A Cold Day in March - March 2025
If You Have to Ask, Iron the Shirt - April 2023
The Coronavirus Crisis Through the Lens of National Security - April 2020
My Friend Bob Parkinson - January 2020
Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes - April 2018
March 2025
A Cold Day in March
Recently, I attended a dinner for a nonprofit and met the friend of a friend who was in attendance. As one does, I asked her what she did and she described her work as the leader of a nonprofit that assists those in underserved communities it to their essential appointments, like doctor’s appointments, like doctor’s visits. I was fascinated as she explained the significant challenges faced by people with limited access to transportation, who often cannot leave their jobs for a few hours to take care of their needs and those of their families.
As we continued our conversation, she asked me about my family and my work history, and then posed a thought-provoking question: “Over the years, what is the one thing in your professional life that you have done of which you are most proud?” After some brief reflection, I shared a much shorter version of this story:
It was 40 years ago this month. I had little appreciation for how the world was about to change.
It had been a bleak winter in 1985, but on this particular day it felt almost balmy as it was right around freezing. My wife was in the passenger seat as we drove together so she could drop me off at work on that Saturday morning of March 2nd. It was still dark outside as the five of us left our modest rented townhome in our small brown Chevrolet Cavalier station wagon, our one and only car. Our three kids, aged 5, almost 3 and 13 months were bundled up in the back seat. My wife needed the car that day to go to the grocery store, and since I did not know how late I would have to work, she was dropping me off. We kissed each other and I said goodbye to the kids and made my way inside.
At the time I was in my 20s, and I had been an employee of Abbott for less than four years. My job was that of a product manager in the diagnostics division. When I took this particular job 16 months prior and had moved my young family from Florida to Chicagoland, I had no idea what I was doing. Literally. I had no idea. But by this morning in March, I had developed a better idea of what I was doing, albeit not by much. The turning point had been when I had chosen to use my strengths and not pretend. I will explain this later, but first allow me to provide some context.
The previous 5 years had been tumultuous for the health care community, as it was the height of the AIDS crisis. The topic of AIDS was top of mind for everyone, everywhere. Physicians, nurses, pathologists, surgeons, lab techs, custodians, administrators, public health officials, epidemiologists, infectious disease specialists, infection control experts, cancer specialists, researchers, cafeteria workers, suppliers of medical products, insurance companies, numerous government agencies from the federal levels to municipalities, and so on, all were concerned about the AIDS crisis and constantly talking about what could be done. In addition to those who had AIDS and those who were treating them, another constituency in particular was deeply affected: those involved in blood transfusion. It had become clear that the causative agent of the disease was transmitted human to human via bodily fluids, and in particular via blood transfusion. It had been front page news the previous year when the causative agent had been identified, an intracellular retrovirus then-called HTLV-III, later renamed HIV. Many years later Dr. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Dr. Luc Montagnier would be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 2008 for the discovery and identification of HIV.
But in that winter of 1985, no one was thinking of awards and prizes. The NIH had isolated and grown the virus, which led to the key question “How do we use this discovery to improve the lives of patients everywhere by developing a blood test to screen blood donations pre-transfusion to prevent post-transfusion infection?” In order to answer this question and accomplish the goal of blood safety, NIH had provided cultures of the virus (the name of the virus would change to HIV in 1986) to a handful of leading diagnostics products companies, Abbott being one. It was recognized that a partnership with industry was required, because only companies had the experience, expertise, capabilities and facilities to scale up the manufacturing and distribution to be able to provide tests to the global market. All the companies received the virus from NIH on the same day some 9 months prior. So the race was on!
The goal within every one of the companies who received the virus from NIH was to develop and gain FDA clearance for a test that would determine whether a blood donor had been exposed to the virus. If so, that blood donation could be identified and then eliminated from the blood supply and thus prevent transfusion-associated HIV. Within the company, this effort was monumental and included scientists, engineers from many disciplines, technical staff, FDA/regulatory experts, manufacturing professionals, packaging designers, legal, finance, field technical staff, sales and marketing, across the organization around the world.
