Chapter 14

Doug Smith’s turn:

Lord, this is tough, and I never thought I’d be quitting to a little redhead, about a third my age. But family is family, and it has to be done. Rigorously, I should call Anders Solheim, but it’s really all about Cindy. When push comes to shove, he does whatever she tells him. Hell,
we ALL do whatever she says. I punch her speed-dial.

She answered: “Good morning, Mister Doug. It’s a pleasure to hear from you! What’s going on?”

I said, “And good morning to you, Doctor Cindy. Things are good here, I guess, except for me. The short version with me is that I need to retire as soon as possible, but I wanted to give you a heads up, so that you can start thinking about how to replace me.”

She said, “Good Lord, Doug! What’s going on? What’s happening with you?”

I said, “Cindy, it’s all about family. I’m no spring chicken myself, and my mother-in-law is going blind. We need to get back up to Missouri, partially to deal with her, and also to deal with her properties and with mine. I hate to pull the plug on you, Cindy, but it’s time.”

She said, “No way to work around this, Mister Doug?”

“No, ma’am,” I said, “and we’ve already explored all the ways we can think of.”

“OK, Mister Doug, I believe you. And you’re an honorable guy to think of family first. But please, talk to Don if you haven’t already, and let me think about it. We’ll be over there tomorrow, early. Is that OK?”

“Thanks, Cindy. So you’ll know, I haven’t called Anders, but I know he kinda lets you deal with all our stuff, so I’m sure whatever you want will be OK with him.”

Cindy’s turn:

Another day, another “challenge”, and it’s only been three days since we got back from Switzerland with the new bird. Well, what did you expect, Cindy? The real world intrudes, sometimes.

My next call is to Beck, of course. She answered, “Good morning, Cindy. Since you’re calling me, why don’t you tell me what kind of mischief do you have in mind for today?”

I said, “Beck, please, I’m just an innocent little Alabama trailer-park girl. You accuse me unjustly.”

“Cindy, you’re anything BUT ‘innocent.’” Laughing, “What’s going on?”

“Beck, Doug Smith just called, saying that he needs to retire, and quickly. It’s all about family with him, and I think he’s doing the honorable thing. But I need to think about purchasing his interest in the company, so I need to know roughly what his interest is worth, and how’s the best way to purchase it.”

Beck said, “Oooh! Step into my parlor, as the spider said to the fly! Cindy, this situation is EXACTLY what professional athletes do. The company can do this, and BOTH of us will benefit, because unless he wants a lump sum, we can purchase his interest with an annuity. We’ll get the tax credit, and he’ll get the distributions at reduced tax rates. It’s a win-win situation! Sound good?”

“Sounds good to me, but how much should we offer him?”

She said, “His interest is probably worth about $800K, but we can offer him as much as a million. We’ll still come out ahead, and so will he.”

I said, “Thanks, Beck, and I’m going over to talk to him tomorrow morning. Dunno how this works out, but we’ll figure out something.”

And now, text to Dan: “Dan, I need you ALL of tomorrow, for a trip over to Birmingham. Doug Smith retiring, and we need to sort it out.”

That’s me, Dan, Wally, Beck, Anders (who’s down playing grand-dad while Bridgette fawns over a very pregnant Johanna) and Alan. I see a short jaunt for Heidi.

Next day, roll out Heidi, pre-flight, VFR to Birmingham, land on 36, taxi to the 3S hangar, stop, tie-down, and Wally approves, which counts for a LOT, in my book.

Characterize it in a lot of ways, but Wally wasn’t smiling, and neither was Don, as we stepped into Don’s office. I said, “Gents, I’m sure you already know that Doug is hell-bent on retiring, so Dan and I need to go talk with him about that -- it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

“Now, if you’ll step into the conference room, I want you two to talk about how we could replace him quickly. Then, the three of us will join you, and see if we can figure out something. Sound good?”

They nodded, and I turned to Dan, and said, “Now, Mister Dan, let’s go face the music.”

He grinned, and we stepped down to Doug’s office. His door was open, so I stuck my head in and said, “Good morning, Mister Doug! Shall we talk some?”

Doug grinned and stepped around his desk to shake Anders’ and Dan’s hands, and give me a hug. He said, “Let’s sit over at that little table, Cindy. And I apologize for the short notice. Fact is, I thought I had a couple more years left in me, but family has to come first.”

