick. I manage our partnerships in fundraising here at the CSU Spur Campus. It is my honor today to be the host for a discussion with George Franklin, a lawyer who spent his career helping businesses succeed by leveraging government affairs. He has an amazing background and we’re going to dig into it. And so George, welcome today.
George Franklin: Well, thank you for having me. It’s a real pleasure to be here. This is a beautiful facility. It is a beautiful campus.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Well, one of the things we’re hoping to do here is inspire people about careers that matter. And you have had an incredible and storied career, and we are very excited to dig in. Notably, you let government affairs for the Kellogg Company for more than 25 years. You’re an accomplished author, you’ve run your own firm for a couple of decades. Will you tell us about your career and the life of a lobbyist?
George Franklin: The life of a lobbyist? I love being a lobbyist. I had a great time and one of the reasons I’m out and talking to college students is there’s the image of lobbyists is the exact opposite of the reality. And I know the image of lobbyists. We see it in tv, we see it in movies, and we all read about it,
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Flexible morals and thank you for smoking is what comes to mind. Yes. Christopher Buckley. Christopher Buckley,
George Franklin: Yes. And actually my books are sort of, I love Christopher Buckley. I love Carl Hyon. So if you like Christopher Buckley and Carl Hyon, you like my books, but I’m willing to make fun of it. But I always like to impress upon the students that actually lobbyists have to be truthful, honest, straightforward and reliable to be good. And I love to use the example. I know your two US senators are friends of the senator from Michigan, Debbie Stabenow. Debbie and I go back, I don’t know, 40 years I guess when she was a state rep, then she became a state senator, then she became a congresswoman, then she went to the US Senate, and now she’s the chairman of the Senate Ag Committee. Well, I was the Kellogg lobbyist. I would go to Lansing, Michigan, and I met her as an up and coming young politician. And I was hopefully an up and coming young lobbyist and I probably could have pulled a fast one somewhere somehow on her, but I would’ve been out of business forever.
George Franklin: Out of business forever because those politicians have to rely on you for straight answers, the facts that you’re not sending ’em off politically where they shouldn’t go. And so my routine, when I go to meet an elected official, I would go in and I’d usually have the proverbial one-pager, which the description of the issue and why they should support us. And I explain, I’d advocate for why they should support us, but what I would also tell he or she is that these are the people who are going to be opposed to you, and these are what they’re going to say, and this is what their objection’s going to be for our position. And I’ll also tell them politically, what are the ramifications? Who’s going to be happy with them? Who’s going to be against them? Who’s going to be upset about it? So they know the complete lay of the land. They understand I’m advocating and I’m trying to promote a position, but they also have to know that I’m giving them the true skinny on what the whole situation is. So the image of lobbyists is the opposite of what a real good lobbyist is
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Because what I hear you talking about is building long-term trust and integrity.
George Franklin: Absolutely. You’re right on it.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: And I think many of these conversations, the world is small, you run into the same people. So I would imagine those are key skills because you have built a 40 year career with somebody.
George Franklin: Well, I was at the CSU Bain campus last night talking to a group in the Ag policy group, and one of the students asked me, they said, what’s the most important trait to have as a lobbyist? And I said, it’s people skills. It’s knowing how to deal with people and treat people, treat ’em with respect. And that’s also important as far as how you treat people that are on the other side because they may be your friend today, they might be your foe tomorrow, and you need to work with people, give them the respect, understand they’re advocating a position they believe in and treat them accordingly. I
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Love that we’ve been having a central theme of democracy across our engagement as a university system, and much of that is about bringing people together where we don’t agree and being able to have discourse and respect for the other position coming in sometimes where you might not know every single thing.
George Franklin: Right,
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Right. I’m curious if you could tell us what do people not know about government affairs in particular in the food sector, which is a place where I think there’s a lot of opinions about how our food sector should be functioning.
