Capitol Hellway Presents
an
American writer
“I write for an audience that hasn’t been born yet. I write for a generation that has not begun.”
John Stuart Edwards
a Curricula Vitae Digital Mash-up
The writings of John Stuart Edwards are intended to scratch the consciousness of humans to lean toward freedom. John Stuart Edwards is an American writer that exposed billions of dollars in waste, fraud & abuse and other violations of the law in the U.S. federal government.
In June 2023, at the age of 62, John Stuart Edwards officially retired from trying to get a job that pays the kind of money he made before being fired by the U.S. Department of Labor in 2015 for blowing the whistle on government abuse.
Delay, deny, hope you die is the government’s strategy to fight whistleblowing, and it works.
Love, art, music and golf will occupy 100 percent of his time now. God bless America.
Timeline
In the 1990’s, John Stuart Edwards retired from the Armed Forces of the United States of America. In the early 2000’s, John retired from America Online Inc. as a data scientist to become an American writer.
As a man in his early 40’s, John met his wife Cathy around the time he left AOL and decided to take his “Corporate Data Czar” title that he earned at AOL for a spin to kick off his writing research. Cathy was a stock broker at the time and she wanted to be an artist. The two decided to embark on a new journey of creativity and risk together that forever altered their understanding of just how deeply corrupt and dangerous the U.S. government had become.
At AOL, John’s ability to collect and report data was legendary. He founded and hired the entire data operation for the business, and worked with people across the industry and the world to establish the first standards and metrics for advertising on the Internet. At AOL, John developed data services that integrated advertising and sales metrics across all media platforms including magazines, newspapers and TV for advertising content and online music for over 100 brands. The business grew from zero to $2 billion per year with a $4 billion annual backlog before John left the company.
John set out on his mission after AOL to conduct investigative research secretly inside the government, and then write a story about why the U.S. government costs so much to operate and how to fix it.
John named that first book idea and website, “The Book of all Knowledge – clues for the clueless in our government.” The book was originally inspired a decade earlier by some of the work that John did during the early 1990’s when he was awarded not one, but two Hammer Awards for reinventing government systems and setting up the first Reinvention Laboratory for financial technology innovation in the Department of Defense.
After leaving AOL, John went on to spend the next 15 years conducting investigative research for his books. John’s research collecting data included ten years as a contractor and five years as a federal government employee.
Research Data Treasure Chest
Throughout the entire 15 years of research, John leveraged his database skills and knowledge of government systems to systematically gain direct approved access to every major database in the U.S. government.
John has held access to databases in the Department of Defense, including all branches of the U.S. military; NSA, CIA, FBI, FAA Air Traffic Control Network; Department of Homeland Security – E-Verify, Social Security Administration, Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board, just to name a few.
Anyone else in the world who has seen all that data and knows what it means and lived to talk about it is not around anymore. Or they are hiding.
The path John and his gorgeous wife Cathy took in their lives as a result of his research is described in this biography and will end on the day he dies.
May his writing somehow bring peace and hope to anyone who reads it.
“I want the future to know why it is not free, so when time travel is invented, humans can travel back and use the instructions I wrote to be free again.”
John Stuart Edwards
The writings of John Stuart Edwards are intended to scratch the conscientious of humans to lean toward freedom. His full archive can be accessed with the keyword #545Rule300 on any platform or database in the world, one day.
Family History
John Stuart Edwards, a.k.a. “Johnny” was born in Richmond, Virginia. In the year he was born, two U.S. Presidents gave speeches that later formed the foundation for his values and goals in life.1
“John’s Heroes” by Cathy Edwards
John’s childhood heroes were Albert Einstein, Spiderman, and General George Patton.
Read these articles to learn more about John’s proud family history:
Early Years
As an adolescent, John spent most of his time daydreaming in school. He was bored and rarely attended any classes, even skipping school on the day of exams. He did not perform well in the classroom until college where he thrived as a student and instructor. John was a fighter and he was expelled from high school on more than a few occasions for his rebellious disposition towards authority.
As a young man, John taught himself discipline by kicking and punching a duffel bag that hanged from a tree in his backyard. That soiled green bag was given to him by his oldest brother Steve who served in the Navy. John filled the bag with large chunky rocks and bricks that caused his knuckles to bleed. By the summer of his eighteenth year, the contents of that bag were pulverized into sand and John’s fists were as dangerous as brass knuckles.
