Man on a Mission - Newspaper Article

November 2005

The following article was published in The Beacon News on November 27, 2005.

Man on a Mission
by Allecia Vermillion
Staff Writer

A young man boards a train for Washington, holding a plan he truly believes can make this country great again.

This isn't a scene from an old Frank Capra movie. It's Adam Florzak's life.

Florzak is 24 years old, and hell-bent on reforming Social Security and the pension system. Most recently a welder at the Caterpillar plant in Oswego Township, Florzak never finished college, but has a formidably thorough understanding of government trust funds, effective interest rates, complex financial models and other components of the tangled maze of Social Security.

What's even more unusual — people are starting to listen.

“I'm in it for the long haul, I'm going to make it happen,” Florzak said. “Even though it's been slow, the debate keeps moving in my direction.”

At first glance, it's easy to write this young man off as a crazy. But spend a few minutes hearing what he has to say and it's tough to discredit him. Quiet intensity radiates from Florzak, even in the few photos of him on his Web site. He also has an utter comprehension of Social Security and pensions, a murky topic even for those Americans who rely on them for income.

Florzak has a prospectus, a 57-page document he says is the answer to the problems of Social Security funding and pension reform.

He penned this mission statement in 16-hour bursts when he was between jobs. Some nights he would wake up at 4 a.m., start typing and look up to see it was almost midnight. Six weeks later, he had finished his report, complete with financial models.

He discounts the doomsday models of Social Security that have made headlines this year, because “You just can't predict 75 years out. People just assume it's going bankrupt.”

Florzak hasn't let up since completing his plan in January.

The first logical step was calling his local elected officials. When that didn't work, he faxed all 535 members of Congress, one by one.

The phone company cancelled his service and Florzak estimated he got maybe four responses.

“It wasn't the most efficient means of communication,” he allowed. “But I got the job done.”

Six and a half feet tall and slim with searing blue eyes, Florzak will speak frankly, but shies away from personal topics like his parents' divorce, or his brother's service in the Army. He keeps conversations strictly information-based.

But on his Web journal, www.pactamerica.com, the occasional personal note creeps in among his tales of the sometimes slow, often frustrating quest for recognition.

Growing up, Florzak lived in Wheaton, spent a year at Oswego High School, then transferred to Yorkville. He won a scholarship to Bradley University, studying electrical engineering, but dropped out early in his junior year. He spent the next two years trading future shares, teaching himself as he went.

Florzak may not have thrived in the education system, but he learns things with a stunning thoroughness. Complex subjects like stock markets or the Social Security system are distilled with ease inside his mind.

He's not doing it for the money. One Chicago company read his proposal and offered him a job in technical writing. Florzak turned it down to focus on his Social Security activities.

“This is it; this is my thing. It's going to happen,” he said.

His Social Security education began simply enough, with articles on news station CNN's Web site. Soon Florzak had graduated to government reports and congressional budget numbers.

He took this cause up, Florzak said, when he was unemployed and thinking about the war in Iraq.

“Why is a guy with a family there and I'm over here,” he asked. Although Florzak is not a believer in the war, he felt he should be serving his country. To him, “patriotism is how well you live up to the ideals this country was founded upon.”

Social Security reform is his fight. During the past year, he's become more adept at working the system. Florzak used to begin his letters with, “my name is Adam Florzak and I'm 23 years old.” These days, he knows to downplay his age and let the ideas take center stage.

“They're doing this for my generation but they're not even listening to what I have to say,” he said.

But lately, Florzak appears to be making slow yet steady progress. It's a remarkable feat in an age where few outside the Washington Beltway understand the legislative process.

In October, Florzak spent six hours in the nation's capitol, meeting with aides for Speaker Dennis Hastert of Yorkville and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin. He spent nearly 20 hours on the train to get there.

Florzak was also en route to see his brother, Mark, graduate from Army basic training in Georgia. He had to cancel a meeting with Illinois Senator Barack Obama's office in order to make it there on time.

But it all paid off. He hopes.

Florzak is working with a member of Durbin's staff, helping him develop his proposal to submit to the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan agency that crunches economic data for Congress. He has also made tentative forays into public speaking, both in person and in recorded voice broadcasts on his Web site.

In September, he spoke at a Social Security forum open to the public. By the time Florzak took the microphone, half the audience had left, but he still made his first speech to almost 50 people, many of them three times his age.

Communicating in person “blows all that other stuff away,” he said.

Late into the night he has also begun recording his musings on a hand-made microphone stand. Listeners can download them from his Web site.

To Florzak, his age and decidedly un-powerful status aren't problems, because “I don't have an image to protect.”

Unlike many politicians, Florzak does not believe Social Security is inherently flawed. He also opposes the traditional pension system. In his opinion, failing companies often dump billions of dollars in pension debts on the federal government, and by extension, the taxpayers.

He doesn't like the idea of investing in the stock market, either. “Why should I give my money to Wall Street when Wall Street is doing everything it can to export my job,” he mused in one of his November recording sessions.

However, this sentiment has created a dilemma, as Florzak mulls over his next step.

Recently he left his job at Caterpillar. He was bored during his shifts, and couldn't stop thinking about his plan.

Now, a Chicago company has offered Florzak a job managing technology for futures trading companies.

What's a man of principles to do?

“You're saying Wall Street is so greedy but you work for their company,” he said. And yet, “I desperately need the money,” not for clothes or electronics, but to keep his project going.

This is a turning point. He's frustrated, yet undeterred.

“I don't claim to have all the answers,” he mused in a recent Internet recording.

Signing off, Florzak always uses the same tag line.

“This is Adam Florzak, keeping it real.”