George Franklin: Sure. Well, people, I used to get the question all the time. They’d say, what in the world is Kellogg needle lobbyist for? And actually, when I was a young lawyer, lobbyists before went full-time with Kellogg. I used to do work for McDonald’s and Coca-Cola and people like that. And I got the same question, why does McDonald’s need a lobbyist? Why does Coca-Cola need a lobbyist? They need a lobbyist for the same reason that General Motors, Dow Chemical and Pfizer, it’s an international company that deals with international trade tariffs, marketing issues, advertising issues, tax issues. It runs the gamut of international business. So people just think when they say, well, you’re a food lobbyist, they just think of this narrow sort of food sector, but it’s actually you’re a business lobbyist at the same time. So I spent a lot of my career actually working on tariffs around the world.
George Franklin: We would ship what are called flaking grits to different plants that Kellogg had around the world. And one of my jobs was to get the tariffs lowered, to get the grits into the planet less expensive. I had advertising issues. We had a big issue about advertising to children. And actually the first thing I worked on for Kellogg was an antitrust case, and the Federal Trade Commission was pursuing a case against the cereal industry, and the remedy was that Kellogg would literally be broken into three companies. So it was life and death for Kellogg, and thank god we prevailed. But once again, it’s not just food, it’s not just labeling, it’s not just ingredients,
Kristin Kirkpatrick: It’s everything. I think the food system is all of the other systems.
George Franklin: Yep,
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Absolutely. I’m curious, in your work as a lobbyist or working in global government affairs, what was sort of your typical workday and what’s a task that you sometimes disliked or one that you were surprised to find that you really enjoyed?
George Franklin: The typical day when I was in Washington, this would be different from when I was at corporate headquarters, but for 17, seven years rather, I ran the Washington office. I like to say I ran it because I was the only one, but it makes it sound more sophisticated that way. So when I got up, it went to work. When I went to bed, it closed down. Once again, I said, I love being a lobbyist. You do a lot of things in the morning, in the evening, and oftentimes you’d go to a lot of fundraisers. Part of your job is being politically involved. So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday evening, there would be events. You would go to fundraisers, dinners, different activities, and oftentimes though, in the morning it would be breakfast before court is sort of the normal workday. So the typical week would be early morning events, evening events.
George Franklin: And then in between was a lot of, this was sort of a lot of pre email, but it was answering emails, answering notes, talking to corporate headquarters and where your clients came from would be other parts of the company. And when you’re a lobbyist, you’re sort of a Sherpa. I’m not an expert on tax, I’m not an expert on nutrition. I’m not an expert on labeling. But I would bid calls from those different areas of the company and people would’ve a problem with the government or a question about what they could or couldn’t do or how they could change this or that rule. And so during the day, it would be a lot of discussing internally with the company or on the other hand, going to Capitol Hill, meeting with members of Congress, meeting with staff, briefing people on the issues you’d been working on that had come through the company. So it was a busy life. I enjoyed it, enjoyed it immensely, and there really weren’t parts of it. I’m grappling with what I didn’t like trying to think. Nothing really jumps out. There’s nothing, well,
Kristin Kirkpatrick: That’s a
George Franklin: Gift. It was a real gift enjoying what you do. And I worked for a great company. It was everybody in the world knows Tony the Tiger. So it was always a lot of fun. And my one great power in life was that I could have Tony the Tiger write anybody. And so you’d meet staff members and they’d have little kids, and so you’d have Tony the Tiger, write ’em, and you were the hero of the day,
Kristin Kirkpatrick: I would say. Was there anything that you were surprised to find that you found a great deal of joy in your work?
George Franklin: Well, there’s two things I got involved with that I actually write about my books, but it’s a little unusual. Nine days after nine 11, I took Muhammad Ali to ground zero. Well, Muhammad Ali lived in Benton Harbor, Michigan. Most people don’t realize that. And literally it was an old gangster’s house and it was surrounded of water by three sides. And as a Muslim, he had spoken out against the violence, and the governor said, we think it would be a rule positive thing if we could somehow get Ali here. So seven o’clock in the morning on September the 20th, I get on the corporate jet, I meet with Carlos and he says, what do you think? And I said, well, we ought to do it. And he said, well, you need to go with him. I get the Kellogg jet on Monday morning, September the 20th, we fly to Benton Harbor, which is literally like a five minute flight on this jet.
