Chapter 76: I Love It When A Plan Comes Together!

April 17, 1997, on a Gulfstream from Atlanta, Georgia to Chicago, Illinois

“Dante can be decent when he’s not trying to be an ass,” Cindi said as the plane clawed its way into the air.

“You do realize he spent the entire meal staring at your chest, right, Tits?” Elyse asked.

Cindi smirked, “So did our waiter, and the busboy, and the pilots of the Gulfstream when we boarded the plane a few minutes ago!”

“Doesn’t that offend you?” Deborah asked.

“Not really,” Cindi replied. “There were times in the past where it bothered me, like when a professor did his best to try to look DOWN my shirt, but I’ve always been very proud of the girls!”

“She only has one complaint!” Elyse prompted.

“Steve has been immune since the day I met him!” Cindi said with a grin.

“I believe his preferences do run towards Elyse,” Deborah said. “She’s what the girls call a ‘Steve type’.”

“I haven’t had the chance to ask you, Elyse,” Cindi said, “but what’s with the ‘Den Mother’?”

“You mean Monica?”

“Yes. She’s a good ten years older than any of the rest of us, and I’ve seen her doing a bit of ‘mothering’ of some of the younger girls.”

“She’s in the process of divorcing an abusive husband,” I replied. “And hadn’t worked in over twenty-five years. I asked Elyse to give her a chance, and she agreed. Please tell me she’s not causing trouble?”

“No, she’s not,” Cindi replied. “It’s more, well, protective and mothering. Things like making sure they’re eating a healthy lunch.”

“That doesn’t sound like a problem,” I replied. “And we can probably use a bit more adult supervision!”

“Who would be the next oldest?” Deborah asked.

“Barbara,” Elyse said. “Some of the consultants are in their early forties as well.”

“Tom Dodds was the oldest,” I replied. “He was in his fifties when he came to work for us.”

“Who was he?” Deborah asked.

“A programmer who really helped us out for the first couple of years,” I replied. “We learned a lot from him, and he helped us make sure that our first big contracts - Waukesha County and Purina Mills - were successful.”

“What happened?”

“He wanted to work for himself,” I replied. “We sent some work his way, and he sent some referrals to us. I haven’t heard from him in years. I’m pretty sure he retired to Costa Rica.”

I offered to get everyone drinks from the bar, but because Cindi was along, we drank soft drinks or sparkling water.

“Did any of you find anything out of the ordinary today? Deborah?”

“All the supplier contracts, the lease on the property, and his incorporation documents appear to be in order. I have a copy of the employee handbook which I’ll review to see what issues we might encounter.”

“Elyse?”

“His books appear to be in order, at least from the basic review I did. Nothing jumped out, except that he takes a HELL of a lot of money out of Peach, though I believe you knew that.”

“I did. Were there any large transfers in the past two weeks?”

“One, but it was consistent with the quarterly transfers he’s made in the past, though about 10% less than this time last year, and 25% less than the year before.”

“Which is what we speculated from what he said in the depositions,” Deborah said.

“What about his expenses?”

“They’ve been consistent, and appear in line with what a firm this size should have. His salaries are all over the map, but in aggregate, lower than ours. We’re going to have to talk to Bob, because we’re going to have real problems with the salary disparities.”

“Please tell me it’s not sex discrimination,” Deborah sighed.

“I’d say it is,” Elyse said, “though it could be based on their previous salaries, because Peach took those into account when determining salaries.”

Deborah shook her head, “Rational, but it won’t protect us.”

“We had a similar issue when we were looking at Lone Star,” I said. “Deborah, you and Bob will need to work with Mario to figure out how we handle this, and how we bring salaries in line with our standards.”

“What do we do with people who are way over the scale?” Deborah asked. “That policy HAS to come from you.”

“Let me think about it,” I replied. “Elyse, what about cash on hand and reserves?”