The company culture was one of pride and leadership within the industry and this situation represented a unique and special opportunity to demonstrate that leadership. From the CEO of the company all the way down to the line workers, those of us in cubicles and in the field, the goal was clear and unambiguous: Get there first with a product that met the company’s high standards as an industry leader, that met the strict standards set by FDA and other regulatory authorities around the world, that met the high standards expected by blood transfusion organizations worldwide, and could be implemented easily and smoothly into the workflow of these already-overworked testing labs.
My role was that of product manager. That meant that from my cubicle I had a myriad of responsibilities. I worked with the R&D team as they set their performance criteria and made their design choices, the operations team as they determined how best to manufacture and package the product, the technical staff to train them on the prototypes as they were in development, the sales team to train them on the technical aspects of the test, the logistics and medical staff to prioritize which locations would receive product first, and with all international locations as we determined how to provide the product to blood donation centers from South Africa to Sweden, from Japan to India, as well as from Miami to Seattle.
When presented with the job, I had not asked for this role, I was just the person in the appropriate chair when the virus arrived from NIH. I had to make some quick determinations about how to succeed. I made a decision at the time, although it was not a conscious one, to focus on making sure that we delivered a product that would be easily incorporated by the labs that would buy it from us. That was natural to me, as I was unlike most Abbott hires among the ranks of my fellow product managers in that I had previously worked as a bench tech for an Abbott customer and knew that there were critical issues that were important to the lab professionals that may not be adequately considered in our haste to get the product to market. They included real world problems like a lab’s limited refrigerator space (given that, what are the range of acceptable storage conditions? How does that storage decision affect our stability studies?) that also affected packaging decisions (can we use a packaging design for an existing product or do we need a new design specific to this product?), the scarcity of lab bench space that affected instrumentation decisions (we have several pieces of equipment that could be used to generate the result. Which one should we prioritize?), and the importance of providing automation tools that improve accuracy and also reduce technician time in running the test, and dozens of others. All these decisions would be pivotal and would affect how a lab interacted with our company, so if we could focus on what the lab tech needed, it would enhance their day-to-day work life, and thereby enhance our ability to succeed.
Although I had not asked for this responsibility, when it presented itself I chose to make the most of it. My colleagues had fancier degrees than me, and most were older and more experienced with the company. But I did not fake it – I didn’t try to develop fancy models or regression analyses. I did not propose an elaborate advertising campaign or propose huge displays at trade shows. I consciously decided that my lab bench experience and a focus on how the customer and end user would be using our product were most crucial. In that moment, I was incredibly stressed and apprehensive at the time and unsure that I was doing the right thing. Looking back, I consider whether this was the start of my eventual leadership and management style, which I would describe as authentic. Clear, honest and unambiguous communication always pays off. What you see is what you get.
This is a shortened story of much longer and more involved effort by hundreds of people to achieve something truly special and life-changing. I did my small part. And yes, we won the race. That cold Saturday in March is the day that we received notice from FDA that our product had been cleared for sale, and the organization celebrated briefly and then began execution of the next phase of the plan, to get product into the hands of blood centers as soon as we could so they could begin testing. We had planned accordingly and that same day, we had employees on airplanes hand-delivering product to blood centers from Miami to San Francisco, from New York to Houston.
I did not know it at the time, but to this day when people learn that I was the product manager for the first-ever blood test to detect the presence of HIV, I remain humbled by their reaction. Some even get emotional, especially if they are of a certain age and were around at that time and have known people who have contracted, and died, of AIDS. That is what happened at that dinner that I attended, as my new friend reacted emotionally because she understood the significance of what that group of people had accomplished.
For me personally, there are numerous lessons that I have benefitted from as a result of this experience. The most important ones are to make sure that the customer and patient always come first, to lean on my experience and fake it, and to act and lead with authenticity. We all have strengths and weaknesses, and organizations flourish when they leverage the diverse set of strengths of their employees.
April 2023
If You Have to Ask, Iron the Shirt
For a tad over 10 years, I was CEO of a company in the life science segment. The company has a proprietary technology with many potential uses. One of these was the ability to detect the presence or absence of many substances simultaneously from a small sample. These substances could be DNA or RNA, as well as proteins like antibodies, hormones, cancer markers and so on, including pathogens and infectious agents that could be used in a bioweapon.