George Franklin: We then flew to White Plains, New York because you couldn’t fly to New York City where we were met with a police escort that took us into the city. And if it was one of the Damnest days of my life, excuse me, the first place when we went was the fire station where all the guys had been killed. And I say guys, because I think it was all guys, and the grief was just beyond comprehension. There was all these family members of all sorts of relatives and people there, and Pataki was there, Giuliani was there. And what was amazing, Kristen was that, and this goes on for the rest of the day, total strangers coming up to him, tugging on his sleeves, hugging him, grabbing him, talking about where they were when he fought. So-and-so in tears and beside themself, but just having them, there was this impact that I’ve never been able to articulate, to be honest. I’ve been asked 50 times or something.
George Franklin: So then we go there and you’re in an emotional overload. We go to the docks, which was a missing person’s place, and there’s walls with just hundreds of pictures of kids and proms and high school and wedding pictures of all these missing people. And once again, this overwhelming reaction with Ali, people are hooting and hollering and grabbing them and tugging on them and in tears. And I’m like, I’m totally about to lose this. Then finally, the unimaginable, we get the police escort takes us down the streets of New York where there’s a military checkpoint armed military, and I’m looking beyond the checkpoint, and it’s about three or four blocks, and the World Trade Center is I guess 13 stories. It’s still smoking smoke’s coming out. And then we spent an hour, I don’t know, two hours going around to the different tents where all the emergency workers were working with.
George Franklin: Ali and I got pictures and they were hugging and grabbing them, and the firemen are, it was the day that, just the day you’d never forget. And I woke up the next day and it literally was, did I dream this? And I ended up back at Kellogg and with some buddy of mine just in a cafeteria, and I was talking to him about the reaction to Ali, and he said, well, you were with probably one of the three most famous people in the world. You get the Pope and the president of the United States and throw in a couple other. But what I was really proud of though Kristin was, other than when I wrote the book years later, Kellogg never announced it. They never claimed credit. They never tried to ballyhoo it into something. They just did it because it the right thing, and it was just proud to have been there.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: That makes me think about our earlier conversation about integrity. I think that when people think of being in government affairs, they maybe don’t think of National days of healing or bringing people together in that way. That’s such a tremendous story. Do you have others like that? Was that a once in a lifetime phenomena or was that something that happened more than once?
George Franklin: Well, actually there was another story, and it was international, and I’m dating myself a little bit, but for your listeners, people might remember when apartheid was in effect in South Africa and it was abhorrent system of racial discrimination, separation, and it became a huge political controversy in the United States, and there was a movement for companies to divest. You should just leave South Africa, walk away, and until apartheid was over, until Mandela was released, until democracy restored, no American company should stay there. Well, there was about a hundred some American companies there, one of which was Kop. We had a plant in Spring South Africa, and our chairman at the time named Bill Moth, who was a man of incredible integrity.
George Franklin: He told me one day he said, we are not leaving there until the government orders us to, because what we are going to do is stay and make a change by demonstrating that if we can run this like we run a plant in Omaha, Nebraska, that people’s rights should be preserved, integrity and dignity and so on. So this business was one half of 1% of the Kellogg company. It was nothing economic. The most economic thing would’ve been to close up and leave. It turns out politically, the chairman of the Africa, a very honorable, decent guy named Howard ey, liberal Democrat, chairman of the Africa’s company, big proponent of divestiture, was our local congressman. South African government knew exactly where we were and knew exactly who our congressman was so we could act with impunity. So we actually recognized the Black Trade Union, even though it was illegal, we knew they wouldn’t touch us.
