Chapter 36

Macklinson's had four major baking plants, with their head offices located between the cities of Birmingham and Bessemer, in Alabama. The plant just outside Tupelo, Mississippi, was their newest and best. The other three plants, located in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, were older, and much less productive.

There were four hundred employees, not counting their sales and delivery staff, who were all independent sub-contractors. These independent contractors were all using their own delivery vehicles for their product deliveries and wholesale distribution.

This last circumstance explained how Macklinson's had been able to penetrate their rural market areas so thoroughly. They didn't sell to retail accounts, only to wholesale delivery jobbers. That wouldn't work in a heavily built up urban area, too cost intensive.

These route drivers were all independent, owning their own delivery territories, often passing them down to other members of their families, or even selling them outright to another would be route operator. For years, this method of commerce had been unworkable throughout most of America. Somehow, in that part of the South, it had managed to hang on and function quite well. It was a throwback to another era, but it was undeniably working well enough for the Macklinson's.

It took me only a very short time to realize that people in the South valued personal business relationships more than they cared about costs. It wasn't the most cost efficient method of distribution, but it was one that had stood the test of time, within the rural Southern region of the country.

Another difference was the regional variation there was in the taste of the products sold. Bread produced in Tallahassee, Florida was made a little heavier, with a sweeter flavored taste. In Atlanta, Georgia, it was lighter, with more of a flour taste. The bread from Tupelo was saltier tasting, and heavier, because the yeast being used was not so high rising.

The Macklinson's understood all their various markets. They knew what was needed, and they gave their customers what they'd always been used to getting. This explained why they had been so successful in retaining their rural markets. In urban areas, the customer loyalty wasn't as strong, and the regional taste differences were more homogenized. In the cities, bread was bread. Sell one type for a nickel less than your competitor, and your market share would rise.

Emily and I flew into Birmingham, on a Tuesday morning in early October. I had already met all the various Macklinson uncles, brothers, and cousins during my earlier asset appraisal trip. Emily was excited to be the first to accompany me to accomplish the task my father had assigned to me.

Joyce had found us a furnished house to live in, just outside Birmingham. There were also two automobiles that came with it. The owners of the house and cars were a married couple, two doctors, who had gone off on a two year medical missionary project to Ghana.

Joyce had gotten Frank Clooney to make a substantial donation to their aid program, which resulted in our having the free use of their home, furnishings, and transportation, while they were away. I never knew how Joyce managed to come up with something like that, but she did. It was money given to a good cause, and it carried some good tax advantages for us also.

We took a taxi out to our new home, arriving at just before nine in the morning. After a very brief inspection of the house and grounds, I took the recent model Oldsmobile the couple had left, and headed towards the Macklinson's offices.

Emily was left with the job of putting all of our things away, going out to the stores, stocking the house with some groceries, and anything else we'd need while we were staying in Alabama.

The first day at the new offices was frantic. Everyone was worried about what was going to happen to them, wondering how the new ownership of the company was going to affect their families and their lives.

Gene Macklinson was the middle brother in his family. Larry was the oldest, Phil the youngest, and their sister, Patricia, came somewhere between Larry and Phil in age.

Gene was tall, about six feet two, with a balding head of brown hair, and large boned frame that was well started down the path towards being heavy. He looked strong, but it also looked like he had gotten a little soft from spending too much time sitting behind a desk. Cindy favored her father in her facial features. They looked a lot better on her than they did on him. She must have taken after her mother in size though. Cindy was only about five four.

Larry had balding hair too, with a large, pronounced, beak of a nose. He gave off an air of impatience with everyone he came into contact with. Unlike either of his brothers, Larry was on the short side, no more than five eight or so. Phil was almost as tall as Gene, but he had a full head of dark red hair, and appeared to be in good physical condition. Phil seemed to lack possessing any convictions of his own. In the time I'd known him, he'd never expressed any opinions, other than to say he thought he could go along with whatever the group ended up deciding.

I was taken to Gene's office first, walking in to find him gathering up his personal things, placing them into several cardboard boxes he had resting on top of his office desk. He was packing up to vacate his office in favor of me.