In the biowarfare context, simply put, the technology has the ability to determine whether or not a bioweapon has been deployed in a public area or on the battlefield, and if so, which of many weaponizable pathogens could be present. This information is crucial to minimize casualties and fatalities, and to minimize spread of the pathogen. Our company’s technology was used in active programs such as BioWatch plus development programs for new solutions in the field of bioterrorism and biodefense. As part of the delivery of these programs, we had developed various strategic relationships with several government agencies and government contractors. We worked together to develop products that could be deployed to save lives for active military personnel as well as civilians should a bioweapon be deployed.
During a regular project planning session several years ago, a few senior executives from one of those government contractors, a well-known company, visited us from the DC area. We had a group business dinner, and during that dinner one of the executives from the government contractor mentioned that he was an avid scuba diver. Coincidentally, I had just finished reading a fascinating nonfiction book about scuba diving, which I enjoyed very much, so I told him about it. We had a wonderful conversation about his hobby, about which he was quite passionate. Under his company’s ethics rules, he paid for his and his colleagues’ dinner. After reflecting on our conversation, a few days later I decided to send him by mail my used paperback copy of the scuba diving book with a short note.
About two weeks later, I received a letter from him, thanking me for joining him for dinner and for sending him the book. Also enclosed was a check for the price of the book as displayed on the cover of the paperback. I do not recall the exact amount, but my memory was that it was less than $10. He explained in his note that he was appreciative but his company, as a government contractor, had a strict ethics policy and he was unable to accept the book as a gift. He added that he was required to disclose to his company that I had sent him the book and that he had reimbursed me for it. It was clear that his company’s ethical standards and his personal standards were set at the appropriate level.
Let’s turn the clock back even further. I was born and raised in the Florida panhandle as the sixth of nine children. I am forever grateful for my upbringing, as part of a large and loving family. To provide me with life skills - and presumably to assist in maintaining her sanity - when I was young my mother taught me and my siblings many life skills. Like the rest of my siblings, I was taught how to do laundry, how to iron clothes and other household chores and tasks.
One day when I was about 12 years old, my brother, the oldest of the nine of us, was home visiting while on leave from active duty as a U.S. Marine. I walked into the kitchen of our house holding up a shirt and asked my mother “do you think that I need to iron this shirt?” Before my mother could answer, my brother said “Pat, if you have to ask that question, that means you need to iron the shirt.” His response has stuck with me over the years, and the principle reflected in it has served me as a guiding principle
In the news these days are reports about US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and whether he was required to disclose certain transactions that could be a violation of ethics requirements and disclosure rules. I do not know any details other than what has been reported. However, in my view, the discussion misses the larger point: in a position of power and influence, or in any other position where ethics come under scrutiny, the standard should always be to disclose without regard for rules interpretation. Yes, we should be asking the question “what are the disclosure rules?” But the question should NOT be whether a person is required to make disclosures. We should also be asking the question “if his ethical standards are appropriately high, why would Justice Thomas choose not to disclose this transaction?” Surely, Justice Thomas knows and understands the rules, and has made his own choices about disclosure. But I am perplexed and concerned about whether his standards are set at the appropriate level.
If a set of circumstances like the transactions in question occurs, if one’s ethical standard is set at the appropriate level, disclosure should always occur. It is true for government contractors, and is a principle that should be taught from a very young age. We should all expect it and demand the highest level of ethical standards from those in positions of power and influence.
Even if it seems trivial, disclose it. In other words: if you have to ask, iron the shirt.
April 2020
Our Coronavirus Crisis Through the Lens of National Security
Patrick Balthrop is a seasoned executive in the Life Science industry and former CEO of a public medical technology company with deep experience in DNA and RNA technology platforms for use in detection of infectious agents, including those involved in pandemics and biological weapons.
Do you remember where you were on September 11, 2001? How it affected you? I remember that day well. I was airborne over Washington on an inbound flight when American Airlines flight #77 crashed into the Pentagon. That day and the following five days in DC were chilling. I was relieved and happy when I was able to make my way home and reunite with my loved ones. Many others were not so lucky. I was angry and demanded that our government do better. Because we could do better.
Do you remember where you were when the next massive attack by a foreign actor occurred? No, you don’t, because as yet we have not had to endure one. You don’t remember because after that original attack, the Bush administration and later the Obama administration worked diligently to ensure the safety and security of Americans against future incidents. Prevention and preparedness initiatives were implemented to guard against not just 9/11 style attacks but all manner of attacks, including those involving biological agents with programs like BioShield and BioWatch.
