Someone wrote this introduction for a talk I was giving. It should have started with the last bit. “She travel hacks her way around the world when she’s not unceremoniously telling start-ups why they will fail to scale.”
Elizabeth Houck is an innovative senior marketing professional in hardware and software Project Management, skunkworks R & D, go-to-market wizardry. Before entering technology in 1995, Ms. Houck worked in television and film with CBS, NBC, Warner Bros., Castle Rock, Viacom, Paramount, and Harpo Productions. Aging parents returned her to Silicon Valley where she worked on content streaming and cloud computing with Philips and Sun Microsystems. Ms. Houck is Principal of Blue Egg Partners and provides consulting services in cross-functional team leadership, process evolution and management, enabling her clients to bring new products and services to market on plan. Ms. Houck holds a BCS, College of Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico, UC Berkeley’s, Haas School of Business – Product Management Certification, member of the Project Management Institute and speaker on process management and travel hacking.
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In the early 80’s, my older connected lobbyist roommate had invites to the Western States Governors Conference opening reception cocktail thing in Albuquerque, NM. Arriving slightly late, filling out the obligatory name tag a man behind me asked if I could fill one out for him, “sure,” what’s your name? “Bruce Babbitt,” I said “Babbitt, like Rabbitt?” Laughing he spelled out B-A-B-B-I-T-T, I patted the name tag onto his chest, we locked elbows and sashayed into the party. Not sure if the flush of my cheeks matched the radiant heat rising like thermometer from my feet, as the larger than life, 3 term NM Governor, Bruce King, beelined his way over saying, “Governor Babbitt, nice of you to join us!” Or something like that – my ears were white hot and not working, and I was possibly mumbling something stupid. Fortunately, Roommate quickly, graciously, and calmly extricated me from being sandwiched between two giant old friends, inquiring what the heck was I doing with Governor Babbitt?! (Still with me?) Horrible wild fires have destroyed Ruidoso, Lincoln County, NM, largely National Forrest – an oasis in what most perceive as flat desert. I have advocated for a Western States Air Firefighting Response Team. If air support can get to a fire in the first two hours 80% of the time it can be contained in days – not weeks or months, the fire doesn’t become utterly devastating. There is a small Air Force Fire Fighting Brigade of 8-10 planes, based in NM. California State finally implemented one brigade a couple of years ago, but it’s not enough. There needs to be a similar coalition at every Air Force Base and every airport that can handle traffic and supplies from New Mexico north and west to Hawaii, every single western state. NOW. Cost too much? What about the hundreds of millions, even billions it costs to fight massive fires and FEMA for recovery? Climate and fires will never get better. Tipping point was 2015, years before the climate scientists predicted it would be… we’ve done next to nothing. We need united western states action, we need it now. Until the Sierra Club sues and State and National jurisdictions jockey for position… sigh.
A second cousin is putting together a bit about the family, he asked for my bio, this is all I’ve got.
Things I’m good at – Making Messes
Things I’ve done:
Traveled to 67 countries; goal of 100+
Have a thing for travel to islands in the middle of nowhere including Easter Island, Cuba, Bali, NZ, Tasmania…
Danced with Gene Kelly (so memorable)
Been to the Oscars, Emmys, and Cannes Film Festival
Worked on the precursors of both Siri and Netflix
Landed my mom a credited role in a Carl Reiner film.
Worked with Rob Reiner et al, at Castle Rock in TV Development (we had a little show called Seinfeld)
Have been in 3 major earthquakes (9.2, 7.1, 5.9)
3 superbowls (one for fun, one for work, one I crashed!) 1 World Series
Worked on a bunch of tv shows and a couple of films. Edited scripts for Harpo Productions (Oprah Winfrey)
Attended Midsummer Night’s Dream party at Playboy Mansion West 2x
Got stranded in dead-end tunnel in Belgium Metro
Lunched with Dick Clark at his home in Malibu, dined with Quincy Jones at his house in Bel Air
Worked with MacArthur Genius Award winner Dr. Stephen Schneider on a tv show about climate change (was with Steve in NOLA when he was notified of his win…)
Got clocked skiing at 63mph in 2020
Did one year in National Ski Patrol – both my knees and I survived.