"Are you moving somewhere, Gene?"

"Just down the hall, Kenny. This is a better office for you. It has all the phone lines you'll need, and everything comes directly to here before being sent out to all the other departments."

"What did my father tell you I'd be doing down here, Gene?"

"He said you were coming down to figure out the best way to get things back running well again. Said you'd be reporting to him, by phone, daily."

"Well, that's how my Dad talks. He didn't mean I'd be running things. He sent me down here to find out what you need to get the most out of your operations. You show me how you do things, and I'll help you get whatever you need to make it work better. I'm the one who's supposed to see what you want to do, then I tell him, just so he knows it fits in with our plans too."

"You want me to stay in here then? Where do you want to have your office?"

"I don't need an office. I'm here to find out how your family runs things down here. I'll be going out and talking to people, looking around, poking my nose into things. If I have any questions about how things are being done, I'll ask the people doing them. If I'm curious about the why of it, why it's being done a certain way, I'll probably bring those questions straight to you. It looks to me like a lot of your people are worried that I've come here to make a lot of changes. They seem afraid of me for some reason. I'm not here to cut back on anything. We want to add to things, to grow bigger and better, not to take anything away from what you already have now."

"I tell people that, Kenny. Larry's a pessimist, and people see him going around moping about things. They just picked up on how he's been looking worried, ever since before we sold out to you, so they're worried too. Is it true that you're changing the name of the company?"

I wondered who had started that rumor. With every acquisition we'd ever made, we'd left the company name intact. People liked doing business with the same people they had been, over the years. Put a new name on an old company, and it lessened customer loyalty to their products.

"This will always be Macklinson's, Gene. We don't go in and change names like that. You had a problem with capital, not with customer loyalty, or name recognition. We want to grow your company, not change the name of it."

"Well, strictly speaking, it isn't really our company anymore, is it?"

"That's another thing my father sent me here to find out. When we bought out Rob Lucas, he and his daughter, Virginia, stayed on, and the people who worked there, they didn't have any problem with the kinds of changes we made. Today, it's still the Lucas Company, only now, it's five times as big as it was when we first bought it, and there are several hundred more employees. Virginia runs the whole company for us, and Rob is in charge of our national sales program. They both make a lot more money for themselves than they did when they were the actual owners. We helped them, and they helped us. We were hoping it would work like that here."

"This has always been a family business. People are used to us giving the orders. They don't know any other way. It won't be the same if you people come in here and start making wholesale changes right away."

"It's still a family business. We aren't planning on changing that. The biggest difference is that you won't have to be the one who's always running around, with your hat in your hand, looking for the money to do what you need to do. That's my Dad's job now, and he's good at it. We want you to show us how to make money from servicing the small towns, and we'll use our own techniques to take care of all the larger markets. There's no reason why we can't both be better off working together now."

"How do you want us to get started with doing that? Making things better. Are we supposed to just keep on doing what we've been doing?"

"You need to start making a list of what you'd have done if you'd had the money to do it before. Show me how each thing you want to do improves the company's long term profitability. I'll talk to my Dad when I go back home, and then he'll tell you what he decides to do, and why. He might not be convinced on everything, but, after you show him you're right most of the time, you'll find he's a lot easier to convince."

"Just like that?"

"That's how we do it with all our companies. The people that run the companies usually know best about what they need. If we agree with them, my Dad comes up with the money. If we find that our investment keeps making more money, why wouldn't we continue wanting to grow it? For us, if it works, and it makes us money, we want to do as much of it as we possibly can. My father believes in reinvesting his profits to make new profits. We don't have to take out money to live on, or to pay dividends to our investors."

"Do you really have four wives, and a whole passel of kids? Cindy said you have two colored girls living with you too." Gene's face had turned red when he asked me the questions. I felt mine turning red while I floundered around, looking for an answer to give him. Cindy had told me before she left to go back to Birmingham that she wasn't going to mention my personal living situation to her family. I felt a little bit betrayed.