“Acceptable for our purposes, but not anything like what we keep on hand. Mostly that’s because you don’t take money out of NIKA the way Dante does Peach. His quarterly financials show a reasonable profit, but as I said, Dante’s payouts have gone down. He didn’t raid his reserves, by the way - those have been consistent for a couple of years, as has his operating account.”

“Dante’s fatal flaw is that he never overcame his ego,” I replied. “You know that’s a daily struggle for me.”

“You love your family and friends far too much to let the ego win,” Cindi added.

“Thank you,” I replied. “What’s your take on clients?”

“He was telling the truth about a good increase in his customer base, but the pricing is disastrous. Fortunately, the annual support contracts do not have any restrictions on price changes. We’re going to have to adjust those when we move them to NIKA Legal. Do you intend to offer support contracts or use our per-call method for the others?”

“A question for the General Manager of the «μικρό» division!” I grinned.

“NIKA Micro?” Cindi asked.

“It sounded better in my head, and in Greek. But you’re right in that it’ll be said ‘micro’, with a long ‘i’. We do need a name for the division, which I leave to you to work out. I’ll want to sign-off, and you should run any ideas you have past Mario once I talk to him.”

“What if he turns you down?” Deborah asked.

“He won’t,” Elyse interjected. “Mario will do whatever Steve asks, just as everyone else will.”

“Lucas? Sam?”

“I won’t ask because I know better!” I chuckled. “Though we did, once, make offers to each of them and were politely told to pound sand!”

“You know Lucas’ story, right?” Cindi asked. “His wife makes close to six figures as a civil engineer for the city. He likes being able to leave at 5:00pm, not have to worry about work when he goes home to play with the kids and work on making more kids!”

“And Sam told me when I hired her she had zero interest in managing,” I said. “I did discuss the Security Team, but she opted to stick with her current role. So, is there ANY reason we shouldn’t do this?”

“How does the source code look?” Elyse asked.

“It’s all in Visual Basic 4.0, and is reasonably well documented. We rejected VB because of ‘DLL hell’ and the problems with COM.”

“You lost me at ‘It’!” Deborah said with a grin.

“The short version is, they appear to have written good code in a bad development environment.”

“What do we use?”

“Microsoft Visual C++ 4.2,” I replied. “Sam and Brenda are reviewing Visual C++ 5.0, which will be released in just under two weeks. We’ll have to do a lot of testing before we use it to compile a release version, so I’m guessing NIKA Legal ‘98 will be the first release with the new compiler, runtime, and libraries.”

“I take it that’s a good thing?”

“It is. The other problem with VB, which Peach used, is that it’s very slow by comparison. That hasn’t been an issue for his ‘sole-proprietor’ version, but in testing his ‘small office’ version, the searches are maddeningly slow. Everything else is tolerable, but it’s nowhere near as good as the competition. They were planning to rewrite everything in Visual C for their next version, which would have resolved most of those issues.”

“So you’re satisfied?” Elyse asked.

“I was more concerned about the quality of the code, than the language. It’s not up to NIKA standards, but it is clean and documented. That means the software engineers are fine. Elyse has said the books are fine, Deborah has said the contracts are fine, and Cindi is satisfied with the customer records. No red flags?”

The three women shook their heads.

“Are we going to interview the staff?” Deborah asked.

“I hadn’t planned on it,” I replied. “We intend to run this as a going concern. The only immediate issue will be the developers working on the ‘small office’ version. Mario, Tasha, and Terry will have to sort that out.”

“Are we going to use their sales model or ours?” Cindi asked.

“The only reason we went with the ‘shrink wrap’ model was because it was the only way we could compete with Dante and maintain what we considered a reasonable profit margin. That competition is gone, so maybe Mario and Cindi decide that Dante’s small sales force is the right way to move forward. Or perhaps a mix of the two. I’m not going to dictate anything to Mario with regard to his P&L other than it has to cover the dividends we’ll owe Samantha and he’ll need to turn a profit.”

“You’re going to see an increase in costs because their benefits program is far less generous and as such, far less expensive,” Elyse declared. “That said, what we’ll owe Samantha in terms of dividends is significantly less than what Dante was taking out, even at the reduced levels. And we’ll shift all the expenses related to the ‘small office’ version to the parent firm.”

