Chapter 11

I sat at the head of a big board room table, rented along with the room it was in, for the evening. Everyone was well dressed, making sure they looked good to meet the newest addition. “Everyone, this is the new CEO of Zukunft Zuerst, Adele Hess.” They clapped, welcoming her.

“Adele, this is the board of directors. There is myself, as owner of the company, my girlfriends, Nora Jansen, and Em Kaczka. Then there is my best friend, Frederick Wilhelm-George Franz, he’s also CEO of Alt-Holdings and Trusts here in Zurich. Additionally there is Karl Klausner, a trusted associate.

“On the other side of the table are key members of the company, Thomas Detwiller, who works with me in creating and designing automated manufacturing, Val, my personal assistant, and Frau Müeller, company counsel. Additionally there is David Wilhelm-George Franz, who is managing our construction projects, Mike Gorski and Ben Gheata who handle security, and Doris Hans and Konrad Kowalski who handle IT and digital security.”

I turned to the group, “I’m not going anywhere. Well, I’m going on vacation, but I’m not leaving the company. I’m going to step into the role of chief technical wizard, or CTO. Val will continue to coordinate my efforts, and everyone else’s as head of HR. Frederick and his company will continue to monitor the accountants, and act as CFO until we can hire a replacement.”

I turned to Adele, “I’ll handle that, so don’t worry about doing that,” I told her, and turned back to the group. “Thomas, for now you’ll still be in the portable working on the automation designs. Val will continue to work from her apartment.

“Ben and Mike will be taking over my work at the secure warehouse, and coordinating delivery to Karl.

“Karl runs the public side of ZZ Erwerbung. The diamond procurement business.”

I looked around to make sure I had covered everyone here, then sat. “Adele, the floor is all yours.”

“Thank you. I’ve had many offers over the years, but I’ve never accepted any until now. Usually they were men, who wanted me to work for them. I’ve never been asked by a man to be his boss before. It was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down.

“Zukunft Zuerst will be in a building program that is likely to continue for many years. Adam has assured me that we are moving at top speed.”

“That’s right, I hired Alex as my foreman to handle all my other existing construction work, and I am personally supervising the work here, stealing his crews, and hiring new people to keep up. The graphene production facility will be up at the end of the week, then it will be up to Adam and Thomas to get it up and running,” David said, interrupting.

“What building work comes after that?” she asked him.

“The solar panel factory comes next, as it requires graphene to produce them,” David replied.

“After that, unless I come up with another must have product, is assembling the secure warehouse and shipping dock for storing graphene, as well as eliminating the need for the rented secure warehouse we are using now. The pieces for it are finished, but we want to move the solar panel factory up in the build queue. After that I really want my big structure building,” I interjected.

“What will that produce?” Adele asked me.

“A prototype airframe of Barkley Paper for Pilatus. After that, I want to try making a wind turbine. This will be a mostly automated production of one off, or prototype equipment. If the product works, and has a market then we will set up a stand alone factory, either here, or at another location. I want to keep all prototype production here.”

“When do we get an office building?” she asked.

“After the airplane. The large structure building should be able to turn out the designed building in two weeks. Fit out will take longer,” I explained.

She looked around and grinned. “I understand that orders for graphene are growing daily?”

“We are selling a standard 1km roll a week,” Val said, “plus about a quarter roll in smaller orders.”

“That will certainly pay for my salary. Now does anyone have any suggestions for increasing productivity?”

She maneuvered the conversation, drawing each person out, she ended by summing up the key points, and everyone was ready to go to work. Everyone left but me and her.

“Adam, I need an office, and staff.”

“Go rent it, the soonest our building will be done is late summer early fall.”

She shook her head, “I want to bring in portable buildings. Too much relies on trade secrets to rent a headquarters location temporarily.”

“Sounds good, fencing will be going up once the graphene production building is complete. Put the portables at the far north of the property. The headquarters building is slated for the old gravel pit. I’ll fence that area last, so be quick, but no rush.”

She gave me a brilliant happy smile. “Why do I feel so appreciative everytime you ask me to do something?”

“Why do I feel so relieved knowing you can accomplish anything I ask?” I responded.

She gave me a big hug, then suddenly stepped back embarrassed. I just laughed, “Come on, we have a world to conquer!”

She followed me out, where we got in separate cars to head to a restaurant where I had booked the back room for the after party dinner. There she would get to meet Amy, Christian, and Angelina, as family were invited.

“So how soon to get the graphene production running?” Adele asked me during dinner.

“Thomas and I will move the equipment from the warehouse this weekend. Once we get it installed, we will have to wait to pressurize the building, so Tuesday at the earliest.”

“Pressurize?” she asked.

I nodded, “The building is in two pieces. The rear section contains the production machinery. It has room for multiple production lines, but we are starting with just the one for now. The production process requires an oxygen free high pressure environment. An airlock separates the production, from the processing. Automated electric carts take it between sections, then it gets unrolled, and the cart returns.

“Processing is where the workers, all five of them, cut and package smaller orders. They also handle the unrolling process. The roll goes from a big drum to a tiny roll that fits inside a cardboard tube for transport or storage.”

“That’s fascinating, you can set that all up in a long weekend?”

“I have to, my vacation starts Wednesday,” I joked.

She later admired the rings on Nora and Em’s hands. “I made them myself,” I told her confidentially. “Would you like a nice piece of jewelry?”