By early 1999, the event was $379 million in debt.  It was announced that Frank Joklik, president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC), and Dave Johnson, vice president, along with others had been involved in perks, benefits, and bribes that enabled Salt Lake City to be the host city for the 2002 Olympic Games.  Joklik resigned of his own free will.  Johnson, however,  was forced.

Then, on February 11, 1999, Mitt Romney left a successful entrepreneur career to be hired as the new CEO and president of the SLOC.

Romney has a history of rescuing large organizations from financial disaster (Bain and Company, 1990).  The salvation of the 2002 Games was no different.

In his three years at the helm in Salt Lake, Romney erased a $379 million operating deficit, organized 23,000 volunteers, galvanized community spirit and oversaw an unprecedented security mobilization just months after the September 11th terrorist attacks, leading to one of the most successful Olympics in our country’s history. (http://www.freestrongamerica.com/pa/ge/55/learn-about-mitt).

Thus, instead of being $279 million deficit, the event ended up with a profit of $100 million.  Romney spent a million dollars of his own money on the Olympics, and donated the $825,000 salary he earned as president and CEO of the SLOC to charity (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/672kwvro.asp).

Mitt Romney’s business career is not the classic Horatio Alger story of a disadvantaged lad pulling himself up by the bootstraps to the highest pinnacle of capitalism. Graduates of Harvard–like Mitt Romney–don’t need bootstraps. But his is an impressive journey. (Lisa Turner and Kimberly Field, Mitt Romney:: The Man, His Values and His Mission, Mapletree Publishing Company, p. 19 ).

Mitt, a Harvard-bred prodigy in business, landed a position with Bain Consulting in 1978. Applying the painstaking discipline he’d acquired over the years and while in the top 5th of his MBA class (while simultaneously getting a law degree), he ruminated over numbers and potential investments. Since each partner in Bain had complete veto power, the process of selecting investments was a rigorous one. But Mitt’s caution and deliberate management style paid off when Bain purchased a Staples store for $650,000, ending up with a chain worth $18 billion.

In 1984, he raised mega-dollars (30 million) to form Bain Capital, the venture capital spinoff, which currently has assets over 40 billion. In 1991, he was called back to rescue Bain from financial disaster:

[Mitt] accepted the challenge, then assembled the partners and demanded unanimous support for his leadership and a commitment they would stay for a full year. All but one agreed. Romney restructured the massive debt, slashed expenses, and made difficult decisions about who to keep and who to let go. Romney kept the firm’s mission in mind. The partners met in grueling Saturday sessions so employees could serve clients during the week and not have to work in the shadow of closed-door meetings involving their future.

Within two years, Bain Consulting returned to a solid footing and remains a top consulting company today.

Of Mitt, says Fraser Bullock, a former Bain partner who worked with Romney on the Olympics: “He’s not an ideologue. He makes decisions based on researching data more deeply than anyone I know. As people get to know him better, they’ll see an extremely competent, strong leader.” It’s true. Mitt is known for his fixation with data, disparagement of waste, and diligent digging until he finds a working solution to a vexing problem.

In Mitt’s own words:

My ten years in consulting and my sixteen years in venture capital and private equity taught me that there are answers in numbers. Pile the budgets on my desk and let me wallow. Numbers can help solve a mystery. I discover trends, form hypotheses, most of which fail but lead to others that are more fruitful. Almost without exception, I learn something that is key to the success of the enterprise (Turnaround, Regnery Publishing Inc, Washington DC).

And that’s . . . more of Mitt Romney.

Wickman: I think if they exist, they’re one-sided. They don’t exist on our end. As I said, we believe in Jesus Christ. We teach him, and him crucified; we teach his teachings and doctrines; we find a sense of brotherhood with everyone – regardless of their faith affiliation – who share such beliefs.

Nelson: I would support that view. I believe that in the humanitarian aid to which I made reference, we partner with other faith-based organizations. For example, we do a lot of work with the Catholic Relief Services. We’ve done significant work with the Islamic Relief Worldwide organization and a whole host of other agencies with whom we have cooperated in providing relief for others.