George Franklin: It was led by a member of the African National Congress named Christopher Lamini, and he was a black leader in the movement for rights and freedom in South Africa. Well, we knew eventually this was going to happen though, and Christopher had warned us. I get a call from the plant manager and the state police had come and taken Christopher away from in the township where he lived. So I get a call from our plant manager and he says, the nightmares occurred. They’ve taken Christopher, we don’t know where he is. We’re very concerned. We’ll ever see Christopher again. And so I said, okay. So I called our chairman, bill, the both at home. I was in Washington at the time, and he listens and he says, okay, I want you to get a message to President Boda on Monday morning, president boda of South Africa, whose nickname was the crocodile.
George Franklin: To give you an idea what a touchy feely guy he was. He said, but I want you to get a message to him that if Christopher is not released, immediately I am walking out the door and announcing we are leaving South Africa. And I’m like, whoa, this is way over my pay grade. And I said, you really want me to do that? He said, absolutely. So Monday boarding, I had met the South Ambassador from South Africa to the United States. I had met him through political things in Washington. So I get on the phone to his assistant and I said, could you please ask the ambassador if he would tell President Boda that if Christopher is not released immediately unharmed Bill Lamott’s going to walk out that door in Battle Creek and announce we’re leave in South Africa. Within the next day or two, president Bo had called Bill Lamot, said, Christopher is being released.
George Franklin: He will be released unharmed, which he was. Then the fast forward, and then we met with Christopher, obviously for numerous times after that, and he said, if you had not intervened, I’d be dead. I mean, that’s the short version of it. Fast forward, Mandela’s released, democracy comes to South Africa, Christopher becomes a member of Parliament, and then years later, he became ambassador to China. Incredible. And once though, Kellogg never issued a press release, never made a statement, never ballyhooed it. We never talked about it. No one ever knew what had happened except Christopher and once again, a sort of half dozen, half dozen people. So I was always very proud of working for Kellogg, and it was a company of great integrity.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: When people are thinking about a career as a lobbyist, I know that you’ve said in other interviews you couldn’t work for every company. How were you able to ground truth that they were a company that you felt like you could stand behind that would give you these gifts of incredible moments where you showed up on a world stage in a way that really impacted people?
George Franklin: I knew the people and how Kellogg got into the lobby and they didn’t want to be in the lobby, but I think I mentioned earlier there was a big antitrust case that was going to break Kellogg into three pieces. And there was a quote in Newsweek magazine back when Newsweek magazine was a big to-do. The lead lawyer in the case said, they asked him, how did you pick the serial industry? Why didn’t you pick auto glass tires? And they rattled off all sorts of industries. And the lead lawyer literally was quoted as saying, well, they lacked the political clout, the muddy the water, because it was just this little Midwest company out there making cornflakes mine in their own business. And so that’s how I met the Kellogg people. And it was the people, I mean, obviously I knew who Kellogg was. I’d grown up like everybody else with Fruit Loops and Tony the Tiger and all the things, but it was the people I was comfortable with. And the other part is, you have to remember, they created the Kellogg Foundation, which is one of the great foundations of the world. And back when I joined Kellogg, the Kellogg Foundation owned literally 48% of the company. I mean, they were the dominant. You had a company that literally gave half its money to charity if you want to look at it in simplistic terms. And so it’s core values were terrific.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Let’s dig in on people. When you come up across a challenge or a problem that you’re struggling to solve, do you have your own sort of board of directors, mentors, co-conspirators who help you?
George Franklin: I got plenty of co-conspirators. I don’t need
Kristin Kirkpatrick: That. Who do you call when you have a problem that you are trying to figure out?
George Franklin: I figure out what my dad would’ve done.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Tell us more about that.
George Franklin: Well, here’s another story that you don’t think much of. Everybody knows who Rosa Parks was. Everybody knows what happened. The Montgomery bus boycott, it was my father for the bus line, had dealt with Martin Luther King in Rosa Parks.