“Do we have a consensus?” I asked. “If so, then I’ll talk to Mario and John on Monday.”

There were nods all around.

“What about an announcement?” Elyse asked.

“Saying anything to either the Peach staff or ours will only lead to crazy speculation because I can’t say much until after my trip to Pittsburgh.”

“Some of the people here in Atlanta know you, right?”

I nodded, “The three former Lone Star software engineers. The question is, do they know anyone at NIKA besides Skye? And would they call Skye? And even if they call Skye, would she say anything to anyone without speaking to me first? I think we’re safe to wait until Tuesday to make any announcements.”

“You’re going to let Dante tell his team?”

I nodded, “That is up to him. I’ve been traveling way too much to come back to Atlanta on Tuesday.”

“Birgit getting on your case?” Cindi asked.

“I’m missing karate too often, and time with my wives, but yes.”

“Is Jessica going to keep the same hours?” Cindi asked.

“Yes. Even though it means we don’t see her during the day on weekends, it means no night shifts, and she has flexibility with which days she works during the week, although she does have to work around her classes, so at times she splits her shift.”

“Is there anything else at all?” Elyse asked.

Everyone shook their heads.

“It’s too bad Samantha didn’t configure the bed in the cabin,” Elyse said. “I never did get to join the ‘Mile High’ Club! I don’t think anyone here is a member except Steve.”

“Not me,” Cindi said.

“Or me,” Deborah added.

“I’ve initiated two girls since I was initiated,” I said with a grin.

“He really is a smug bastard, isn’t he?” Cindi asked.

“He is,” Elyse replied.

“Definitely,” Deborah added.

“I am,” I grinned and all three women slugged me.

April 21, 1997, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

“You’re serious?” Mario asked after recovering from the shock disclosure.

“Yes. We have a signed contract and he bought the surety bond. We’re closing on the 30th.”

“Why am I hearing about this privately instead of via a Town Hall?” he asked, obviously suspicious.

“Because I want you to become the general manager of the new division.”

“What?!” he gasped.

“I plan to run Peach as a separate division, as is, at least for a few years. What happens in the long run remains to be decided. I intend to assign Tasha as the Director of Development and CTO for the new division.”

“Completely separate?”

I nodded, “Yes. With its own P&L. As I said, intact. And I’d like you to run it.”

“What about the Eastern Region?”

“That’s yours as well,” I grinned. “But you’ll need your own ‘Hand of the King’ who does for you what Kimmy does for me as CEO.”

“‘Hand of the King’?” he asked.

“It’s from a book I’m reading, A Game of Thrones. Basically it’s a prime minister, chief of staff, and chief advisor all rolled up into one.”

“John?”

“If it was that obvious to you, then yes.”

“He’s the right guy. What about his role as National Support Manager?”

“Cindi will have to replace him, but honestly, that role is much easier to fill than the one I’m talking about.”

“I’m not sure what to say.”

“‘Yes’ would be preferable.”

“Of course I’ll do it. Is this permanent?”

“How about we call it a ‘Five-Year Plan’?”

Mario thought for a moment, “Terry. Dave will be coming back in about five years, and you promised him an equivalent role.”

“And the fact that you figured THAT out so quickly means you’re absolutely the right man for the job. We’ll have to work out the compensation, but it’ll probably be your current base, with bonuses tied to P&L and other goals. Those bonuses will likely be significant.”

“I may want to keep the job,” he grinned.

“And move to Atlanta?”

“Marie would strangle me if I even thought about it. Do I have to keep it there?”

“That’s for you to decide. You’ll have a free hand, with the caveat that we need consistent policies and benefits.”

“I wouldn’t want to change those. How are you planning to handle the competing software?”

