Another case of resume inflation?

By now most people around Garrett County are at least somewhat familiar with the name Jon E. Boone, especially if they've ever browsed the local letters to the editor. Mr. Boone has, from the beginning, been one of the most outspoken critics of wind energy development in Garrett County and other locales. Oddly, however, each time I've seen something written about Mr. Boone I've also seen a differing account of his career at the University of Maryland. Sometimes he is listed as a retired administrator, other times as a PhD or former Professor. I've even read on a Deep Creek real estate blog that he was a PhD and an expert on wind turbines. As such, I have tried numerous times to verify via online search his supposed credentials and his former position at the university. Whether any of these make him an expert is not for me to decide, but I do feel that intentionally misstating one's own credentials (or even knowingly allowing false claims to be perpetuated) speaks to the lengths someone might go to achieve their goals or raise their opinion above another opinion. Some might even consider it fraud.

All I have been able to find is that Mr. Boone obtained a BA from the University of Maryland in 1967 and that he was at one time an Assistant Dean in the Department of Arts and Humanities. No records I have found indicate he ever earned a PhD or the title of Professor at the University of Maryland, as supposed in numerous anti-wind propaganda websites and this Baltimore Sun blog for example. I have asked the authors of this blog to verify their information and, if necessary, print a correction. If Mr. Boone is, in fact, inflating his own resume, one can only wonder what other claims may be inflated as well. Buyer beware.

Here is a link to a UMD faculty and administrators directory (apparently from 1995-1996) which I recovered online. By searching this document (ctrl-F makes it easy, then just type Boone) you will find the following on Mr. Boone:

Boone, Jon E. Acting Director, Music; Assistant Dean,
College of Arts and Humanities; B.A., University of
Maryland-College Park, 1967.

All others who are Professors or PhDs are listed as such, while Mr. Boone strangely enough is not. And this comes directly from the records of his former employer near the end of his career, not second hand from a blog or an anti-wind website. Furthermore, Mr. Boone claims to have retired from his position as administrator at the University of Maryland after a 30-year career which assuming he began this career when he completed his BA in 1967 brings us to 1997. Then in 2006, in his Wayward Wind speech, Mr. Boone noted that he had been retired to Garrett County for a period of nine years which fits perfectly with the previous 1997 date. A bit too perfectly as it turns out for Mr. Boone, since this timeline seems to leave him no time in which to complete a PhD. The same PhD he seems to be quite comfortable allowing others to claim he has obtained. Quite compelling, but if I have erred and jumped to conclusions, Mr. Boone has my apologies, otherwise I feel the people of Garrett County deserve an explanation because either something doesn't add up or we have been lied to by many of Mr. Boone's cohorts. Absent a plausible explanation for all of this I feel that Mr. Boone and his anti-wind cohorts have lost all credibility. Tell us, Mr. Boone, what is the real truth?

A sampling of websites listing Jon Boone as a PhD:

http://www.batr.org/citizenpoweralliance/whitepapers.html

http://www.ninapierpont.com/pdf/Boone,_Wayward_Wind.pdf

http://www.wind-watch.org/alerts/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/droz-windpowerreferences2.pdf

http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/pdfs/JohnDrozWindOpponentOnWindPower.pdf


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