Barely Survived building a house in Santa Fe
Dined at Rick’s Place in Casablanca
Election Poll Worker in 5 elections
Volunteered over 1000 hours with various organizations
Decent cook – (my soufflés are legendary and I’m now allergic to eggs!)
Have flown close to 2 million miles
Hiked the Powell Nanokweap trail in/out of Grand Canyon at Marble Canyon
Once checked-in for a flight to Narita only to find out my ticket was to Nagoya (blonde moment) but enjoyed the trip anyway! Enjoyed Fu No Yu – View Bath at Nagoya Airport
Summited Half Dome in 2010 was scheduled again in 2020 but pandemic
Summited Mt. Fuji
Gave talks on travel hacking and took a month-long international trip on points!
Jumped out of a perfectly good airplane at 10K ft.
Spent a summer river rafting
Performed a stand-up comedy routine at The Comedy Club in LA
Survived a pandemic – so far
Really want to go to Antartica, Africa, and Argentina; have been to Andorra, Austria, Australia, Antigua…
Had this bio put into narrative by a 5 time Emmy award winner friend
Have fabulous friends, and thousands of twitter followers
I can swear in 7 languages, Blyad! (make that 8… )
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One of the last projects I worked on in Hollywood was called “The Fire Next Time” Filmed in 1991 it took place in 2017 – around the “tipping point.”
Worked on this project from inception research to filming for the Executive Producer / Writer (who got fired 1/2 way thru filming, so I never appear in the credits.)
In the years of research I did with the likes of Dr. Stephen Schneider, NOAA, NCAR, and NASA, they all agreed on one thing – there are too many polluting people on earth. Fuck fosses fuels, fuck the people who have sacrificed the planet for money. We knew better and did nothing.
Speaking of morons, wtaf is Trump doing to solve this pandemic in the US? Not enough, not nearly enough. Speaking of Oxymorons, what is your favorite? Plastic Glasses? Jumbo Shrimp? Relative Stranger? Family Vacation?
I miss traveling, I kinda miss travel planning, I totally miss visiting new places. Can’t wait to travel again…
So, what do you think? Barbados for a year? Immigrate to Spain? Portugal?
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Decades ago, living in Los Angeles, on my way to rehearsal of my first TV show, I ran into ‘Lloyd’ and his fiance Alice. I hadn’t seen them since college a few years before; we exchanged numbers. After the show aired I started getting obscene phone calls between midnight and 1AM. This went on for months. A trace was put on my phone after I filed a police report. The offending caller was arrested; the Police asked me if I knew Lloyd – my old classmate. Lloyd called me to tell me it wasn’t him – his ‘guest’ from Canada had been my caller. I immediately recognized his voice as that which tormented me for months. His trying to convince me it wasn’t him was witness tampering; a felony. Had my first full blown panic attack, ended up in emergency thinking I was having a stroke. He called me from the San Fernando Valley – from area code 818 to 213; every time he called it showed up on his phone bill.
He had no choice but to plead. Probation, fine, public service, and counseling. I got panic attacks. Today I found him on Facebook, blocked him.
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The most important thing happening in the world is climate change. I knew this back in the late ’80’s, I know it now. The tipping point happened; expect climate acceleration. We will see climate migration and dissolution of communities, industries, livelyhoods. The Gaia Theory as interpreted by Elizabeth: The Earth will kill what is killing it.
We knew better, and we failed. Homo Sapiens will not outlast Neanderthal time on earth.
My love affair, and now breakup, with cookbooks is devastating. I am crying while purging my cookbooks –
literally the recipe of my life. Hard media vs. memories.
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