"I have twelve children, Gene, by four different women. These are all women that I love dearly. As far as the colored girls, I guess you're referring to Eddie and Dale Pipkin. Yes, they live with us, and yes, they are both black women. They are very close personal friends of my entire family, not just me. In time, you'll meet all of my family. I seldom travel without at least a few of them with me."

Gene just looked at me, nodding, then shaking his head side to side. His eyes plainly showed he thought I was crazy, but he didn't come right out and say so.

"I was married to Cindy's mama for twenty six years, before she turned me loose. It wasn't a moment too soon neither. We liked to have killed each other before the parting. That experience ruined all women for me. I can't imagine trying to juggle so many at once, like you apparently are doing, or think of where you find the time and energy for doing all that. You best be careful around my Cindy, boy, because, unless I'm reading the signs all wrong, she's set her cap on joining up with those other girls too. You don't look like the kind to want so much of that female attention either. Why do you think all those women set such a high store by you?"

"I couldn't say. It has me baffled too, but I'm grateful that they do. It wasn't something I set out to do, it just seemed to work out best that way. You need to speak with Joyce about this if you need to ask any more questions. Is my personal life a matter of general knowledge down here?"

"I wouldn't say general, but it isn't exactly a secret either. I listened in to some phone conversations Cindy was having with one of your women. She kept pestering her with questions about you. You have to get to know Cindy before you can understand how unusual it is for her to show any kind of interest at all in a man. Her mama and me, well, let's just say we have given up on the idea of seeing any grand babies coming from our Cindy."

From how he said that last, I got the distinct impression he was telling me that his daughter was gay. I almost laughed. I hoped it was true, although I didn't believe it, not from the reaction we'd each had to the other. I looked at him for another minute, waiting to see if he'd say anything else.

"We ready to talk some business, Gene? How can we make the quickest progress towards us starting to make some money down here?"

"You aren't offended are you, Kenny? I didn't mean to rile you up about any of this. I just wanted to make you aware of the lay of the land down here. That girl means the world to me, and to her mama too. Laura Lee counts my daughter as the main reason the sun rises in the morning."

"I'll try to stay clear of her. I don't need any further complications in my life either."

"I'll just say! Don't expect you'll have too much success keeping clear of her though. According to what she told me, she expects to have you and your wife over for supper tonight. I'm supposed to bring the two of you home with me. She said it was all set up, from the time before you left Kansas this morning."

"This is the first I've heard of it. I'll have to check with Emily when I get back to the house. She didn't say anything about a dinner invitation."

Gene and I spent the remainder of the morning going over the inner details of his business operation. It appeared to be almost totally unstructured. The distribution network seemed unable to coordinate with the production people. Drivers would call in their next day's orders before three in the afternoon. That seemed to be the sum total of all planning. I didn't see how an efficient production schedule could be formulated with so little lead time.

"Kenny, this is how we've always done it. They tell us what they need, and we sell it to them. Some products, we don't bake daily, but with most of them, we need to bake through the night. We start loading for delivery at three in the morning around here. Four o'clock in Tupelo. Tallahassee and Atlanta, they load all through the night. Each driver comes by at whatever time he chooses to get started on his day."

"How do you keep track of production volume that way? You can't be getting the maximum capacity out of any of your ovens with this kind of a baking schedule. This isn't like any other baking operation I've ever seen. Do you ever bake any planned overruns?"

"Why would we do that? It defeats the whole purpose of how we operate. They tell us what they're buying, and we make it up for them. That's the best way we know."

"That might be the best way for your route drivers, but it isn't anywhere near the best way for your production people. It costs as much to bake with a half full oven as it does to bake with a full one. There is the same wear and tear on the equipment too."

Gene looked like he was getting upset. He'd been in the baking business since before I'd been born. I knew he was thinking that I probably had no idea about what I was telling him.

I knew he was wrong if that was what he was thinking. I knew our bakeries were a lot more efficient than his were, and that it was this efficiency that made the difference in our bottom line. Macklinson's seemed to be working for their route drivers benefit, not for their own.

I thought that way right up until the time when I first saw the prices they were charging the route drivers. After I saw those, I quickly changed my mind.

