About Us
2008 Rediscovery Tour
20 June 2008 Day 32, Sønderborg - Fynshav - 37 km (2178)
Today included the best event with young people
that I have had on the entire Tour. But to start
the day, Pia and Hans treated us to a wonderful
breakfast, with their adorable children Benedicte
(6 ) and Christian (8 months) joining us. We were
also joined half way through breakfast by a
journalist from the local paper who conducted an
interview over coffee and hastily-eaten bread and
home-made jam.
Then with Hans in the lead we headed the few km
down the road to the Sønderskov school. The
Scene upon arrival was simply unbelievable. 750
cheering and screaming students standing outside
the school awaiting my arrival, waving Danish
flags. I rode the line of students, like I was
“reviewing the troops” high-fiving the kids
as I went. After their principal presented me
with a photo of the school, they sang me this
very enthusiastic and catchy song, written by one
of their teachers. I yelled a few words of
greeting to them, invited to them to skip school
and join me on the bike, to which I got
enthusiastic cheers, and then I was MOBBED!
Mobbed with a laughing and cheering crowd of kids
trying to get my autograph. I signed paper,
shirts, flags, crumpled up bits of homework, I
even signed a hat! I think I signed 300
autographs. But the highlight was the several
dozen cute young girls who wanted me to kiss them
on the cheek. When I complied they yelled and
screamed in their high pitched voices like it was
Justin Timberlake. And the best thing of all …
my mother and father were there to see it all. (I
hope they have called my two brothers to report it
all to them.)
One of the local reporters asked me with
amazement in his eyes: “Is it always like
this?” “Of course it is!” I said with a
smile. The enthusiastic welcome was followed by a
visit with a delightful class of international
studies students from the 6th and 7th grade who
were joined by their teacher Hisam. Sønderskov
School is a UNESCO School with students from over
30 countries. Dana, Ditte, Sarah, Christoper,
Joachim, Rick and Emil were engaging students and
became my fun riding companions, tour guides, and
friends for the next several hours of what would
be one of the greatest days of the Tour. The
group briefed me on the impressive international
studies programs they are engaged with, currently
focusing on Egypt, Jordan and Syria, their
“Students Build Bridges” program, and the
weekly newspaper they put out which, the current
edition of which has an article on the
introduction of American sports into Denmark.
They had some questions prepared for me on
serious topics including EU integration,
Guantanamo, and the Cartoon Crisis, and they gave
me some great answers to my ReDiscovery questions.
On Question One, I really was intrigued by
Christopher’s answer “When I think of America
I think of bums and poor people huddled over trash
cans in the street with fire in them to keep
warm”. Why is that I asked? “Because that’s
the image I see on the video games I play”, he
said. On the Second Question, Ditte said she
wanted Americans to know about Tivoli, and we
talked about the inspiration that Tivoli had been
on Walt Disney as he was conceiving Disneyland. On
my Third Question, they averaged around 7.5 and
8.5, consistent with the scores of young people
in Jutland (The average would have been higher
but for one of my new friends who gave me 4’s
and 5’s because he thought Europe needed to
become stronger and the way for that to happen
was for European countries to become less close
to the US.)
My new riders and I left Sønderskov School and
headed across the imposing Sønderborg Draw
Bridge to “Alsion”, the grand structure on
the waterfront that houses a University, Concert
Hall, Science Center, Nanotech Lab, Innovation
Incubator, Office headquarters and Railroad
ticket office. It is one of the most fascinating
stories of spacial integration I have come
across. Former Mayor A P Hansen proudly showed us
around the beautiful complex, decorated with Olive
trees from America, and I was not surprised to
learn that my friend Jørgen Mads Clausen of
Danfoss has been much of the inspiration behind
the project. (Mayor Hansen said “Danfoss is to
Sønderborg what Lego is to Billund and Grundfoss
is to Bjerringbro”. Having seen each of these
towns on my tour through Denmark, I can attest to
the incredible positive impact and public-spirited
investment that these companies have had on their
communities.) After the tour of the Alsion,
Peter Rathje, Director of the Sønderborg harbor
project , who rode with us Day 31, gave us an
extensive briefing on the plans for the region to
become carbon neutral by 2029, called “Project
Zero” (which explains the “I am a Zero
(fan)” T shirt that I had been wearing.) Peter
also unveiled for us the amazing $200 million
“Bright Green Harbor” project on twenty acres
across the water from Alsion, that is being
designed by American architect Frank Gehry. Gehry
is one of the world’s most renowned architects,
but according to Peter he is having to learn
about sustainability in order to design this
project.