During his formative years, John was a student athlete and boxer. Growing up in Richmond Virginia, John worked in many entry level jobs including running concession stands, delivering newspapers, shingling roofs, mowing lawns and working in restaurants as a dishwasher, bus boy or cook.
After high school, John went on to work as a ‘selector’ at The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company warehouse in Richmond, Virginia where he loaded large trucks with food and merchandise for delivery to stores. It was a good union job that his brother Steve had once held. The job paid extremely well too! Life was good.
God, Country, Corps
When fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were taken hostage in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979, John and his best friends Randall and Chip decided to join the U.S. military to defend their country against terrorists and fight Russians in the Cold War.
Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island South Carolina
a.k.a. Hell on Earth
Series Honor Graduate
Lance Corporal John Stuart Edwards with Senior Drill Instructor Gunnery Sergeant M. Kalnas
Randall Wade Fleming and John Stuart Edwards attended boot camp together at Parris Island, South Carolina on the “Buddy Program” and graduated in Platoon 2013.
During recruit training, John scored exceptionally high on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) tests. He was then tested at 163 on the IQ test, and went on to master every aspect of recruit training including leadership, martial arts, physical conditioning, weapons and tactics. In the final week of training, John was interviewed by the National Security Agency and offered a job. He graduated from boot camp as the platoon and series honor graduate and was awarded the rank of Lance Corporal (E-3). All the operational assignments while “deployed” that John participated in during his 20 year career are classified top secret.
After his first tour of duty at Camp Lejeune and deployment overseas where he was twice meritoriously promoted, John returned to Parris Island as a Drill Instructor in B Company, 1st Recruit Training Battalion.
At only 20 years old, John was the youngest Marine Corps Drill Instructor at Parris Island ever as a Sergeant. He was later meritoriously promoted again to Staff Sergeant (E6) two years later at age 22 prior to successfully completing his tour as a U.S. Marine Corps Drill Instructor. John’s promotion to Staff Sergeant prior to leaving the drill field occurred on the anniversary of his first four years in the Marine Corps, the minimum time required for that promotion to the day.
After the drill field, John returned to the 2d Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina where his son Robert was born, and then transferred to the 3rd Marine Division in Okinawa Japan for a few years where his second son, Bryan was born.
During his second tour at Camp Lejeune, John was selected by the J. Walter Thompson (JWT) advertising agency to be the “poster-child” for the United States Marine Corps.
“The Making of a Marine” calendar featuring John’s picture in the center appeared in recruiting advertisements and posters around the world.
After many “deployments” around the world and being commissioned an officer, John finally retired from the Corps. Carrying with him to civilian life was a briefcase full of medals, degrees, and citations that tell very exciting stories about his experiences while serving in the Corps and working for the National Security Agency.
John Stuart Edwards also carried fond memories of the incredible people that he knew in the Corps when he retired, and John always had a very high level of enthusiasm at Marine Corps Birthday celebrations, during his service – and after he retired.
Return to the Private Sector
Despite all the medals and awards he received while serving in the military, John always said that this short article written by civil servants meant the most to him.
Throughout his life, John always held this article up as the greatest recognition he ever received. He said that he always felt that the work he did in the early 1990’s at DFAS for his unclassified day job prepared him to be able to stand up to power.
After he left the Marines, John wanted to get away from the government so he took a job in the private sector working for America Online (AOL). For several years at AOL, John designed, built and led the data analytics and reporting organizations for the new interactive advertising business and AOL Broadband.
Yes, believe it or not there was a time when the Internet had no advertising. New York Madison Avenue agency sharks called it “Interactive Advertising” and it was off to the races. Hundreds of millions of dollars began to flood in and no one knew what the hell they were doing. It was an oftentimes frantic, and always an exhilarating race.
John developed creative new ways to collect data, track and measure visitors, impressions and clicks, and helped build AOL’s online brands while driving over one billion visitors to new eCommerce destinations on the web each day.
Google and Facebook – two huge companies that didn’t exist when AOL was on top, are profitable because the online advertising industry was created. Without online advertising, try to imagine what the Internet would look like today?