Obviously, the economics of bread and bakery goods sales were very different down in the South. Their drivers paid about the same price as what we charged our larger chain grocery stores, and they were handling all the distribution costs themselves.

I knew right away that Macklinson's profitability would shoot right through the roof, once they adopted our more efficient production methods. All we had to do was handle the distribution of any excess production this greater efficiency caused.

"Kenny, you can't come in here and expect to change things in a hurry. We have our own ways down here. They work for us, or else we wouldn't have kept them all this time."

"No, you're absolutely right, Gene. I'm not going to change a thing about your distribution system. I can see now why its always worked so well for you. The only change I want to make is in your baking operations. From now on, no matter what your immediate needs are, I want the ovens full whenever you bake up any run. We'll find a way to sell off the excess this creates."

"Well, you're the boss, but it seems like you're just going to get killed by the cost of the day old products. You aren't going to ask us to start selling stale goods, are you? We won't do that. Our name goes on every package and loaf that leaves our bakery plants."

"Gene, we can sell whatever you bake. We're opening in forty cities in this region, in the next month or so. We'll max out all your ovens, just to help feed the new distribution channel needs. We'll keep your brand name on your breads and goods, and then supplement that with our own brands too. We bake different flavors than you, so yours will just fill another niche for us. People have different tastes. In the bigger cities, those who like your bread will willingly pay a little extra for it. The chains don't care, not as long as we buy back any unsold overstock."

I left Gene at around three, taking my own, private, tour of the plant. As with the plants I was familiar with from our own companies, there was a lot to be learned by walking around and speaking with the employees that did all the real work. I saw a lot of inefficiencies, the kinds of things that went by, unnoticed, except to a well trained eye.

I also saw a lot of improvements on the way we did our own plant operations. Shortcuts that made more sense, as soon as you noticed them being implemented. I saw overhead conveyor belts for the first time in that old Alabama plant.

There were lifts from the ovens that raised the baked goods higher, so the trays could be off loaded and conveyed over to the packaging and loading areas. As soon as I saw it, I knew it would save us a lot of space in three of our newest baking plants. It wouldn't work in our older plants because the ceilings were built too low. I called my father, right away, to tell him what I'd seen, and to ask him to make changes to the plants we were building in California and Nevada.

I was back in Gene's office by five, and he reminded me that Emily and I needed to be at his house before seven, for supper. I tried to get out of it, as gracefully as I could, even telling him a little bit about what had happened the first time Emily and Cindy had met each other.

"Kenny, if we're going to be working together, you're going to be seeing my family and I'm going to be seeing yours. You can't succeed by trying to keep your head buried in the sand. If them two girls are going to have it out, there isn't anyway in hell that you can do a single thing to prevent it. I told you all this was arranged before you all came down here. I've been looking forward to it all day. I can't wait to see what happens."

I had the sinking feeling that he was right. I wondered if Joyce had set this up deliberately. Putting Emily and Cindy together like this, it seemed a recipe for social disaster. I never was one who liked to slow down my car to gawk at car accidents. Gene seemed entirely too anxious to watch what I was sure was going to be a train wreck. In spite of this, I told him that Emily and I would be at his home before seven.

When I got back to our rental house, I saw that Emily had really gotten herself fixed up nice for our dinner engagement. She was wearing one of those push up bras that made her breasts seem larger than they were. Her hair had been professionally styled, and I'd never seen the dress she was wearing before then.

She looked delicious. Other than Brenda, Emily was certainly the most beautiful of all my wives. Unfortunately, she was also the most contentious one of them all. If anyone was going to provide the kind of fireworks Gene seemed to be anticipating, it was Emily. I had to wonder why he would be anxious to subject his daughter and me to such a possibility.

"Emily, how come you never mentioned that we were invited over to the Macklinson's house for dinner tonight?" I probably should have mentioned how good she looked before starting in with my question, but I was pretty worried about what might happen when she and Cindy got together again.

"How do I look?"

"Good enough to eat. Maybe we should call Gene and tell him you're too tired to be going out tonight. We can postpone it for another time."