What About Bob?

The cover illustration is very special to me. The core of the cover pays homage to the thousands of incredible people I had the privilege of working with for more than 15 years at General Physics Corporation (1980 – 1996). I pulled several of the graphic figures from a brochure that I used to support the marketing and promotion of the group that I led, the Engineering and Applied Sciences Group, containing all of the company’s engineering and scientific staff (with multiple company officers, directors, managers, project managers, and engineering and laboratory staff). 

The solar eclipse illustration is a nod to my life-long interest in science, having seen five solar eclipses over the past 50 years. The slide rule provides acknowledgement of when I started as a physics student in the 1960s – with literally no technology – the advancement of science and math are my life’s passion. 

The flipchart contains a cutaway of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant – much of the first 15 years of my career were focused on nuclear propulsion in the navy and commercial nuclear power plants throughout the U.S. 

Finally, the picture of me was taken around 2010 (at around 60 years old) in New Delhi, India where I participated on an expert panel sponsored by India’s business publication, Business Today, which was focused on my experience in creating a business learning culture for continuous life-long learning. 

My curiosity as a life-long learner is the bedrock and driving force for my entire career.

As part of the publication process for the eBook and soft cover copy I was required to select three book categories from a long list of options at Amazon.Trying to distill the book's themes into three categories was actually pretty tough. 

1. Biographies and Memoirs: Professional and Academics: Scientist - this is a memoir written by someone who feels that the love of science encompasses all who I am.

2. Biographies and Memoirs: Professional and Academics: Business - this is a memoir written by someone who was able to be successful in contributing to the growth of, and leading, highly technical, global businesses.

3, Politics and Social Sciences: Philosophy: Ethics and Morality - as a Secular Humanist this book addresses a myriad of challenging political, social, religious and humanist positions that make me who I am.

I was born in 1951 and lived through the second half of the 20th Century and the first quarter of the 21st Century. I have seen a lot. This book is designed to capture what I have seen, distill it into insights for the next generation, and provide a history lesson from a baby boomer who lived these more than seven decades to the max. 

On January 20th, 2022, I learned that Michael Lee Aday—professionally known as Meat Loaf—had died. It struck me like a ton of bricks. He was born around four years before me and was my absolute favorite music artist. I was a fan since the mid-1970s. I must have listened to his songs thousands of times, seen him perform live a number of times and actually have a signed, stage-played guitar, from Meat Loaf ’s Bat Out of Hell III tour hanging in my living room. Life is here and then it is gone. Done. Forgotten? Not for Meat Loaf, but probably for me.

A year later, almost to the day, on January 18th, 2023, David Crosby, from the rock bands Byrds and then Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, died. He, too, was one of my favorite musicians. One of his songs, Almost Cut My Hair, kept running around my head that day.

Almost cut my hair
It happened just the other day 

It’s gettin’ kinda long
I coulda said it wasn’t in my way
But I didn’t and I wonder why
I feel like letting my freak flag fly 

Yes, I feel like I owe it to someone

“I feel like letting my freak flag fly. Yes, I feel like I owe it to someone.” I was a long-haired, bearded, hippy freak in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and that person is actually still inside of me.

I sat down and started to write this book. As you see, that freak flag is definitely flying in all of its glorious, curious way.

I have loved astronomy all my life. Experiencing a solar eclipse really allows you to understand your place in the solar system and in our galaxy. There is nothing like it.

My first total solar eclipse was in Canada on July 10, 1972. I was a physics major at Hunter College in NYC and co-led a group of students that drove to Prince Edward Island to see the total eclipse.

The second was a 7-day cruise chartered just to see the eclipse. On July 11, 1991, the path of the total eclipse would cross the Sea of Cortez in Mexico, and midway between Cabo San Lucas and Mazatlán was the point of maximum duration – more than 7 minutes. The cruise would be dedicated to science for the seven days, with space science lectures by eminent scientists, lectures by astronomers to prepare us for the eclipse, and general interest science lectures, events, and activities. It was a total science “geek week.” The lead scientist and lecturer on board was Frank Drake, the father of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and the Drake Equation. 

The third was an annular solar eclipse or the “Ring of Fire” solar eclipse. It was to occur on January 4, 1992 at sunset over the Pacific Ocean. We drove to Sunset Beach in North County San Diego and watched it from the beach.

The fourth was a total solar eclipse in Austria (south of Vienna), on August 11, 1999. 

And on August 21, 2017, the centerline of the fifth eclipse that I saw came through Idaho Falls and had a duration of totality of about 3 minutes. 

We will be joining the Planetary Society in Fredericksburg, Texas to have the opportunity to stand in the shadow of the moon one more time on April 8, 2024. 