During his time at AOL, John says that he experienced the speed of true innovation and felt each year working there was like a dog year – 24/7 and 365 days a year.
As the first Data Czar for the company, John integrated algorithmic intelligence into the company’s data logging and reporting systems based on business performance questions to derive answers. To accomplish this, John used the knowledge equation he developed and later published in 2004.
The Knowledge Equation K=(q-a)/t
Knowledge = the total sum of the thoughts and experiences between a question and its answer over time
John testified as an expert witness for online advertising performance during an SEC investigation and before the grand jury prior to his departure from the company. The crimes involved allegations that his boss made to the media in a 2002 article.
Read the article
Unconventional Transactions Boosted Sales for more about the origins of the SEC investigation.
When John left AOL in 2003, the online advertising business had grown from nothing to more than $2 billion per year in gross revenue and the number of AOL subscribers in the United States hit its peak at just over 26 million dial-up modem subscribers.
For his work there, John received an award from the Interactive Advertising Bureau for developing the first industry standards and guidelines for advertising on the World Wide Web.
After the dotcom bubble burst and the stock market crashed, John became interested in researching military software acquisitions and modernization in the federal government. John took his AOL experience and bundled it with the Top Secret security clearance he held in the Marines to create his own brand of government software development – the IMIE.
John began his research as the Chief Information Officer at MVM Security Services and CGH Technologies;
and then was Senior Technical Director for Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).
John performed sophisticated leadership and management experiments in order to discover the most effective ways to improve processes, services, operations and reduce wasteful spending using technology at the Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Defense, Department of the Army and the DoD Business Transformation Agency as a contractor. In 2007, John was part of the team that received the Computerworld Honors Program’s 21st Century Achievement Award for the Best Data Mart in Education and Academia for his work at the Defense Acquisition University.
In 2008, John left SAIC to build another business after vesting from the 2006 IPO, and within ten months had a $30 million contract award and had hired ten employees on the job and growing. To lure John back to the company along with his new contracts, SAIC showered John with stock, bonuses, a base salary way over the top and full tuition to the doctoral program at MIT with all expenses paid to attend classes in Boston with his wife in a hotel sightseeing during the day. The life John and Cathy Edwards were living was the American dream.
For the year 2010, John Stuart Edwards was named as one of SAIC’s top 100 employees throughout the company (SAIC had 41,000 employees nationwide) and received the Technology Development and Analysis Annual Achievement Award which is the highest honor that the company bestows for its technical employees.
In April 2011, John was appointed as Charter Member of SAIC’s Technical Review Board for Homeland and Civilian Solutions.
AND THEN EVERYTHING CHANGED
In May 2011, John Stuart Edwards’ research was yielding award winning results until the day he reported fraud by his company to the Inspector General of the Department of Defense.
The life that John & Cathy Edwards had built together got flipped upside down, shaken, and then utterly destroyed.
John Stuart Edwards uncovered nearly $1 Billion in fraud by his employer, the powerful defense & intelligence contractor Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).
The experience of being a Whistleblower and being retaliated against was so profound that it forever altered John’s purpose in life. So much so, that several years later he published “My Manifesto” – an instruction manual to save the world from government tyranny fueled by greed and the military industrial complex.
Read related public articles-
Hill Encourages DoD IG to Protect Contractor Whistleblowers
KMB Client Awaits DoD IG Response to Bipartisan Request for Change
DoD IG Pledges to Better Protect Contractor Whistleblowers
Public Service
In late 2011 after leaving SAIC, John created a video to explain his philosophy about how the federal government could modernize legacy information systems and reduce federal technology costs. This was his call to public service. That video, called “HOW TO CUT DEFENSE SPENDING RIGHT NOW” can be watched here.
Making the decision in 2012 to leave the private sector to serve his country again, John became a federal civilian employee working at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.
At DHS in May 2012, John was hired as the Lead Modernization Architect for the national E-Verify system to design and modernize that system for comprehensive immigration reform.
E-Verify is an Internet-based system that compares information from an employee’s Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9 to data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration to confirm employment eligibility. E-Verify’s most impressive features today are its speed and accuracy. E-Verify is the only free, fast, online service of its kind that verifies employees’ data against millions of government records and provides results within seconds.