Do you remember how you were affected when the SARS or MERS coronavirus outbreaks occurred? How about H1N1? Or the West Nile Virus? Zika? The Ebola outbreak? Probably not. For the vast majority of America, these events are vague memories because we were not affected by them. The Bush and Obama administrations took seriously their job of ensuring the safety and security of the American people. They convened experts, heeded their findings and recommendations, and did the preparation and hard work necessary in prevention and preparedness to minimize the effect of these pathogens. When those outbreaks occurred every few years, we were prepared, we learned from prior outbreaks, and decisive action was taken. Americans felt safe and secure, and as history has shown, we were.
But we do not feel safe and secure now. The failings of the federal government during this current pandemic are well documented. Historians will examine this pandemic assign responsibility for the lost lives, economic pain and fractured social order. That this damage could have and should have been prevented is nothing short of tragic. We should have been prepared, but we were not. That failure has national security implications.
As far back as late 2008, as the Bush administration was transitioning with the Obama administration, a 73-page bipartisan report was issued by the nonprofit WMD Terrorism Research Center, co-authored by Senators Jim Talent (R-MO) and Bob Graham (D-FL). https://policy.defense.gov/portals/11/Documents/hdasa/references/world-at-risk-study.pdf
In that report, experts found that the US is highly vulnerable to an attack by a biological weapon wielded by parties that wish to harm the US.
That risk exists still today. As citizens, we must insist that our government be vigilant and be prepared.
Each pathogen is different. While it is important to acknowledge that preventing a naturally occurring outbreak is very difficult, experience over the past 20 years confirms that our leaders can perform by being vigilant, organized and prepared to fight emerging pathogens. In 2020 it is clear that we should have been prepared. Our government had been warned by prior administrations that data indicated that they should anticipate an outbreak, and that decisive and timely action would be crucial. Given our experience and track record, it seems that today we should expect that the US should be at our best-prepared state, given the lessons learned about preparedness and decisiveness. But the US was not prepared.
If this is how our government responds and reacts to a naturally occurring outbreak, one that it was warned about in advance, it is reasonable to assume that those with capabilities and motivation to do harm to the US will take notice. Given the lives lost and unparalleled economic damage done by COVID-19, we should expect our enemies, both state actors and non-state actors, to take notice. What would happen if a future pathogen had an R-naught not of ~ 2.4 like SARS-CoV-2, but 5 or 10? And a mortality rate not of 1-2% but 30-40%?
When I was CEO of a public company in the life science field, and I made hiring and promotion decisions, my top considerations were an applicant’s performance and track record. Soon every American will make a hiring decision, and we should consider seriously the recent performance and track record of all of our officials, the effect of COVID-19 in human and economic terms, and come November decide who we want to hire to protect us and keep us prepared. Our recent experience with a virulent pathogen is not likely to be our last, whether that future pathogen is naturally occurring or manmade. We should demand that we are prepared.
When a person shows us how capable and competent they are, whether that person is an enemy or an elected US official, we should take notice. And even if our elected officials fail to act decisively, we Americans should. Because we can do better.
January 2020
My Friend Bob Parkinson
My friend and former colleague Bob Parkinson passed away in December. He was only 68 years old. Bob had a special and highly successful career, and he was remarkable in many ways. He was a role model for me and many others, not just because of the business success that he had. Rather, he was a role model primarily because of the totality of the life that he lived.
Bob was a straight-talking, modest Midwest guy. He was from Taylor Ridge, a small town in western Illinois near the Quad Cities. He attended and graduated from Loyola University in Chicago with a finance degree and then an MBA. It was at Loyola that he met his wife Betty. They were married for 43 years.
Bob started his career at American Hospital Supply, then moved to Abbott where he worked for 25 years. He rose through the ranks at Abbott, running two divisions and finally becoming President and COO. After retiring from Abbott, he was dean of Loyola University Chicago School of Business before being recruited to become Chairman and CEO of Baxter International. He was Chairman of Baxter for 11 years.
Bob’s business career was spectacular by any measure. He spent 25 years at Abbott, and in that strong company among highly competent people in a hypercompetitive environment, he was good enough to rise from an entry position to President and COO. He then transitioned into the field of education on the heels of the Enron scandal, to help shape future business leaders. And later he became Chairman and CEO of a Fortune 500 company for over a decade. Spectacular indeed.
