Ralph-
Greetings. Hope you guys are doing well. I hear that the kids are going through all the kids' things like loosing teeth, getting glasses, etc. I'm sure it's fun to participate.
 
As you can imagine, there is some scrambling going on in Houston's labor market with the demise of Enron. When I was in discussions with Maury about joining WM two years ago, he talked about the need to possibly re-organize the company's government affairs area. I'm sure he's already done whatever it was he was planning to do at the time, but in case there is still a need I wanted to pass along a name of someone who I think is one of the most talented people in a large group of very bright people. As you know, Enron put a lot of resources into regulatory/government affairs and until the CA market unraveling, they were having a great deal of success because of these people. Out of the roughly 50 people in the state/federal government affairs area, Jim Steffes is unique and stands out because of his experience in so many areas of regulatory, government and business. He ran Enron's Northeast area when those states were passing deregulation legislation; he's been involved on the federal level with FERC and other agencies; he's managed a case that was recently argued before the Supreme Court; and most importantly and an area where I think would be very beneficial to a company like WM, he oversaw an effort to do a thorough audit of what changes in laws/regulations could really benefit Enron's businesses versus the areas that they were advocating just because it would make for better laws. It was a highly successful exercise that saved the company a lot of time and resources. Jim was a VP when I left but he might have been promoted since then, went to Georgetown undergrad and got his masters from the Kennedy School where he was one of three members of the Republican club. 
 
I assume you have scaled back your involvement in WM's management now that it's running smoothly and are focused on other places like Mattel (good piece on today's front page of the WSJ) but if you think that there is a need for someone like Jim, you can be very confident to recommend him to talk to someone at WM. He won't disappoint you.  
 
Call if you have any questions. Hope to see you soon. 
 
Thanks, Gary