That will be number six and is the date I have selected for the release of this book.

We live in a society that does not not look favorably on freethinkers, secular humanists (atheists), progressives ("leftists"), nonconformists, gun control advocates, and individuals promoting "woke" thinking. I am all of these. 

I also desired to be successful in the business world and had to operate in a way that did not ruffle a lot of feathers. There are a lot of folks in powerful positions and leadership roles that would not appreciate me voicing my real feelings and positions. So I wore a mask most of my 50 years as a naval officer, consultant and business leader. I got used to holding my opinion to myself on most days.

So why now? Well, I have now left the confines of the corporate world and want to ensure that my grandkids and you, the reader, have the opportunity to hear about my journey and lessons learned - unfiltered and maybe a bit to the point. 

I hope you enjoy the ride, but as I said on the Home page and in the book, you are forewarned. The mask is off.

A Secular Humanist is a person who does not believe in anything supernatural - no gods, no heaven, no hell, no pre or afterlife, no ghosts, no soul...absolutely nothing supernatural. We need to work together with all other human beings on this planet for the betterment of the earth and all of our fellow humans to leave this world a better place than we found it.

At a summit of Nobel Peace award winners in Warsaw, Polish Nobel Peace Laureate Lech Walesa, called for a “secular Ten Commandments,” a guide for universal values that transcends religious beliefs. The response has been a heated debate among secularists about what could constitute such a guide. This is one of the suggested lists that I use as a basis for my values and guiding principles.

1. Thou shalt strive to promote the greater good of humanity before all selfish desires.
2. Thou shalt be curious, for asking questions is the only way to find answers.
3. Harm to your fellow human is harm to humanity. Therefore, thou shalt not kill, rape, rob, or otherwise victimize anyone.
4. Thou shall treat all humans as equals, regardless of race, gender, age, creed, identity, orientation, physical ability, or status.
5. Thou shalt use reason as your guide. Science, knowledge, observation, and rational analysis are the best ways to determine any course of action.
6. Thou shalt not force your beliefs onto others, nor insist that yours be the only and correct way to live happily.
7. If thou dost govern, thou shalt govern with reason, not with superstition. Religion should have no place in any government which represents all people and beliefs.
8. Thou shalt act for the betterment of your fellow humans, and be, whenever possible, altruistic in your deeds.
9. Thou shalt be good to the Earth and its bounties, for without it, humankind is lost.
10. Thou shalt impart thy knowledge and wisdom gained in your lifetime to the next generation, so that with each passing century, humanity will grow wiser and more humane.

The Values and Guiding Principles I try to live by have been developed, tested, challenged, and reinforced throughout my life. I believe I have been true to these, but I will leave it to you to judge whether I have achieved this goal.

1. Live the Golden Rule—treat others as you would like others to treat you.
2. Be curious and always skeptical. 
3. Work hard and never stop learning. 
4. Do not compromise your integrity. 
5. Value honesty and openness.
6. Be responsible and accountable. 
7. Live Aloha.

In case you don’t know, Aloha is a Hawaiian word that means “the presence of breath” or “the breath of life.” It is an attitude and a way of living and treating each other with love and respect. 

“Alo” means face to face, and “ha” means breath—think of it as I see you and even share the air we breathe. By just saying Aloha, we convey love, affection, peace, compassion, and mercy. Wow, pretty cool— with just one word. We say it when we meet someone and use it as a farewell as we part company with that person.

You may know I love Hawaii more than any place in the world, and, ahhh, that native Hawaiian culture and the native Hawaiian people—there is nothing that can compare.

Living Aloha becomes a deeper and more important “attitude” as your life journeys touch an individual more often, or actually becomes intertwined with another person—your sibling, mom, dad, grandparents, children, friends, lovers, colleagues, schoolmates, teammates, and lots and lots of others who will spend days, weeks, months, years or a lifetime as part of your journey—sharing much, while still having their own journeys to live.

Living Aloha is really hard because it is not what those pesky, inherent human personalities tend to create in you. Most personality traits result in lots and lots of “me, me, me” and “mine, mine, mine” and “I can’t win unless you lose.” And I certainly have experienced my lack of adherence to Living Aloha over my lifetime, sometimes without regret, but often with a desire to do better next time. 

Additionally, don’t expect anyone to respond in kind to your “Aloha” attitude. Just try it during your day—hold the door open for someone and see if they say “thank you” as they pass through the door that you are holding open for them. Most of the time, you will not even get a nod, let alone a “thank you.” I will always hold the door open for someone and, without fail, will say thank you if they do it for me. It actually takes a real effort. That is the easy example. The longer-term, deeper relationships are a lot more complicated and require a lot more Aloha to result in a happy life.