There are other ways that we work with other folks, like in interfaith roundtables and multidenominational services that we hold here in the headquarters in the city of Salt Lake. The church has given financial support to other faiths. Brother Wickman mentioned the tsunami in Southeast Asia. We’re still giving help over there.

We’re still helping Indonesia, in the Banda Aceh area particularly, with rebuilding their schools, rebuilding their mosques and bringing copies of the Koran to those people.

Wickman: We don’t see it as an ecumenical thing. We don’t feel any need to conform our doctrine to somebody else’s. We teach the principles as we understand them and, for all the reasons that have been mentioned, try to be friends to everyone.

See Mormonism in Modern America.

At that time of the incident, Mitt Romney was the congregation’s leader or Bishop. He had been vacationing with his family at Cape Cod when he received word of the fire. He returned almost immediately. The Arlington Ward was meeting in the Cambridge building, and with school resuming in just a month, the student wards at Cambridge University would fill the Cambridge chapel to capacity. That meant his congregation would need to meet elsewhere while their new meetinghouse was being rebuilt.

The community of Belmont solved that problem in a tremendous outpouring of concern and love. Father Rodney Copp of St. Joseph’s parish extended his condolences and offered his school for the LDS ward to meet in.

Within days after the fire, Bishop Romney received letters from seven other churches in the town, also offering their buildings. The Board of Selectmen of Belmont offered the town hall. Other churches not only extended their sympathy but also held fundraisers to help with the reconstruction of the LDS meetinghouse.

‘So many people wanted to help,’ says Brother Romney. As a man of vision, he felt all those offers should not be turned away by the Belmont Ward. Seeing the good that could come from this disaster, he responded to all the ministers and pastors who had offered their buildings and looked at each building.

However, not every church had the twenty-one classrooms the ward needed. “While it would have been far more convenient to use just one building, we decided to use every building where the facilities were sufficient for our needs,” he recalled. It was very difficult to adapt the meetings to these non-LDS meetinghouses, but Bishop Romney wanted the people in Belmont to get to know his ward members and accept them as friends.

Not only had the parking lot dispute caused some bad feelings among the townspeople, but according to Brother Romney, there had been hints ‘that we weren’t wanted. Some people in Belmont thought of Latter-day Saints as bizarre, and we were not part of the church community.’

During the nine months of reconstruction, the Belmont Ward met in the town hall for one fast meeting, in the Catholic school for three months, then in the Protestant Armenian Church meetinghouse, and finally in the Congregational Church. Connie Eddington, who has lived in Belmont for several years, says, ‘It gave us a different feeling to hold church elsewhere. When we were in the Catholic school, my feelings immediately changed toward every Catholic I knew. Every time I would see one of my Catholic neighbors, I would tell him or her that we enjoyed meeting in their church. I really wanted to thank them for their kindness to us.’

But most of all, Bishop Romney feels that the members of his ward learned about other faiths and the goodness of people. “They, in turn, learned about us,” he adds. Although he didn’t feel there was a lot of antagonism toward the Church in the town, he does feel that there was a good deal of ‘benign neglect. We weren’t considered part of the church community,’ he says. ‘Now the ward is part of the Belmont Church Council, which is an organization to further religious purposes. It has no ecumenical ambitions.’

No one in the Belmont Ward could have anticipated the great blessings the fire would bring. Although costly and inconvenient, the disaster increased community awareness of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Belmont and also served to foster feelings of love and concern toward Latter-day Saints. As one Belmont Ward member points out, “There is no question that it brought the ward closer together, and deepened our feelings of love and appreciation for our neighbors (Janet Peterson, Ensign, April, 1986, p. 21).

In downtown Boston, turnpikes and rapid transit and rail lines spill their streaming traffic into a compact maze of narrow, twisting streets shaded by the press of luxury hotels, opulent shopping galleries, and corporate skyscrapers. Thronged sidewalks intensify the sense of big-city bustle and commotion.

