By Lt. Col. Mike Hendrickson (Retired, U.S. Marine Corps)
I know a little bit about leadership, crisis management, mission accomplishment, troop welfare, operating in dangerous environments and effective risk mitigation. I know there are tactics, techniques and procedures available to us that can enable some businesses to get back to work, while still protecting Pennsylvanians and mitigating the spread of COVID-19. But we cannot continue to cower in place and hope that the individual livelihoods of all Pennsylvanians will survive. Hope is not a course of action.
So on Thursday morning, when I heard that the Gov. Tom Wolf was planning to veto Senate Bill 613, I reached out to every elected official that is supposed to represent me at the local, state and federal level, including Gov. Wolf, and offered them a piece of my mind.
I am appalled by our governor’s complete lack of leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. He has demonstrated zero understanding on how to firmly but fairly administer the CDC requirements for social distancing, mitigate risk, establish common sense guidelines, while saving people’s livelihood by allowing businesses to operate safely.
Why are landscapers and local government crews authorized to work, but a construction company’s request for a waiver to work outside and/or in unoccupied buildings in accordance with the CDC guidelines is denied? Why does the governor’s office favor waivers for large construction firms building high rise apartments, but not the small business owner, a self-employed contractor with a single employee, who has had their commercial and residential projects shut down? Some businesses can telecommute and stay open. Others cannot. Many business, especially small businesses, are in jeopardy of dying, and their employees relegated to the unemployment line.
If Gov. Wolf’s policies destroy lives as a result of denying us our livelihood, we haven’t avoided a tragedy at all, we’ve only traded destruction by a virus for an economic disaster.
There are common sense solutions for allowing some businesses to continue working safely. That is what Senate Bill 613 is proposing. If we can mitigate risk in the most dangerous environments on the planet — in a place where people were trying to kill me and my Marines every day — we can surely develop strategies to get safety back to work. Why is our governor unwilling to consider mitigating risk and saving peoples livelihood at the same time?
That’s not leadership. That’s a dereliction of his duty to all Pennsylvanians.
Retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Mike Hendrickson is a long time State College resident, State College Area High School graduate (1990), and Penn State alum (1996 International Relations). He joined the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve while an undergraduate at Penn State, and was commissioned in 1998. After 10 years on active duty, and a deployment to Afghanistan in 2001-2002, he returned to State College with his family. He worked for Penn State’s Applied Research Lab until 2015, and is now vice president for operations for Allied Restoration and Construction, a national company with a branch in State College. Hendrickson remained in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve after leaving active duty in leadership positions in 25th Regiment, including a second deployment to Afghanistan in 2010-2011. He retired in 2018 as Battalion Commander of 1st Battalion and is enjoying a quieter life with his wife and daughters in State College.
