With the Council of Stellar Management (CSM) Elections coming up soon we at EVE NT have contacted all the running candidates who have announced their intentions to run and provided them with a standardised interview template. The goal of this is to give each candidate a set of standard questions for them to respond to with the aim of helping you, the voter, to choose a candidate who best represents you and your play style to CCP. The same questions have been asked of every candidate as to allow easier comparison. The responses posted are unedited and will be published in the run up to the opening of the voting period on February the 29th in the order that they have been received.
Today's candidate is Tom Gerard.
 
1. Please start by giving us a short introduction to who you are and your history within EVE Online. Include how long you have been playing and the groups you have been involved with.
I started playing EVE on March 20th, 2010.
My affiliations
-Providence Residents
-Syndicate Pirates
-PC Gamer
-Rock Paper Shotgun
-Huzzah Federation
-Red Vs Blue
-CFC combat pilot
-High Sec Bear
-Imperium Null Bears
-BOVRIL bOREers Mining CO-OP [BOVRL]
 
2. Who would you consider to be your key constituents? Who you would best represent within the playerbase?
High-Security carebears, who have made a very well calculated decision to remain in high-sec with +5 implants to maximize their skill point gains.
 
3. Please summarise your platform. (Preferably using key bullet points)
Eliminate the skillpoint advantage of staying in high-sec in +5 implants.
This is the one and only point I would like to hammer home, the rest is just my personal opinions and those would not benefit the EVE community as a whole.
 
4. Why have you decided to run for CSM this year?
My entire purpose for seeking a CSM position is to be the voice for the Skillpoint Minmaxing crowd. This is an important constituency that currently has no champions.
 
5. Have you run for or been a member of CSM in the past? If so please list each year and if you were elected.
No, I have never been passionate about a topic enough to raise my voice, In general I feel the past CSM members have done an excellent job, and this game is better for their contributions.
 
6. What makes you a unique representative when you compare yourself to other candidates?
I am a casual, and a carebear. Neither of these communities have been well represented in the past, but they are very large communities that deserve representation.
 
7. Do you have any out of game experience and skills that make you a good candidate?
I am a United States Navy veteran, so I understand the value of good leadership, and even better the value of falling in line behind a leader who can better achieve success.
 
8. What areas of EVE are you weakest at knowledge wise?
Wormholes and their nearly mandatory POS mechanics, I have spent many great evenings day tripping into them but due to my casual status I am unable to set up a POS tower to really claim residency or even basic proficiency in wormhole life.
 
9. If you were offered unlimited development time - what's the biggest change you would lobby for in EVE?
An alternative to learning implants, they do too much to encourage players to remain in high-sec with high grade implants rather than going out into the wilds with their friends, I have made this mistake time and time again.
 
10. If you could wind back the clock - what feature or change would you remove from EVE?
Nothing, EVE is a constantly changing world, a wise capsuleer once said ?Adapt or Die?. EVE's ups and downs are part of what makes it a unique and vibrant place to play. The most infamous moment in EVE's history was also it's greatest, ?Monoclegate?
 
11. If you could pick one candidate to be elected with you who would they be and why?
Gorski Car, he is biased, he is opinionated, and he has no fear when speaking out of turn. He has made great contributions to EVE that keep me ?in the universe? even when away from my PC.
 
12. What is your favourite memory in EVE and why?
We had assembled inside the shields of our staging POS ready to engage hostiles a few jumps out, but were treated to an amazing speech over comms instead as lone archon warped 100km off the shields and the FC shouted over comms with zealous passion?
?I give my soul willingly to the Blood God!?
As he shouted a blood-red Avatar warped on grid and annihilated his Archon, his doomsdayer, one of our new directors in a Avatar-Class Titan named 'the Blood God?
The corporation that had taken its first steps with Brave Newbies had walked the path and found friendship and comradery with one of the most veteran organizations in EVE, Razor Alliance.
 
13. What platform(s) do you use currently to engage with the wider player base? If someone wanted to contact you what is the best way to do this? (Include Twitter/Emails/Skype/Slack etc.)
EVEmail should be the origin of all communications, but I am open to all communication formats.
 
14. If people wanted to find out more about your platform - where is the best place to do so? (Include blogs, forums posts and podcasts)
The Official EVE forums are the best place to stay updated on my platform.
 
15. In short - what is your closing statement (no more than 500 words please!)
I am willing to concede and endorse another candidate with a greater chance of winning if they hold the same values, if I don't need to win the popularity contest to see the needed changes make it to Tranquillity, so much the better. But the people who these changes would benefit need a voice, and I will campaign until their concerns can be heard.