Thankfully, the RNC is attracting new donors daily to the cause of electing Republicans to public office.  As we get closer to election time, it becomes increasingly important that we find ways to decrease our operating costs in order to provide more money and resources to Party-building activities and candidate support. 

As discussed in a prior Blog, I encourage energy efficiency in our office, to the point of being called a “Dad.”  We periodically send a few ideas to our employees to help reduce our expenses and conserve resources, and I wanted to share our latest tips with you:

• It's a turn-off. Shut down your computer, monitor, printer, lights, those energy hogging space heaters, and electrical equipment before leaving your office, even if it's just for a couple of hours.  Be a good neighbor and turn off any lights that neighbors may have left on after they have gone home for the day.  And neighbors don't turn against neighbors for being thoughtful enough to punch out your lights;
• Pass on handouts. Eliminate excess handouts at meetings by e-mailing copies of presentation and documents, display them on a screen during the presentation, or have them posted on the internet, intranet, a shared drive or burned to a CD. If you must have handouts, at least double-side copy them (Two Sides are Better than One!); and
• Printing panache. Before you print something or make a copy, ask yourself if you really need it. If you do print it, don't forget to pick it up--so you can avoid printing twice! Print double-sided whenever possible and print only the pages that you need. Did you know that a typical laser printer consumes as much as 600 watts of power when printing and 12 when idle?

Remember: Conserving is Conservative.

Boyd K. Rutherford
RNC Chief Administrative Officer
Former Assistant Secretary for Administration,
U.S. Department of Agriculture, and
Former Secretary, Maryland Department of General Services