“The division, which you and Cindi need to name, will handle the ‘sole-proprietor’ version. You get Tasha and the ‘Young Ones’, and Terry will get the ‘small office’ software engineers from the current Peach. We’ll move all the ‘small office’ clients to our software. How you handle the competing ‘sole-proprietor’ versions will be up to you.”

“Are those Chicago folks going to want to move to Atlanta?”

“I have no idea. You’ll need to work that out. I’m OK with you putting those developers wherever you and Tasha think best. And it’s OK to think outside the box - Pittsburgh, Durham, Colorado Springs, Chicago, or some other option. The same goes for the sales and support staff. When I said ‘free hand’, I meant ‘free hand’. Elyse will help you work out your P&L contribution to NIKA, taking into account that you’ll need to service the debt we’re taking on to finance this deal.”

“Spurgeon?”

“Yes. The same basic deal we made when we planned to buy Lone Star.”

“Our phones are ringing off the hook. They’re as good as dead, right?”

“According to our attorney in Dallas, Neil Payette, Lone Star will file for bankruptcy in the morning, and the rumor is there is some sort of plea deal in the offing with the government.”

“Are you going to buy them out of bankruptcy?”

I shook my head, “There’s no point. We’ll get the clients we want and the intellectual property isn’t a threat to us. According to Cindi, both Chickasaw and Hastings Mill are taking some former Lone Star clients. I’m not sure either of them will spend a penny on any Lone Star assets.”

“Some other individual or company? One of the regional or boutique shops?”

I shrugged, “Let them. It’s not worth the hassle and I want to keep our distance.”

“How is the audit going?”

“I haven’t talked to Elyse, but Kimmy called me to let me know four IRS employees showed up this morning. I’m glad I’m out of town!”

“I’m curious, if I take this, and then step aside in five years, what happens with John?”

“He’ll keep his role. I’m going to have Barbara and Zeke hire or promote someone into a similar role. You three have taken on a lot more responsibility. And if you factor in all the leave the three of you have, as well as your sabbaticals, having someone who is able to simply step in will be key. And then we have natural successors for the day you decide you’ve made enough and want to leave!”

“Call it twenty years,” Mario grinned. “I have three college educations to pay for!”

I nodded, “TELL me about it! I think Barbara will probably be ready to enjoy retirement in about twelve years. She’ll be fifty-five and her two kids will have graduated from college. She and her husband have talked about taking a year-long around-the-world trip once their kids graduate from college. And then they want to move to some tropical paradise.”

“If Marie EVER agrees to leave Pittsburgh, I’ll be shocked. But I love it here, so I’m not complaining. Do you have a salary in mind for John?”

“He’s already making about what Kimmy is making, so there will be a slight upward adjustment, but it puts him on the executive benefits plan as well as the executive stock and bonus plans.”

“When will you tell him?”

“We can do that right now, though he has to keep this to himself until tomorrow’s Town Hall.”

“The topic of which I now know!”

“Yes. Just to let you know, Stephanie will be spending a few hours a week at NIKA starting in July. I want her, and all of you, to get acclimated.”

“You’re finally getting out of the big chair!”

“Doctors’ orders, in addition to personal desire.”

“Listen to those doctors; NIKA would not be the same without you.”

“My kids and wives have a vested interest in that as well.”

“When will you tell Barbara and Zeke?”

“I’ll call Barbara this afternoon and tell Zeke tomorrow morning before the Town Hall. That will let me announce the new structure.”

“Who knows about this?”

“The Board, who approved everything late on Wednesday. Cindi, Elyse, Deborah, and Kimmy.”

“Not Julia?”

“No. You know Dante, and I had to keep this completely compartmented. I trust Julia, but I didn’t even bring the full Board into it until I had a signed contract. I talked to Joyce and my dad, but that was it.”

“She’s going to be pissed.”

“I know. But I really did need to keep this completely quiet. Elyse, Cindi, Deborah, and I did a quick ‘due diligence’ last Thursday. We’re satisfied. When Melissa and Mark took over from him at what used to be called DP Engineering, everything was in order, top to bottom, as you’d expect from an engineer. The same is true for Peach.”