Mr. Bethel is a specialist in strategic, consensual business relationships, bridging the private, non-profit, and global sectors. Economics, political philosophy, and public policy, via Dartmouth College and the Milano graduate program of the New School for Social Research, compose his academic foundation while auto-didacticism comprises his life-long vocation. The Obama Memos are an outgrowth of Mr. Bethel's letter, appearing in The Nation, March 27, 2008, in response to Jeff Faux's essay, "Is This the Big One?"