Mary Lou Jepsen says the next chief technology advisor must tackle the energy problem.

Question: Would you pick yourself as the nation’s chief technology officer?

Jepsen:  No, it wouldn’t be me.  I think it should be somebody in energy and it’s got to be because that’s the big problem where they’re putting up the billions of dollars to try to solve the energy problem and it’s got to be, boy, who would be the best person for that?  I mean I know energy is not my field but I’m trying to think like who’s the Dave Clark of energy?  Dave Clark is one of the-- there were actually six people that invented the internet and Al Gore probably gets mentioned as one of them.  He’s one of the guys and he runs a bunch of NSF grants right now and he’s forcing-- it’s interesting because the academy plays here in industry the idea that professors get tenure for proving somebody else wrong and so they’re not collaborative.  He’s forcing collaboration among the groups that he funds in this and he’s very bright ___________, but somebody like that but that is really up to date in many different energy fields and has sort of spent a long time in it.  Unfortunately it’s not my area but I would say that’s the person that you, I mean come on, you got to solve the energy problem.  You look at the four biggest companies in the world, well three of them are oil companies and there’s Wal-Mart in there too.  It’s huge.  It is our economy and so sort of getting in there you might need somebody else that can also run the politics and doesn’t have anything-- I suppose you need a maverick in there that’s willing to throw his career at the problem.  I mean I think a lot of people are willing to now it’s so bad, but I don’t have a name unfortunately and you can be fooled if you’re not from the field itself is my experience.