In contrast is the Charles River, its serene waters rippled by the quiet passage of sleek collegiate rowing shells and sailboats whisked by salty Atlantic breezes. The park-lined waterway divides Boston from Cambridge, where the festive air of Harvard Square fades into the tranquility and rarefied atmosphere of outlying suburban communities.

Another refreshing scene is the Boston Massachusetts Stake. But unlike the banked, slow-flowing Charles, this dynamic, evolving stake of eight wards and five branches is overflowing its borders.

At the helm is President W. Mitt Romney, who, assisted by other stake members, is helping ensure that . . . Mormons are not lost in crosscurrents or in the wake of surging membership growth (Ensign, Don L. Brugger, Climate for Change, Sept. 1993).

In the Church of Jesus Christ, congregations are grouped into “wards,” and “wards” into larger groups called “stakes.”  Leaders of a ward are known as “Bishops” and leaders of stakes are called “Stake Presidents.”  In Boston, Mitt Romney is known, as well, as “President Romney.”  And that’s not because of his campaign, but because of the calling he received to serve the Lord by presiding over those in his geographical area in Boston.

President Romney noticed that many non-English-speaking members living long distances from meetinghouses, were struggling to attend English speaking wards. Some of these members worked long hours in multiple jobs and had unreliable transportation.  Sensitive to the diversity and to their needs, President Romney and Bowen sought inspiration and moved in a new direction.

Their plan was (1) to take the Church to where the people live; (2) to conduct worship services in the language of an area’s dominant ethnic group; and (3) to soften the cultural gap by focusing all Church activities on Jesus Christ. The branches draw on designated “sister wards” for various resources.

Other recently created branches serve close-knit Spanish, Portuguese, and Asian enclaves. Stake leaders call these units storefronts branches or “boutiques” because they represent a street-level effort to display the beauty of the gospel before people [of all faiths]” (Ibid).

President Romney has created a haven for the Saints in Boston, unity in diversity. Again, he championed a new solution to existing problems.

Let me read the results of another poll. This is from February 2007. The question was, “We’d like you to think about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church. What comes to mind when you think about this religion?”

These are the top five or six responses, in descending order:
Eighteen percent: “polygamy.”
Ten percent: “Salt Lake City, Utah.”
Seven percent: “good people, kind, caring, strong morals.”
Six percent: “dislike their beliefs, don’t agree with their doctrine, false teachings.”

And two more:
Six percent: “door-to-door evangelizing.”
Six percent: “weird beliefs, strange, cult-like.”

Do these findings surprise you in any way? Do they alarm you in some way?

Nelson: My goodness, those are clearly expressions of lack of information and lack of understanding. That’s not surprising.

Wickman: Except for “Salt Lake City” and “have strong families and moral values,” there’s not one of those responses that is a very accurate description of who we are or what we believe. As I said earlier, we’ve learned from experience that the more others know about us, the more likely they are to like us.

They may or may not agree with all of our doctrines, but in terms of liking us and realizing us as good people who are involved in the mainstream of society and who are trying to be contributing members in our communities, I think those who know us would agree that that’s pretty much who we are.

Nelson: Let me take you back to a few years ago when communism was still bearing sway in Eastern Europe. One of my responsibilities was to talk to the leaders of a country under the yoke of communism, and I was trying to petition for permission for our people, our church and our missionaries to do their work there. They didn’t want us; they didn’t know us; they didn’t understand us. So I said, “Now, are you embarrassed by the fact that your mortality rate from alcoholism is higher than any other country in the world? We can help you. We can teach your people a better way of life.” And so we did; they allowed our missionaries to come, and they’re happy we’re there now. It all started with that original resistance imposed because of lack of understanding, lack of information and just kind of a rejection phenomenon just on general principles.

For many people outside the church, the present seems like a special time for the church because it is getting so much attention. Why is this happening? Why does the church seem to be the focus of so much attention? What’s happening in American society?

Nelson: I think, for one reason, real-thinking people are very concerned with what’s happening to society. The symptoms of immorality and social decadence are alarming, and people are honestly looking for a better way of life. They’re looking for the truth. They’re looking for something they can cling to.