George Franklin: And one of the proudest moments I ever in my life was, it was a historian from the University of Texas. This is, I dunno, 10 years ago, I guess. I get this email from him and said, is this your father? And it was a news clipping about my father going down from behalf of National City Lines that owned all these bus lines. And he had gone to Montgomery because of the Rosa Park situation. And the clipping talked about the head of the Alabama Public Service Commission, which had jurisdiction over city buses who was also the head of the White Citizens Council, the Ku Klux Klan. And he was ordering my father to segregate the buses. I usually changed the terminology, but my father in polite legalese told him to go shove it. Okay. I was really proud. I was really, people look back on it Dow and say, well, that was the right thing to do, but it wasn’t so easy in 1954 when there’s a mass demonstration going on. So yeah, I mean, I go to my values. You go to what your gut told you is right. You don’t have to analyze it usually.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: That’s amazing. I feel like integrity is the theme of this conversation, which is a fun word to associate with lobbying.
George Franklin: Yeah. Yeah.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Tell me about a day where you felt like you were incredibly good at your job.
George Franklin: Sure. I’ll tell you what I was telling. Some of it’s built on instincts and personal relationships. When you lobby. I had a funny scene. I keep going back to this antitrust case, but it was a critical thing in my young career and for the company. But there was Senator Zarinsky from Nebraska, I’ll never forget, he was a sort of conservative democrat. And I went in to meet with the counsel, his lawyer, who literally was a Harvard lawyer, and we started explaining how he wanted Senator Zarinsky to co-sponsor this bill in the short version, stop the case, okay, this lawyer, Harvard lawyer, just spent 30 minutes berating us. There is no way the senator can do that. This is incredible involved in an ongoing antitrust case and legally blah, blah, blah. We’re like, oh, wow, this ain’t going to be a good day. And about after 30 40 minutes of this Harvard lawyer explaining to us the outrage of all this, Senator Zarinsky walks in, he’d been mayor of Omaha, Kellogg was like the fourth biggest employer at Omaha, I think at the time.
George Franklin: He comes in, he goes, Hey fellas, what are we doing here? He said, well, Senator came here on this shared monopoly antitrust case. He said, hell, that’s the stupidest damn thing. Put me on the bill. And I’m looking at this lawyer’s face. He’s about to have a heart attack, but sometimes you got to get through the staff to the senator or the member. And in fairness to the staff, their job is to be defensive. Their job is to protect. Their job is, oh, we don’t know about that. But oftentimes the lobbyist role is to get through ’em to where the elected official understands the politics of what it is, where it came from, and why they ought to do it. And it was just a funny, but I felt good about it because I was able to call back the headquarters and say, listen to this one. I finally beat a Harvard lawyer.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: I love that. What is it that you’re excited to still be learning about in government affairs in the food industry?
George Franklin: I guess you learn all the time. And that’s the reason I love going to these college campuses. And like I said, I have these four books and my latest one is this satirical one called A Feeding Frenzy in Washington, and it has an ag lobbyist named PJ Snake Boots Jackson, and as I
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Mentioned, loves that name.
George Franklin: Oh, yeah,
Kristin Kirkpatrick: That does have Carl Hyen vibes. Absolutely.
George Franklin: Oh yeah. It’s definitely Carl Hausen Griffin. And as I mentioned, the Wienermobile gets hijacked by vegans. So it’s a fun, it’s lark if I do say it’s gotten a lot of good reviews and people find it fun, but there’s a thread of reality throughout the book, and I think it’s educational in a sense that it gives people a flow for the sort of lobbyists, what they think and how they react and what they do in a funny, humorous way. It’s a long-winded way of saying, but I learned a lot from the students because just the last, I did two classes yesterday at CSU, and they’re really smart people and they know their business and they’re willing to put you on the spot, which is great. So it’s a constant learning experience.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Absolutely. We feel the same way all of the time. I’m curious, George, if you could go back, if you weren’t going to have a career in government affairs or in lobbying, if you could go back and start all over again, is there any other career you would choose?