“Doug,” I said, “we hate to see you go, but you’re doing the honorable thing, and that counts for something. Now, I talked to Mizz Beck a little, yesterday and she’ll be with you about what forms need to be filled out.”

“But the main things I want to talk about are your share of the business ownership, and then who we should bring in as your replacement. But to the value of your share, Beck roughly estimated it as about $800K. She’s got a few details to work out, but I’ll bet she’s pretty close.”

“Now, presuming you’re interested in selling, she suggests we can purchase your share in either of two ways. We could pay you the lump sum. However, if you want to reduce the tax hit, we could also purchase your share with an annuity, which means you only pay taxes on the distributions as you receive them. She’d have to explain the details, but that sounds attractive to me, because I don’t like paying taxes. What do you think?”

Doug said, “Cindy, I think two things. First, my share is now worth twice what it was when you bought out my old partner. Second, that whole annuity idea hadn’t occurred to me, and I like it!”

I said, “OK, Doug, I’m going to tell her to proceed on that path, and I’m going to tell her we settled at $900K, considering the possibility that she might have been a little low on her estimate. Sound workable?”

He grinned and stuck his hand out, saying, “Cindy, you don’t waste much time, do you?”

Anders just shook his head. “Welcome to our world, Doug.”

“Sir, it was Mizz Beck’s idea,” I said. “I don’t know anything about business stuff. Now, let’s step down to the conference room and talk with Don and Wally and about your replacement.”

Doug grinned and rose, and we walked down the hall. Entering the conference room, Don and Wally were looking out the window, and silent. I said, “Gents, any ideas yet?”

Remorseful looks from them, and Don said, “The one guy we can think of is a guy we don’t like. He’s too flashy for us, and we don’t think he’s very ethical. His employees don’t like him, either.”

I said, “Gents, I have a suggestion you might want to consider. We need a guy who can step in and go to work immediately. He needs to be someone who already knows this business, and this company. He needs to be willing to fly a desk, but who has also flown our birds. He needs to be someone who is already liked by everyone in the company. Any names come to your minds?”

Mute, perplexed looks around the table. I said, “Gents, when’s the last time any of you had a discussion with Geno Haugen?”

Laughter, first from Doug, then immediately from the rest. I said, “OK, Doug, Don, you know what comes next. Set up dinner with your wives, Geno and Sonya. Tell him Cindy says that he may have anything on the menu EXCEPT a Cuban sandwich.”

Anders asked the obvious question. “You seem confident that Geno wants to come to work.”

“I talk with Geno from time to time, boss,” I smiled. “He’s trying car sales. Mizz Sonya still teaches school...”

“Lastly, gents, I need Geno and Sonya out here Monday morning at 8:30, with overnight clothes. We need to make a run out to Colorado to pick up our latest PC-12. It’s going to live here for a while, because our Louisiana bunch needs to get qualified on it, before it goes there.”

Don said, “Cindy, we don’t have anyone qualified.”

I said, “Yep, and you need to send one of your guys down to the Orlando facility to get that fixed. The cargo door is going to be important to you.”

Wally said, “Cindy, has anyone ever explained to you that you’re a troublemaker?”

“Thank you, Uncle Wally,” I giggled. “You’re the first one today. I rarely hear that more than three times a day.”

That takes care of our aviation branch.

Robotics? Oh, big kill coming. Boston Robotics is getting a lot of publicity, and that’s fine, because in the middle of THEIR mobility advances are strands of 3sigma DNA, for which we got paid handsomely up front, and from which royalties will be forthcoming in the future.

We’re the terror of the paintball scene, there are ongoing negotiations to gain a run with an army unit. Anders is talking with some people. It’ll happen. Terri told Jerry to pay some attention to hardening the transport gear. We already are playing with some Kevlar/carbon fiber composites that rival military body armor in the ability to withstand small arms fire.

“Nothing like offering the government a better way to kill people,” Anders says.

I know how much research is done for military applications and how it bleeds over (what a word association!) into peaceful applications.

On Nikki’s inspiration, we took a particularly mobile platform out to a demolition site (“Looks like what Dan rescued me from,” she said) and gave it the opportunity to roam around, up, and into the mess of collapsed materials. The subsequent after-action commentary on that test has us looking at how to extend probe capability with drops and extensions.