Again: this was in San Diego. As a high school student in the Philly suburbs, I couldn’t imagine an anti-recruiting campaign succeeding at my school, where muscular recruiters would set up their propaganda shop in the cafeteria and be fawned over as bad-ass heroes by 14 year olds (thank goodness they were just selling militarism, not cigarettes). But these students succeeded in the heart of imperial beast. Pretty impressive.

The trustees made their decision to honor Seau’s legacy and preserve the memories of the excitement, fun and warmth that were the hallmarks of the restaurant during the famed linebacker’s lifetime. Without Seau’s charismatic leadership, it was felt that the future profitability of the restaurant could be in question.

Hey, San Diego: Our California denim adventure kicks off with you tomorrow at Fashion Valley Mall from 12-5pm. Swing by and say hi.

DeMaio thought of a way to answer these questions. And he had a powerful audience.

He believed that Congress could use the law as a tool to reward programs that worked and take money away from programs that didn’t.

DeMaio said he brought this idea to the attention of big names in the Republican leadership: House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Majority Leader Dick Armey and Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and then one of Armey’s top aides.

Armey and the GOP began wielding the law as a political hammer. They handed out failing grades to numerous federal agencies, saying the departments weren’t living up to their promises or measuring the right things. They threatened to cut funding.

DeMaio became one of the Republican leadership’s salesmen.

He started appearing in newspaper articles on the law’s growing influence. He pitched congressional staff and agency leaders on the importance of performance measurement.

But soon, DeMaio realized he was spending less of his time telling bureaucrats what the party wanted and more on how they could do it.

Another idea came to him.

“I could do a training course on this,” DeMaio said. “I could charge people money for it.

He did. By then it was 1998, three-and-a-half years after the law first hit his desk and two years after he graduated college. Government types showed up to his first conference, held in a Northern Virginia DoubleTree Hotel ballroom, for a general overview of performance measures and training.

Then he held another one a year later on environmental management. More government types showed up. Soon after, DeMaio incorporated his conferences into a company he called The Performance Institute.

“He entered an empty field and declared himself the best in the field,” said Jonathan Breul, head of the IBM Center for The Business of Government and leader of a coalition that includes DeMaio’s former company.

The Performance Institute’s success depended on the government’s largesse.

The government had to be willing to send workers to the company’s conferences, and hire the company to do training and consulting. To reap that reward, DeMaio had to make a major transformation after leaving the Congressional Institute, where he had done the bidding of the Republican leadership. He turned from partisan soldier into nonpartisan good government advocate.

DeMaio positioned himself the same way that he started in San Diego. By just showing up.