Wickman: I think that’s a good answer. I think people are looking for a better way of life. And I think that current events have had a way of catapulting the church more into the news, certainly in the person of prominent political figures in each of the major parties in this country. That’s certainly been a factor.

I think the church is simply larger than it was once upon a time. I think that it’s more evident in communities across the land and across the world. We’re close to having 13 million members, which by comparison to some denominations isn’t that large, but when viewed particularly in the United States in the sense of community, I think most people are aware that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is there. They drive by our meeting houses. They see our young people with their suits and their black name tags – our missionaries. I think these are all factors.

There are other people of prominence who have been Latter-day Saints who achieved a measure of success and acclaim, everything from the sports world to the business world. And I think all of those factors combine, and doubtless others that we haven’t mentioned would help to explain the interest.

I think the Olympics here in 2002 was a curtain raiser for many who didn’t know anything about Salt Lake City, much less our church or the community, until they sat through 14 or 16 days of coverage on the Olympics. Those are some thoughts that come to my mind.

Nelson: Here’s another thought that comes to me, and that is that nearly everybody has a neighbor who’s a member of this church. There are what, about 200 countries in the world. We have at least one member of the church in every nation of the world now.

See Mormonism in Modern America.

And it was for the best.  He did reclaim the process and rectified the wounds of prominent officials who had been dishonorable in bribing and accepting bribes proposed to them.  He dealt with tremendous opposition–canceled corporate sponsors, the need for increased security due to threats of all kinds, a fearful NBC concerned with its $545 million investment, and more. Yet he methodically worked the numbers as he always does, and they told him what he needed to know.  “The Winter Olympics began with a projected deficit of $379 million. By the end of the games, a surplus of $55 million remained” (Turner & Field, Mitt Romney, Mapletree Publishing, p 28). He rescued the Olympics and restored the spirit that enveloped the celebration.  As Governor Leavitt stated:

I realized I was participating in one of the few moments in the history of the state where everyone’s hearts were beating hard together. It didn’t matter where you were . . . if you pulled over to the side of the road to listen,  if you huddled around the television at work, or you had your children in the family room, the same thing was happening (NBC Report Leading Up to Opening Ceremonies).

The eyes of the world were on Utah in February as Salt Lake City hosted the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. Much attention was focused on the Church as its leaders and members joined with the Salt Lake community in welcoming the world. “It goes clear back to the book of Isaiah, which says that Zion would be established at the tops of the mountains and that the nations of the world would come there,” said Elder Henry B. Eyring of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in a Los Angeles Times article. “In a sense we expected it. Only, the prophecies didn’t say anything about downhill skiing.”

Mitt Romney was the man of the hour.

Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann Romney, converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints before they were married in 1969. They have five sons together and have been touted as having a strong marriage, based on Christian values taught by the Mormon Church.

Mitt Romney has also served in the Church as a part-time lay minister (Bishop and Stake President). Due to his religious beliefs, which include adhering to what is referred to as the Word of Wisdom, Mitt Romney abstains from drinking alcohol, using tobacco, and any illegal drug use. He also pays a full tithe to the Church which means he donates 10% of his income to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He also attends the temple of the Mormon Church and recommends that people learn more about the temple by visiting The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Read the rest…

A Pew interviewer asked two Mormon leaders about members and missionaries involvement in international issues. The conversation is recorded below.

The church has more than 50,000 missionaries. Many of them are presumably knowledgeable about world affairs because of their missionary work. Does the church take positions on international issues, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict?

Nelson: Our first mission is to teach the gospel and to care for our members. We are an international church. We have more members residing outside of the United States than we do within the bounds of this country. Our members come from all sides of all political questions. We don’t wade into the political debate on such controversial issues as Darfur and the Arab-Israeli conflict, but the church has committed to providing relief and development projects for humanitarian purposes in those countries and in other countries all over the world.

For example, the church provides relief to both the Israelis and the Palestinians, and in the year 2006 we responded with significant relief for the people suffering in Sudan.