Read the article “CENSUS “Executive Order” is a THREAT to FREEDOM” for John’s latest views about this system.
After comprehensive immigration reform legislation stalled in Congress in late 2013, John transferred to the U.S. Department of Labor to be the Director of Enterprise Solutions. At Labor, John executed the acquisition and modernization of all national apprenticeship and grants management systems to comply with the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA).
WIOA consolidated all job training programs into a single funding stream. When John arrived, for example, there were more than seventy stove piped grants reporting systems.
The WIOA legislation was signed into law by President Obama on July 22, 2014. John’s “Green Monster” architecture was approved, acquired and implemented by carefully migrating on-premise hosting of legacy Cold Fusion and Java applications that were scattered across poorly maintained servers and databases, into secure AWS commercial cloud platforms powered by Appian Business Process Management Software that was integrated seamlessly with Apache-Spark and Elastic MapReduce / Hadoop data factories on the back-end.
Despite an extraordinary level of achievement, John was abruptly removed from this position on November 1, 2015, because he blew the whistle on discrimination against African American employees by senior executives at the Department of Labor. The entire case file is posted online:
In April 2016 John transferred again, this time to a small government agency where he was in charge of modernizing all the agency’s case management, imaging, reporting and data warehouse technologies. John led and engineered a major IDIQ technology labor contract acquisition that was awarded in March 2017. During his short tenure at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), John exposed more than $10 million in wasteful spending by the CIO, contract fraud at the agency by long-tenured officials, discrimination against Veterans, and tampering with official government records by senior agency officials including the Inspector General and FOIA Officer.
Read the Series “Corruption at the National Labor Relations Board” to see how John won his lawsuit against corrupt NLRB government executives.
An American Writer
After blowing the whistle and being retaliated against by the NLRB, John Edwards had enough and left the U.S. federal government in June 2017, to write and spend more time with his beautiful and talented wife Cathy – the artist in the family.
John says he believes the federal government needs more people with integrity who will put the country before their own self interest.
The key to any reform in the federal government is fostering a workforce that does not fear retaliation for simply suggesting improvements. For example, federal technology spending is huge, passing $100 billion per year for the first time in 2019. That means the incentives for corrupt government officials to conceal waste, fraud and abuse and retaliate freely against Whistleblowers is so great in federal agencies today that it has totally infected the entire federal enterprise.
John believes the U.S. needs anti-retaliation laws that make the consequences of willful retaliation by government officials, including politicians, so severe that no one in government is willing to risk it. Only then will citizens have an open government that is free from the perils of corrupt federal bureaucrats that destroy people’s lives.
Capitol Hellway Media Company LLC
Incentivised by the tax cuts signed by President Trump in 2017, John decided to peek outside of retirement and create a media company. In 2017, the Capitol Hellway Media Company was formed as a Florida Domestic Limited-Liability Company.
The mission of the new company is to develop a platform that increases citizen awareness of public policy.
The goal is to discover creative and bold new ways to deliver actionable information to the public.
By leveraging the new company as a platform for his experiments, John is currently working on several multi-year projects including one to publish his research.
To help the company accomplish its mission and achieve its goal, John has immersed himself inside three distinct writing personalities: he is a journalist writing articles; an author writing books; and a freelance writer solving problems… you can read more about John’s writing projects here.
John has also developed a comprehensive business plan that looks out into the year 2100 and beyond.
Successful media companies in the 21st Century need a much higher level of thought and intelligence and imagination than is presently seen in the popular media in the 21st century. We are living in a time when demand for quality information is rising at the same time government bureaucrats, politicians and corporations are being more restrictive in the amount of quality information they provide.
The solution to this problem demands the creative mind – artists and writers and inventors and entrepreneurs and many other experts working together to restore the faith that is being lost today in our Constitutional form of government, and hopefully begin to restore cultural integrity through an informed and knowledgeable citizenry who each possess complete freedom of thought and speech. If freedom is ever lost, perhaps John’s writing can be a guide.
Each of John’s writing personalities also has its own unique purpose, approach and perspective which makes life interesting.
And each personality participated in writing this bio. Can you tell? 😉
Capitol Hellway Media Company
A Free Media Company in Naples Florida