George Franklin: I can’t think of what, oh, wait a minute. That’s not true. Journalism.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Journalism.
George Franklin: I’m a journalistic journalism junkie if ince that correctly, but I read like three, four newspapers a day. I know that’s old fashioned. I read newspapers. I’m a total news junkie. And being an investigative reporter was a little bit of my Walter Mitty. I would’ve always enjoyed that. And if I hadn’t been a lobbyist, I would’ve been a journalist. I love because I love to write. I love poking around and finding out what’s really going on.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: And our lightning question, our first spur of the moment. Question, when you were, say first grade kindergarten, what did you want to be?
George Franklin: I think it was sort of, I can’t say first grade, but eventually sort of always wanted to be a lawyer. My dad was a lawyer, but his brother was a lawyer. And I always thought being a lawyer was cool because you could change, could really help people make change.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Before we move into your story and how you got to being in government affairs, is there anything else you feel like we should know about being a lobbyist? Anything you want to dispel or clarify?
George Franklin: Yeah, I mean, the system doesn’t work without lobbyists. And that’s the other part. People don’t understand because a new congress person from wherever, and you have, I don’t know what they have now, 15 staffers and half of ’em are sort of administrative and handling social security claims and that. So you’ve got four or five people that are your legislative aides. Well, usually they’re relatively inexperienced or they’re younger people, but even if they aren’t, they’re not experts in everything. And the variety of issues that come in the door when you’re sitting in Congress or the state Senate just go on forever. Right. Taxes, trade, marketing, advertising, you name it, whatever comes up in Congress and you have to rely on lobbyists because they can come in and explain it to you.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Absolutely. I think that’s important. All right. Let’s dig in on your story In broad brush strokes, will you tell us what got you to where you are? How’d you find yourself sitting in this seat?
George Franklin: Oh wow. Well, I went one year at the University of Florida. Let’s just put it politely. I did not excel. So I quit college, went to Washington and through a variety, I ended up becoming a gopher for this congressman from New Jersey. So I was his driver, run good coffee, do all that kind of stuff. And he told me he was going to fire me unless I went back to college. So I worked for him during college and law school, got out, and then I started a law firm with another guy, and I met the Kellogg people who didn’t have anybody in Washington, and that’s how the relationship got. And I carved out this niche in with the food business because I started working for Kellogg, and then I got hired by McDonald’s, and then I got hired by the National Soft Drink Association. So I just sort of flowed into the world of food lobbying and that’s where I stayed.
George Franklin: And then when I left Kellogg in oh five, I set up my own lobby shop, did that for a dozen years. And then I thought I always wanted to write books. So the first book is called Raisin Brand and other Serial Wars. And the reason I wrote that, I spent years at Kellogg and I worked with people who were very smart folks with MBAs from all sorts of fancy schools. The one thing nobody had any familiarity with was government relations. So I had been on the board at Western Michigan University. So I called the dean of the business school and I asked her, I said, do you teach government relations? And she said, oh, no, that’s political science. And I said, well, every major company in the United States as a government relations department, just like sales, finance or marketing, but there is not. Literally, there wasn’t then.
George Franklin: I don’t think there’s, now there is not a business school in the country that teaches it. It’s wild. They just act like it doesn’t exist. And I said, well, this is ridiculous. So I said, what I’m going to do is write a book that tells people what you really do as a lobbyist as opposed to what they think you do as a lobbyist. So I wrote Rays and brain and other serial wars, and if I do say so, it was done well, and I’m on the, you could read it in a couple hours. I purposely made it. It’s just like a plane ride overview. Most people think it’s pretty funny. I tell stories of myself, but this way, if you’re a business student, you at least have some idea of what those people down the hall are doing. And Kristen, and I guarantee you, I don’t know, one business school that teaches government relations
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Seems like maybe that’s the next step. Maybe that’s what we should bake out of today.
George Franklin: So then I went into the book writing business.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: How do you feel like most people find their way into lobbying if they have a passion for business and don’t have that kind of formal opportunity to get exposure?