Wickman: For the very reasons we talked about earlier when you were asking about political involvement, the church really tends not to get involved in political controversy, whether it’s here or abroad. It does teach the principles we’ve talked about. It does have a very significant humanitarian effort. Elder Nelson gave some examples of that.

Another notable example from the recent past would be the tsunami relief that the church provided, across the Indian Ocean from Indonesia to India and beyond, and here in our own country, of course, with Katrina.

But the church is more interested in teaching its principles and lending a hand to people where it can than it is in weighing in on politics, and that’s one of the reasons why you don’t hear us saying much about those events.

One comes away with a sense of the church having this determinedly circumscribed role in public life, that while the church – through its missionaries – actively proselytizes, the church’s official position is, “We’ll let our religious life be our role in public life; we’ll let it speak for itself.”

Nelson: It’s pretty simple. We care, and we would like to do unto others as we would like them to do unto us. We love one another and we show that by helping, by serving. There is a lot of interest in the humanitarian assistance that we give throughout the world, and it’s very, very significant. But even more significant is why we do it. We do it because we care, and how we do it is that we teach our people to go without meals one day a month and contribute the money they would have spent on those meals to a fund that is used for the care of the poor and the needy.

It would be a misperception to view this church as wealthy, well-provisioned, with storehouses that are bulging and so on. Our welfare efforts come from people. There are people who are going without their food and contributing their money, time and talents just for the privilege of helping to serve other people.

That’s the story; not the largesse of our gifts, but the hearts of the people who want to help.

Wickman: Institutionally [the Forum has] described the church’s position about things, but, again, church members individually, acting in their capacity as citizens, are encouraged to get involved and express their views, and obviously there are some in our own country who are doing that every day.

See Mormonism in Modern America, Pew Forum

In simple language, what are the most important things non-church members should know about the church?

Russell M. Nelson

Elder Nelson: They should know that we exist to bring love and concern for the eternal welfare of all humankind, regardless of religious belief, race or nationality. We believe that we are truly brothers and sisters, so we want to project the message that we care. We love one another, and we hope to bless the lives of all mankind.

What should be the church’s role in public life?

Nelson: Our objective is to bring happiness to people, strengthen their families and make them successful in life. You can hardly isolate that from the laboratory of their existence, which is the workplace and home.

Elder Wickman: The prophet Joseph Smith was once asked how it was that he was able to “govern his people,” as the reporter put it. Joseph responded that he taught correct principles and let them govern themselves. The church really does not see that it has an institutional role in public life as such. But the principles that it teaches and the encouragement that it gives to members to participate actively as citizens in their land – wherever that may be – naturally lead to Latter-day Saints who do become involved. And of course you’re familiar with some of those who have become somewhat prominent in our own country.

Lance B. Wickman

You have to remember, too, that the church has an active presence in more than 160 nations – and members beyond that in others. So you’re talking about a worldwide organization, and these principles are taught everywhere. How those people become involved in their respective communities is going to differ widely depending on where they are and the government system under which they live.

Nelson: I believe that experience has shown that human nature cannot be changed by reforming public policy. The change comes by exposing the human mind to a higher way of thinking – to teach the teachings of the God of the world as the Lord Jesus Christ. Then if you teach his principles, the people can govern themselves more appropriately, as Elder Wickman has explained.

We feel that as we maintain the integrity of our religious institutions and preserve tolerance of each other’s sacred beliefs, we can preserve the strength of pluralistic society. We can promote tolerance and
understanding.

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Mitt Romney is committed to faith, family, and country. His faith embraces belief in a literal Father in Heaven, the atonement of His Son, Jesus Christ, a little redemption and the possibility of eternal life for all who follow him. Mitt’s life, which is readily accessible in video recordings, documents he has signed and advocated, government and civic records, attests to an alignment with his professed values, and a love of home that mirrors his moral and ethical beliefs.

We invite your sincere questions about Mitt Romney’s faith.

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Q/A above from Pew Interview, Mormonism in Modern America