Q&A With David D. Schein 

My next Q&A for this week is with another one of Mickey Mikkelson’s clients, Dr. David D. Schein. Dr. Schein is the author of Bad Deal For America, & The Decline of America: 100 Years of Leadership Failures. According to David’s Amazon bio he is a tenured professor and the Cameron Endowed Chair of Management & Marketing at the University of St. Thomas Cameron School of Business. David is also the President and General Counsel of Claremont Management Group, a Human Resources consulting firm in Houston Texas. David speaks quite a bit on employment and consumer matters.  

Q: So, David you’re a busy man, how do you juggle being a professor, president of a human resources consulting firm and an author?

A: Thanks, Bianca, for inviting me for this interview and your thoughtful questions. I am a very high energy person and have set a number of goals for myself. My lifestyle is also structured to as much as possible allow me to focus on my goals. I live near my university office and my personal office. So, unlike many Houstonians, I do not spend nearly as much time in my car. I have no pets. I try to focus on unique things that I do in my life, and have others do the rest. For instance, I can do a lot of household projects like painting, plumbing and even laying ceramic tile. However, I need to devote time to my students, my clients, and my writing projects. So, I contract out such manual work to leave my time for things that only I can do. 

I am focused on fitness, as well. Unfortunately, many of my scholarly colleagues do not focus on this aspect of their lives as much. During my life, I have been an ardent anti-smoker. I used alcohol in moderation, and in the last year, stopped drinking alcohol altogether. I work out about six mornings every week. I do a full workout at the gym three mornings a week, and then a home workout the alternate mornings. My motto is: “If I work out first thing in the morning, NOTHING WORSE can happen all day!” I also follow a fairly careful diet and prepare most of my own food. I plan to live to at least 100. However, I want to be doing it on the tennis courts and dancing Argentine Tango, not in a rocking chair. 

Q: Would you classify Bad Deal For America, & The Decline of America: 100 Years of Leadership Failures as business and politically related books? 

A: Yes, I call my area of research and writing “Political Management.” It is not the field of political science, and not the field of business management. My focus is on how the government can apply business principles to be more efficient and serve our society better. 

Q: What made you want to write about such topics in Bad Deal For America & The Decline of America: 100 Years of Leadership Failures?

A: The trigger for my first book was the enormous National Debt and the deification of Franklin Roosevelt. Ironically, the National Debt around the time I wrote the book was $24 Trillion, and it has skyrocketed to over $34 Trillion today. In 1997, DC debuted the FDR Memorial. A ridiculous, two-block demonstration in favor of a person too egomaniacal to leave the presidency and who put America on its present path toward socialism and a bloated bureaucracy. These are not partisan criticisms. Both political parties have failed the American people. My point to Decline of America was that despite historically poor leadership in the White House, the diverse and productive American people have brought about an amazing economy and lifestyle. 

Bad Deal for America is a bipartisan criticism of the Congress. It is based on a deck of cards, with direct quotes from 26 present and former members of each party displaying their stupidity and lack of connection to real Americans. Members of both houses have gone to DC and forgotten who they are representing. They complain about finances. However, they should be living full-time in their home districts and just staying in DC long enough to vote and attend rare in-person committee meetings. American business has proven that most meetings can be held by Zoom or Teams. No need to meet in person, especially in the rare air of DC, where the Military Industrial Complex and the special interest lobbyists can influence them.  

I plan to update and reformat Decline of America after this year’s presidential election. Target for release is the 3rd or 4^th quarter of 2025. I also have plans for a book specifically on the bloated American bureaucracy, with a target for release in the second half of 2026. 

Q: If you’re writing a new book now, is it in the same vein as Bad Deal For America, & The Decline of America: 100 Years of Leadership Failures? Or is it something different entirely?

A: Something very different! My book in process now is called A Cheap Education. It is a fiction-based-on-fact story of a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who earns a scholarship to an Ivy League college in Philadelphia. This was during the time of “Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll.” Somehow, he ends up starting an arts management agency and being featured in his own weekly show on public radio. Yes, he did finish college, yet found the education he gained on the streets of Philadelphia was more valuable than what he learned in the classroom. He also gained a lifelong friend, an African American artist who was old enough to be his father. 

Q: In our email I noticed a link to your interview on PBS. What was it like being interviewed by them?

A: The interview was part of a panel discussion, “Red White and Blue,” presented by the local Public TV station. I was invited to talk about Decline of America. The interesting part was that one of the panelists was from the Political Science Department of a local university. She was obviously not pleased with my approach to what she considered her discipline. As I explained above, I mean no disrespect to that discipline. I view my own contributions as “Political Management,” a subset of the broad business management discipline.