TIMKEN FIFTH-GENERATION HERO

There was a very good TV piece on CBS Good Morning’s show that showcased billionaire scion Kurt Timken, the fifth-generation heir who quit his job at the eponymous Timken Corp a few years ago to become a policeman on a beat.

I googled Kurt Timken and found him on an Oprah site. His story is compelling in that with a Harvard MBA and after years working for Timken and Rockwell International, he stopped climbing the pre-ordained corporate ladder and made a decision to enter law enforcement.

The FBI turned him down as being overqualified [and perhaps because he is lacking a law degree] and other police agencies followed suit.

Eventually, a widely-admired police department in El Monte, CA accepted him and he began to earn his stripes.

Now, years later, Timken has logged enough hours and gotten involved in anti-gang police operations to the point that he got his family to finance an tattooing clinic where provocative gang tattoos are lasered off to help rehab gangsta types wanting to turn around their lives.

Timken is becoming an expert in the gang underworld which I commented in a post yesterday is fast becoming a sort of haven for cultural dissidents and could eventually produce suicide-bombers, if the precedent of worst-case nightmares coming true continues to be operational.

I suspect that a fellow with Timken’s obvious dedication and smarts might eventually consider a political career, if he wants to broaden his effect on the seedy underworld culture he has become an expert at combating.

It happens that his father is now U.S. Ambassador to Germany and an Austrian expatriate is now Governor of the state where Timken is employed.

Arnold might consider Timken for an appointment to a senior law enforcement position in the state prison and rehabilitation system, which appears to be stuck on stupid, if several TV documentaries I’ve recently watched are anywhere near being accurate.

In any event, if more heirs were like Timken and less like the Hiltons, the USA would be a much better place.