A River Of Waste
Don McCorkell - Director
Don McCorkell has launched his fourth career as a documentary filmmaker, having previous successful careers in business, politics and law. He is the President of Tumbleweed Arts, LLC, Sequoyah Capital and Development, LLC and McCorkell Investment Company. Prior to his work as a filmmaker, McCorkell was a principal partner in the development of two major electric power plants in Oklahoma, one in Kiowa, which was the largest private development project in Oklahoma and another in Jenks, Oklahoma. A former senior member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, McCorkell earned a reputation as an innovative reform legislator during his eighteen years of service.
McCorkell who earned a BA in political science from the University of Tulsa in 1969 received his J.D., also from TU in December 1973. He is certified as an Economic Development Finance Professional and as a Mediator. He has been a member of the Oklahoma Bar Association since April 1974.
McCorkell led the effort to design Oklahoma's Economic Development strategy in his position as Chairman of the House Economic Development Committee. He authored the Bond Oversight Act and served as chairman of Oklahoma's Bond Oversight Commission for ten years. He authored the innovative Quality Jobs Act as well as the Economic Development Act, which created the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology (OCAST), Oklahoma Futures, the Oklahoma Development Finance Authority and the Oklahoma Capital Investment Board (OCIB), which established a venture capital industry in the state. He was the principal author of a wide variety of major pieces of legislation including the Workers Compensation Reform Act which brought managed care to the Oklahoma Workers Compensation System and enacted several other reforms that have resulted in significant cost savings to companies in the state.
McCorkell earned a reputation as a major advocate of education reform, sponsoring legislation providing for education deregulation and reform of teacher education and licensure. He also led efforts in nursing home reform, guardianship reform, and major legislation restructuring of the state's services for children as well as being the author of major ethics legislation, and environmental legislation.
He served in the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 1978-1996. In the past, he has served as chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee, the Constitutional Revision and Regulatory Services Committee, The Juvenile Justice and Domestic Relations Committee, the Special Committee on Aging and the Special Committee on Capital Improvements.
And if that isn't enough, he served on such community boards as the Tulsa County Mental Health Association and Youth Services of Tulsa as well as on the Coalition for Community Development and on the Greater Tulsa Council, which he chaired from 1973-1974.