With a little time to kill, my seven young
friends escorted me through the cobblestone
walking street of Sønderborg to their favorite
store: __ Candy store where a world of succulent
treats awaited us. Hans was generous enough to
offer to purchase candy for each of us, so I
picked out a fluffy “Florbolle”, which was a
meal in itself. They then escorted me to the Town
Hall where Mayor Jan Prokopek Jensen met us and
showed us to the beautiful old council chambers,
now too small for the 31 member council after
consolidation of seven towns into one kommune.
Mayor Jensen made a very nice presentation,
including the brightest, greenest shirt I have
worn on the Tour, and a beautiful miniature glass
windmill. Mayor Jensen explained that the windmill
was made by hand by handicapped citizens of the
town. He said the town employs 200 of them to
make things like this, which are then sold or
given as city souvenirs, a great example of
“public charity”.
After a very nice lunch at Brøggeriet hosted by
the Mayor, I reluctantly said my goodbyes to
Dana, Ditte, Sarah, Christopher, Joachim, Rick
and Emil, but only after making them promise that
they would consider coming to our July 4
“ReDiscovery Finale”, and after Rick made me
promise that I would consider returning to catch
the Alice Cooper concert in a couple of weeks
(!). I also said goodbye to Mom and Dad who were
catching the train back to Copenhagen, and then
headed down the road to Danfoss Solar Inverters.
Here CEO Henrik Raunkjær briefed us on the
rapidly expanding market for solar energy, and
the innovative approach that Danfoss Solar is
taking toward the opportunity (with Danfoss in
the name, it must be innovative.) I learned a
great deal about the market and economics for
solar-produced electricity from Henrik, and find
it interesting that Germany’s “feed in
tariff” structure, wherein the government
guarantees a “take” price for produced
electricity for twenty years, rapidly created a
retail market for solar power in that country,
leading in only a few years to the concentration
of the solar manufacturing cluster in that
country. The “net metering” structure
adopted by Denmark and most other countries does
not provide the guarantee and return that
Germany’s structure does, so the market has not
grown rapidly elsewhere.(Unlike the wind industry
in Denmark which grew rapidly and created the
largest wind industry because the government
policies made “home ownership” of wind
attractive.) I also found Henrik’s discussion
of the evolution of Green Tech interesting; he
contrasted the Green Tech of today with the
“Environmental Tech” of the 70s and 80s: an
Entrepreneural mentality vs. a Save the Earth
Mentality, an Economic Driven market vs. a
Regulatory driven market, a focus on high growth
industries (solar, wind, etc) vs. slow growth
industries (waste).
Before we left Danfoss Solar Henrik presented me
with a stuffed Lemur, whose actual taxanomic name
is “Microebus Danfossi”. This little guy is
one of the most efficient creatures in the animal
kingdom. When he goes into sleep mode his body
temperature drops 50% and his energy consumption
drops 40%. How it got the “Danfossi” name I
do not know, but with this company, nothing
surprises me.
Leaving Danfoss Solar we make a quick stop by
Sønderborg Værktøjsfabrik, a company that has
produced the mold for making parts for the F-35
Joint Strike Fighter aircraft. The Joint Strike
Fighter is the next generation of fighter jet
that our military has chosen for America’s
defense. Denmark is a partner in the early design
of the JSF, and certain parts of the JSF are
manufactured in Denmark. This particular part
manufactured by the Danish company Terma and is a
component of the Rolls Royce jet engine. The
Lockheed Martin-designed JSF is one of two
American planes that we hope will provide
Denmark’s next generation of fighter jet; the
other being the Boeing F-18.
With a few new riding companions from Sønderborg
Værktøjsfabrik we headed 20 km down the road
toward the Fynshav harbor and our final leg in
Jutland. The scenery of the back roads of this
area is rolling and beautiful. We were having a
very pleasant ride, and good conversation, when
we passed a Go-kart track that looked like
something I used to go to as a boy in North
Carolina. It just looked too compelling, so we
had to stop. Heading down the hill to the
“pit” area we arrived in an excited group of
about two dozen young IT engineers who were here
on a corporate outing from, where else, Danfoss.
They insisted I don the racing helmet and take one
of the go carts for a spin around the track. I
felt like Tom Christensen as I negotiated the
hair-pin turns at top speed (perhaps a little
slower than my friend Tom). As I got into the
last turn, I had to smile as I saw proudly placed
on the hill above the track the ten-foot high
letters spelling the word “HOLLYWOOD”.
A few km later, as I stood on the dock at
Fynshav peering across the Little Belt toward
Fyn, I thought…. How appropriate for my last
encounter of our highly visible, highly
successful, ReDiscovery Tour through Jutland to
be an unscheduled stop where one of America’s
most iconic and internationally recognized
symbols, greeted me. I took this as a fitting
tribute to the Spirit of friendship between
Denmark and America that I have witnessed all
over Jutland. I also took it as an invitation to
return any time I could in the future, to a land
that had treated me as a friend.