George Franklin: Yeah, I mean, I think he sort of, once again, at the forum at CSU campus last night, good question. How do you get into it? And I tell people, go intern somewhere. Go in. If you want to be in the food world, find a food company, go to the Farm Bureau, go to you name it, public advocacy groups, whatever your heart takes you, but go there in turn, get involved, because it’s all built on relationships and networking. If back then I’d written Kellogg say, please hire me to be your lobbyist, it would end up in the garbage. I networked my way in and I met people and they met me and they said, oh, we like this guy. Or, so you just sort of work your way into it through networking.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Did you have any phases of your career that felt bumpy where you were pushing the boulder uphill?
George Franklin: Yeah. Yeah. There was a time. And my mentor at Kellogg who’s a huge impact me was a CEO named Bill Lamo. And I had left my little firm and I’d gone full time for Kellogg, and I was the Washington guy for Kellogg. And I loved it, and it was a great job, but I sort realized I’m kind of at a dead end if I stay here because the corporate headquarters is in Michigan. And I wasn’t kidding myself. I mean, I’m just a wing here out here
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Running the whole Washington office.
George Franklin: Yeah, me getting up in the morning. But I thought career wise, I mean, I want to be part of the company. I want to be part of what goes on every day. And so one time he came into Washington for something and I said, could I talk with you? And so he said, sure. I said, I love this job and I love what I’m doing, but I really don’t want to be just the Washington guy. And I had really like to come go to the corporate headquarters and I’d like to be an officer, and I think I deserve it. He said, give me a year. And so in a year, he made me the youngest corporate officer in Kellogg history, and I moved to Battle Creek, which was great. And so I spent the next years of my career with Kellogg at the corporate headquarters because that way you were really part of the company, not just off in the Wing.
George Franklin: I think the lobbyists in Washington, part of the problem is I used to get this all the time. I’d get young staff, people would call me and they’d say, I’m thinking about leaving the hill and I’d love to find a job job like you got. And I said, well, you willing to relocate? Oh, no, no. I have to stay here in Washington. This is where it is. And I said, well, the problem is your knowledge in Washington is a dime a dozen, but if you go to Omaha, Nebraska, you got something to sell that other people don’t have. And so it’s hard to get through their heads that they get the Potomac Fever and they won’t leave. But if you pack up and go to Des Moines or Omaha or Denver or wherever, you got something to sell that other people don’t have.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: I love that. How about what’s been the most rewarding part of your career or a phase of your career where you just felt like you were on fire?
George Franklin: I don’t know, actually. I always tell people that they ask about, I started off because of this big antitrust case, was the reason I was sort of hired. My sole purpose in life was to end that. So I started off in the Super Bowl and then haven’t been back. Okay. But it was exciting to win that it was so important.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: What an amazing way to start your career.
George Franklin: Yeah, it was all downhill. I guess most people would say
Kristin Kirkpatrick: One Super Bowl. Super Bowl is a Super Bowl, one
George Franklin: Super Bowl. You
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Got it. Absolutely. You talked about some of the people who’ve been important on your career journey. Is there anybody who sticks out as somebody who made a real difference in your career, in the choices that you made and the jobs you were able to hold?
George Franklin: Yeah, there’s a few. There was the congressman that told me to go back to school or he’d fire me, and I’m sure he wouldn’t have fired me, but I got the picture.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: He saw the potential.
George Franklin: Yeah, that was critical. There was the CEO at Kellogg, bill La Moth, who was a huge impact on me, and I learned a lot about being a class act from him and just watching him. So they were two big, big role models for me that had huge impact on my life.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: At this point in your career, I imagine that you serve that capacity for others. What are the things that you think are most important as you were mentoring up and coming talent? Future leaders, young people who are trying to find their footing, who need somebody to tell them to finish that degree?