Bob and I worked together in the late 1990’s toward the end of both of our Abbott careers when he was President and COO. He was not a mentor to me – that would imply a closer relationship than we had. I cannot say that Bob was a good friend. But he was still a role model.
Bob set a great example for me and others. He was excellent at his job. He was tough but fair. He demanded results while creating an environment in which he was working with you to help solve problems and overcome challenges. He was a frank, open and honest communicator, and was always respectful, never belittling those around him. He had a great sense of humor – he and I used to have fun with our coworkers with a college mascot-based trivia question that we shared and it always made us laugh. In an organization in which scientific acumen and financial skills were both valued, he knew what he knew, and never pretended when he did not. He was authentic. Bob rewarded and recognized performers and gave underperformers more than one chance to improve but was willing to make the tough decision when required. By doing all these things, he fostered loyalty not by demanding it or even asking for it. He never had to. He truly led by example and was simply the type of leader that everyone admired and wanted to work for.
All of that was important and inspirational to me. But more important to me was his strong family relationships. No one really knows what another’s family relationships are like. But Bob and his wife and partner Betty, based on the way they interacted with each other, and the obvious love that they had for one another, were inspirational to my wife Mariterese and me and everyone around them. Together they were able to demonstrate that it was possible to be ambitious, to have a spectacular business career and also have a strong and loving home life. That had to have taken a lot of work and disciplined priority setting by Bob and Betty individually and together. But it never looked difficult to those of us observing from the outside. Not through his words but through his actions, and what must have been incredibly hard work and mutual support with his loving partner, Bob showed that spectacular success as a business leader was achievable while also having a loving and rewarding personal and family life. I learned a great deal from Bob Parkinson and I strived to emulate him.
I will forever be grateful for the example that he set.
Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes - April 2018
In recent weeks, it has been reported that the founder of a Silicon Valley company called Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, has been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission with “massive fraud.” Her COO and co-conspirator, Sunny Balwani was also charged. The full reach of the sordid story of Theranos has yet to be told completely. However, that is about to change with the pending release of a book called Bad Blood by the Wall Street Journal’s John Carreyrou, the reporter who originally broke this story.
While the Theranos story may be new to you, for those of us who have worked in the life science, diagnostics and medical devices industry it has been unfolding like a slow moving massive car wreck for years. Over those years, Ms. Holmes has been claiming that her company was going to disrupt the diagnostics and clinical laboratory testing industries. From the first time her claims first began to covered in the press, I knew they were absolutely meritless. My friends, colleagues and competitors, with whom I had been working for over three decades in medical devise and diagnostics, also knew it be false. Yet, Ms Holmes and her claims continued to garner attention.
Ms Holmes’ claim was a simple one: her company had the ability to disrupt and transform the clinical laboratory testing industry by performing accurate and precise clinical testing using very small volumes of blood samples. That is, using a finger prick. This claim turned out not to be true. Ironically, it was not innovative either. Testing humans in clinical settings using minute amounts of blood has been in regular everyday use for decades. Some examples: 1.) You probably know a diabetic who tests their blood glucose levels. If so, you know that for decades this testing has been done using a drop or two of blood from a small finger prick; 2.) Since at least the 1980’s there have been FDA cleared tabletop-sized instruments that perform routine testing in locations such as physicians’ offices using blood samples from a finger prick.
So you are probably wondering, if this is true, then what was the big deal with Theranos? How were intelligent and discerning investors defrauded of billions – yes, billions with a B – of dollars? Good question.
The truth is there was no innovation whatsoever in Theranos’ claims. That truth cost a lot of people a total of billions of dollars. Those people failed to listen to experts in the field, incorrectly categorizing me and many others as being biased on the (incorrect) assumption that Theranos was the disruptor and the experts were to be the disrupted.
I will not reiterate the sordid details of Ms. Holmes alleged fraud here. I encourage you to read Mr Carreyrou’s articles in the Wall Street Journals and/or read his upcoming book. Rather I want to focus on the lessons we can all learn from this experience. In the future, there are many questions that should be asked when a supposed disruptive technology is introduced.