My favorite poem is Come to the Edge attributed to Guillaume Apollinaire, date unknown (probably early 1900s).

“Come to the edge,” he said.
“We can’t, we’re afraid!” they responded.
“Come to the edge,” he said.
“We can’t, we will fall!” they responded. “Come to the edge,” he said.
And so they came.
And he pushed them.
And they flew

My favorite book is Contact by Carl Sagan published in 1985. This is a “hard science” fiction book, my favorite form of fiction. Its hero, Ellie Arroway, is an astrophysicist, a researcher in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), a passionate scientist, a leader, a skeptic, incredibly articulate, and an atheist. How many times will you find that in a book, let alone the movie that was later made with the same name?

In addition, the book (not the movie) includes an interesting twist. It proposes what may be acceptable evidence for the existence of intelligence behind the creation of the universe that would be able to be found and interpreted by any intelligent being anywhere in the vastness of the universe—the only way this evidence would make any sense.

In the last chapter of the book titled “The Artist’s Signature,” we find a description of what that evidence might look like. “Acting on the suggestion of Ted, Ellie works on a program to compute the digits of pi to heretofore-unprecedented lengths. When Ellie looks at what the computer has found, she sees a circle rasterized from 0’s and 1’s that appear after 1020 places in the base 11 representation of pi. This not only provides evidence of her journey but suggests that intelligence is behind the universe itself.” By the way, in case you have forgotten, pi is a transcendental number that is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, literally the universal constant. Every intelligent being in the vastness of the universe would recognize this ratio and the number associated with it.

I have read and used hundreds of business books during my career. Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will  by Noel Tichy and Stratford Sherman, released in 1993, is my favorite. I still reference the insights and advice contained in this book on a regular basis when giving advice to young and aspiring business leaders.

P.R. Vagelos, M.D., the then Chairman and CEO of Merck, said of the book, “This book captures the essence of competitiveness, which is vision, leadership and a hunger to succeed. It contains essential lessons that need to be learned by all of corporate America.” I agree.

in 1993 when it was first released I read Tichy’s book and completely embraced Jack Welch’s rules and Tichy’s 75-page Handbook for Revolutionaries that was contained at the end of the volume. It was extremely timely and healthy that I did that. This handbook contained the core elements of transformation that is described as a three-act drama: Awakening, Envisioning, and Rearchitecting. Keeping your eyes squarely on your people and clients is always key to success. If you lose that focus, you can easily lose everything.

Here is the list of Jack Welch’s (past CEO of General Electric Corporation) six rules for business leaders: 

"1. Control your destiny, or someone else will.
2. Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it were. 

3. Be candid with everyone.
4. Don’t manage, lead.
5. Change before you have to.
6. If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.”

Sierra Club—Life Member, Wilderness Guardian, member of the Sequoia Circle for the preservation of our planet for future generations

Secular Coalition for America—Lifetime Member and supporter for the separation of government and religion

EMILY’s List—Member and monthly supporter for women’s rights and getting Democratic women elected to office

Union of Concerned Scientists—Member and monthly supporter to use science to solve our planet’s most pressing problems

The Planetary Society—Member and supporter to help increase awareness and curiosity for the explor- ation of our solar system and beyond

314 Action—Monthly supporter to get Democrats with STEM experience elected to office

VoteVets—Monthly supporter to get ex-military officers and enlisted personnel elected to Democratic office

Leaders We Deserve--Monthly supporter to get young progressives elected to office at the local, state and federal levels.

Hunter College of the City of New York—Alumni and monthly supporter to ensure public higher edu- cation continues to be available to all individuals

University of Central Florida—Alumni and monthly supporter to ensure public higher education con- tinues to be available to all individuals

I, Bob Danna, am the author of this book. I retired as a Managing Director from the Human Capital practice at Deloitte Consulting LLP in June 2017, and then after six years with Executive Networks as their Executive Chairman, retired a second time in December 2023.

With more than 50 years of experience in learning transformation, leadership development, consulting engineering and associated management consulting, I provided advisory services world-wide for both commercial and government clients. 

In January 2013, I joined Deloitte as part of the acquisition of Bersin & Associates where I served as EVP and COO. Since 2005, I routinely leveraged research insights and benchmarking for clients seeking to accelerate the impact of human capital management along with associated business results. 

Prior to Bersin, I held senior executive management positions at several consulting firms, served on several Boards of Directors, was a naval officer, and completed masters degrees in physics and engineering. 

Currently, I serve as an advisor and influencer in the area of talent development and life-long learning.

You can check me out on LinkedIn. 

The book is available for purchase on Ibis Books as well as Amazon.