George Franklin: Yeah. No, you have to tell ’em what they don’t want to hear sometimes, but I’m a big one of you go with your gut, you go with your instincts. Go do something you love to do or interested in, and you’ll make money. You’ll do fine. I can’t think of anything more horrible than being in a job or a career that you detest because someone directed you that way and that’s what you’re supposed to do. And that’s what the Form book said. And I think maybe people say it sounds hokey, but I do believe it. You just sort of follow your instincts and everything else will work out. I
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Love that. Don’t be afraid to change.
George Franklin: Yeah. Yeah.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: One of your books is called, so You Think You Want to Run for Congress, which I love the title of. What advice do you have for young people who see policy as a place for impact?
George Franklin: Well, if you want to run for Congress, go see a psychiatrist. First thing
Kristin Kirkpatrick: It was, is that the subtitle? It should be.
George Franklin: It was the most exhausting thing I ever did, and I’d always been in and around politics. You think you’d know it. But I will say one thing that I really learned, I have the utmost respect for anybody willing to do that. I don’t care, Republican, democrat, liberal, conservative, libertarian, I don’t care if you’re willing to put your name out there. As Teddy Roosevelt said, get into the arena. It’s really something, and it is exhausting. And I ran into the Democratic primary in 2018. I came in second out of six. I figured out that didn’t work at the end, but it was an experience and I hated raising the money. I hated all the trappings that came around it with campaigns and having to, I love campaigning. I loved, I used to say people’s living rooms and coffees and standing up with 30, 40 people. Sometimes they greet, sometimes they didn’t. And running as a Democrat, I was probably too corporate. I was that dastardly lobbyist title came with me. So it probably obviously wasn’t the right fit. Didn’t win.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: I have a couple of final questions for you. One is, if you were going to give a 15-year-old advice, what would you say? And then the same for somebody who’s 25.
George Franklin: Yeah, get involved, make a difference, whatever your interest is. If it’s water policy, if it’s ag policy, if it’s environmental, whatever it is, this life is not a dress rehearsal. It’s the only one you get. And I always encouraged, I have two grown daughters, and I just told ’em, don’t sit on the sidelines. Make a difference. If you get whooped, you get whooped, okay, you fail. You fail. But I’d rather try and fail and sit around on the couch with my remote control looking at Turner movies or something.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: I love that. Our final spur of the moment question is, do you like to cook, George? Yeah. What’s your favorite dish that you like to make?
George Franklin: Salmon. I make a pretty good salmon. Yeah, I make a pretty good salmon. It’s quick and easy. I’m not like a lot of guys are all Mr. Barbecue, I’m okay on the grill, but I like experimenting and get a magazine, I guess would put a plug in. It’s called Cuisine at Home. And it is got recipes that you actually have the stuff in the shelves and you don’t need to go to Whole Foods to get these exotic ingredients. So I experiment a lot with cuisine at home. I’ll try different things. Awesome.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Alright, I’m taking notes. It’s been a delight to have you. You’ve given us a lot of really good information and tidbits.
George Franklin: Well, thanks for having me and really appreciate you’ve spending the time with me.
Kristin Kirkpatrick: And where can people learn more about you? Where can they find more info?
George Franklin: Well, you can buy the books and you can email me and you can track me down to George Franklin author.com. Like I said, I have four books, raise and Brand and another Serial Wars, so you think you want to Run for Congress. My first fiction book was called Incentives, which I make fun of Corporate America going after all these corporate incentives under the mantle of free enterprise and capitalism. And then finally Feeding Frenzy in Washington where you’ll meet PJ Snake Boots Jackson. But go to George Franklin author.com and my email [email protected].
Kristin Kirkpatrick: Wonderful. Thank you for joining us today. Thanks. We’re really honored to have you
George Franklin: Take care.
Jocelyn Hittle: The CSU Spur of the Moment Podcast is produced by Kevin Samuelson, and our music is by Kesa. Please visit the show notes for links mentioned in this episode. We hope you’ll join us in two weeks for the next episode. Until then, be well.