1.) Is this disruption a real possibility? We need to remember that in some industries, factors such as ethics, experience and expertise really matter. Medical devices are not smart phone apps. My experience includes thirty plus years in the medical devices and diagnostics industry, including a ten-year stint as CEO of a publicly traded company in the industry. During my tenure, Theranos received considerable press. I had to explain many times to investors why Theranos’ claims were simply empty. I think I was successful, and many others were also successful doing the same thing. But it is a shame that we had to spend valuable time explaining away a fraud. Investors should listen carefully to those who have an ethical reputation with real experience.
2.) For the supposed disruptor, have the leading venture capital firms with a specialty in that industry invested? In the past, leading med tech VC’s have enthusiastically invested in disruptive medical technologies like cardiac stents, electronic medical records, blood glucose monitoring and DNA sequencing. Based on input from their world class scientific and engineering talent, these leading VC’s did not invest in Theranos. Those who chose to invest should have asked “why?”
3.) Is there significant technical expertise required to evaluate the disruptive capabilities of this technology? What are the ethical considerations? Science is not software. With all due respect to so-called unicorns like Facebook and Snap, no one would be directly harmed if their technology had turned out to be less than capable. On the other hand, my colleagues and I lived each day with the mantra “we save lives for a living”. My company and every other company in that industry take that responsibility seriously. In the case of Theranos, the company is alleged to have knowingly released false medical test results in order to maintain their façade. Patients were harmed with the knowledge of, and at the direction of, Ms Holmes and company leadership. With more technical due diligence, the investors would not have indirectly funded the harm that was done.
4.) Is the company touting this disruptive technology appropriately governed at the board level? The Theranos stories often led with the fact that Ms Holmes apparently used family connections to add famous people to the company board. Henry Kissinger and George Schultz were among them. But fame does not equal competence. Mr Schutz, to use one example, is an intelligent and accomplished man, but I would not ask him to perform a hip replacement or sequence a genome. Having well-known names on the board gave the impression of legitimacy, but Ms Holmes seemed to deliberately avoid adding directors with any technical or medical expertise. Choosing to have those individuals on her board was the equivalent of having your grandmother on the board of an upstart social media company. She may be a good person, but she is not going to challenge the company nor add any value with her expertise. Good governance requires that there be appropriate industry and technical expertise to provide oversight and protect the interests of investors and shareholders.
5.) Are there facts being emphasized to create an impression, things that may be true but are also irrelevant? Ms Holmes set out to create an image of a tech entrepreneur by the way she dressed. Her black turtlenecks were Jobs-esque and mentioned in almost every media story. She created her company in Silicon Valley, the home of disruption. She created an image that was at least irrelevant, and at worst intentionally deceitful. Her mode of dress and the geographic location of her company were factual, but irrelevant.
6.) Are thoughtful and insightful questions being answered by the disruptor with thoughtful and insightful responses? Theranos brushed off challenging questions without providing any real substance. They were dismissive of scientific challenges and press inquiries, as I am sure Mr Carreyrou will describe in his book. Conversely, when I was challenged about Theranos or any other company or technology being a potential disruptor, I emulated the behavior I has observed across my career by others. I always tried to be respectful and to emphasize science and facts in my responses. I was never dismissive. I provided caveats and acknowledged that I may have been missing something, but focused my responses on the data and science as I understood it. A potential disruption should never be dismissed, but the disrupting technology, especially in a medical field with potential ramifications to patients, should stand up to data-driven and fact-based scrutiny. Any CEO who is being dismissive of data and facts should raise a red flag to investors.
My final point is not focused on due diligence. Rather, it is the sad and so far unspoken fact that Ms Holmes did unknown and immeasurable damage to capable, intelligent, ethical, enterprising and ambitious women. Her claims were false, and it is difficult to fathom that she did not know they were false. She focused attention on her image and emphasized her mode of dress, while being dismissive of the science. She allegedly entered into a romantic relationship with a subordinate, Mr Bulwani, and intentionally hid this fact from her board and others. So my last point is that many talented women that I had the pleasure to work for and work with for decades, and women across the workplace, were also victims of Ms Holmes’ behavior.
I am proud to have been in an industry that makes a difference in the world. Hopefully the Theranos experiences will help us all as we encounter similar situations in the future.