About Dr. Kenneth D. Pritsker
President, Civil Arizona
I am a proud Arizona resident of over twenty-five years, having lived in Tempe from 1963-69, 98-01, in Mesa from 1974-82 and in downtown Phoenix since 2001.
For the past several years, I have been independently designing an internet policy development approach to systematically discuss public policy alternatives. I call this approach Civil Arizona.
As the Arizona budget crisis reached crisis proportions in June 2009, I saw a unique opportunity to apply my Civil Arizona approach to help improve the political landscape in Arizona. For over a year now, I have been researching the elements of the Arizona budget and Arizona's current financial/budget policies.
More importantly, I visited the Capitol daily to learn about the legislative process and the policy preferences of our elected officials. I closely followed the illegal immigration legislation, the Kirk Adam's "Jobs Recovery Act", the negotiations to refer the sales tax increase to the voters, as well as most of the House Appropriations Committee hearings.
About Dr. Kenneth D. Pritsker's Political Ideology
I am committed to trying to improve the problem solving capabilities of the Arizona legislative process. I have made a firm commitment to be 100% non-partisan and I will conduct all of Civil Arizona's activities in a non-partisan manner.
As committed as I am to being non-partisan, I have found myself to be extremely supportive of elected officials and citizen groups who demonstrate an open mind to solving the state's problems using facts to analyze the pro's and con's of various alternative policy proposals.
About Dr. Kenneth D. Pritsker's Political Approach
I have seen first hand how elected officials, citizen groups and lobbyists become effective in influencing policy decisions. I understand the quote from Michele Reagan (LD-8), "You only have one 'currency' at the Capitol, and that is your WORD. You do not break it."
I will attempt to perform all Civil Arizona activities with the highest ethical standards – and if I do make mistakes, I will do my best to correct those mistakes as soon as possible.
About the Development of Civil Arizona
Civil Arizona is my vision to improve the process Arizona uses to develop its public policy. Towards this end, I have:
♦ Designed a Civil Survey approach that structures a step-by-step internet debate process that provides stakeholders, policy advocates, citizen groups and political activists an opportunity to voice their policy preferences.
♦ Developed Civil Accounting as a public policy methodology that quantifies, organizes, and categorizes policy information to support an internet debate process.
♦ Conducted a mock education policy debate and prepared an edition of the CIVILUTION magazine that summarizes various citizen groups public policy preferences.
♦ Created entertainment and promotional strategies including the Policy Decoder, Civil Anna, CIVILUTION Newsletters, Civil Scenarios, and Stakeholder Summits.
Related Professional Experience
Academics Experience
University of Washington, receiving a Ph.D. in Business Administration, Strategic Planning. (B.S., Business Administration, Arizona State University, M.S., Business Administration, Louisiana State University)
University of Pittsburgh, serving as an Assistant Professor of Business Administration at the Katz Graduate School of Business.
Business Experience
Allied-Signal, serving as an Industrial Engineer improving the efficiency of the manufacture of jet engines.
Boeing Company, designing and helping implement a new organization structure for commercial airplane operations.
Strategic Reengineering Institute, forecasting the future evolution of the global aerospace industry.
Public Policy Experience
Salt River Project, developing strategies for a large quasi-public utility to address major changes in the water and electricity industries.
United Network for Organ Sharing, defining the parameters of a national organ transplantation policy.
Selected Publications
Pritsker, Kenneth D. “The Performance Variability of Diversification Strategies Across Industry Structures”. University of Washington. Doctoral Dissertation, 1987.
Pritsker, Kenneth D. “The Application of Enterprise Modeling to Organizational Restructuring”. Eleventh Annual International Conference of the Strategic Management Society. Toronto, Canada, October 1991.
Pritsker, Kenneth D. “Using Business Process Reengineering to Redefine Industry Boundaries”, Sixteenth Annual International Conference of the Strategic Management Society. Phoenix, Arizona, October 1996.
Pritsker, A. Alan B., O. Patrick Daily and Kenneth D. Pritsker. “Using Simulation to Craft a National Organ Transplantation Policy”, Twenty-Eighth Conference on Winter Simulation. Coronado, CA, 1996.
Pritsker, Kenneth D. “Strategic Reengineering: An Internal Industry Analysis Framework”, in Hamel, Gary, Howard Thomas and Don O’Neal. Strategic Flexibility: Managing in a Turbulent Environment. New York: John Wiley, 1998.
Personal Background
Born in Columbus, Ohio in 1957, I first moved to Arizona in 1963 and went to High school in West Lafayette, Indiana. I have lived in Seattle, WA, Baton Rouge, LA, Pittsburgh, PA, and New York City.
The development of my political beliefs has been highly influenced by both of my parents. My father, A. Alan B. Pritsker, taught me an entrepreneurial spirit and showed me the power of innovation with his development of several computer simulation languages. My mother, Anne Pritsker, introduced me to the importance of understanding political history and emphasized to me the realities of complex social interactions.