Chapter 14

"What the hell does your board want with me?" I asked. I had requested that Patricia not intervene on my behalf in matters regarding SyncComp, but if I had done something wrong, I figured it would be SyncComp's board that took me to task for it, not Collins Industries.

"You'll just have to attend the meeting and see." she said evasively. For once she gave no hint as to whether this was to be good or bad.

"Have I screwed up or something?" I probed.

"This is a matter in which I need to stay entirely hands off, Gary." Patricia said, "so please don't ask me any more questions. I simply cannot answer them."

I was worried. I had never seen her so serious. Had I screwed up something so badly that she had to let her board handle it because she couldn't face me?

"You'll at least be there..." I began, but the expression on her face answered my question before I could finish it.

"I told you," she said, "I need to stay hands-off on this matter. Besides, I have something else that I need to do."

Great! She was probably going to be in her lawyer's office drawing up the divorce papers while her board raked me over the coals for screwing up her company! Crap! Had I somehow screwed up the best thing I'd ever had for a relationship, in addition to letting her down in running the company? That would be a messy divorce for sure! Sure, there was the pre-nup, but it didn't spell out things like who would keep my FIRST wife, who was now our family slave!

Sleep was long in coming that night, and Patricia, tired of my tossing and turning, moved away and slept with her back to me. Finally, about two o'clock in the morning, I ran out of things to worry about, or at least ran out of energy to worry about them, and fell into a fitful sleep.

To my surprise, it was almost nine when I woke up, and Patricia was already gone. Neither Edgar nor Walter were forthcoming about her whereabouts, so, in a foul mood, I drove my old Buick to work. I dumped on poor Gloria over a cup of coffee, while she tried to put a positive spin on things, but I wasn't to be cheered up.

Finally, I could procrastinate no longer. I drove the old Buick down to the financial district and parked in the garage under the accountant's building. The fifty-ish receptionist flashed a genuine smile as she directed me to a seat in the hallway outside the conference room.

To my relief, I didn't have long to wait. An attractive, grey-haired lady ushered me in with a pleasant smile.

"You're just in time, Mr. Travis!" she said, not acting at all like an executioner, "We've just finished with the other items on the agenda, and can now devote our full attention to you!"

I wasn't absolutely certain that having their full attention was a good thing, but I smiled mechanically and took the seat that she offered me at the foot of the table. As I looked around, I noticed that, rather than a stuffy, wood-paneled boardroom, this was just another multi-purpose conference room, and its ordinariness somehow put me more at ease.

"Welcome, Mr. Travis!" the gentleman at the head of the table said, "I'm Henry Bullock. I'll be filling in for our chairperson today."

He went around the table and introduced me to each of the others in turn. I found that, not only did I know most of them by reputation, I had borrowed from those reputations in my decision-making at SynComp.

"We were quite impressed by your handling of the P2P product strategy rollout," Bullock said, "not only at SyncComp, but through all of our companies. I'll never understand how you were able to get buy-in from all of the other CEO's without escalating the issue to us even once, but not only did they come on board, they did so enthusiastically."

"I did my homework, verified my assumptions," I replied, "checked my math, then showed each of them, in detail, how it was going to make them successful beyond anything they could produce on their own. After that, good old capitalist greed took over and they jumped on board. It helped that I had detailed answers to their questions at my fingertips."

"It was an excellent job," Bullock continued, "but well beyond the scope of your position."

Ah, here it comes, I thought, here's where I get my wrist slapped. To hell with it. I had been trying to do the best job for Patricia that I could. If they had a problem with that, then I definitely WAS in the wrong position!

"It was going to have to be done one way or another," I said, "and I figured they'd buy into it easier if it was sold to them by a peer than if it was shoved down their throats from above."

"Did your wife suggest that you do that?" one of the others asked.

"No." I answered, hoping to HELL I hadn't turned them against her, too, "I just saw the need, and figured she had enough on her plate. She was the back-up plan in case my efforts were unsuccessful."

"Tell us, Mr. Travis," the elegant older lady, Rachel Hancock, asked, "Where do you see Collins industries in ten years?"

"I can sum it up in two words," I replied, thinking 'in for a penny, in for a pound', "'Seamless Enterprise'."

"That's a nice catch-phrase," she said, "but what does it mean?"

"We've got the P2P stuff nailed. Now we need to tie it back into the enterprise applications, and tie them all together so the whole thing works seamlessly." I stood and began pacing. If they were going to ask, they were going to get the full answer. I hoped they'd ordered lunch.

"Take CollinsPM, for instance." I said, giving each of them a fraction of a second of individual eye-to-eye, "We've got the distributed project thing down pat with the ability to link schedules on different machines and even between different apps, so, if you're a project manager, you can create and manage your own schedule, and link it to other subproject schedules so you can see how changes to someone else's schedule impact yours. The problem is that to get the bird's eye view of the whole project requires laborious export and import of CSV data into a central scheduling tool. The tasks of normalizing the data and ensuring the uniqueness of names alone is so time consuming it's hardly worth the effort. If, however, those individual schedules passed their data to a peer that acted as a client for the enterprise program management tool, you get the whole thing rolled up and summarized at the drop of a hat. Reporting, reviewing, resource management, all of that gets much easier. But that's just the tip of the iceberg."

I paused to pour a glass of water and drink deeply.

"Speaking of resource management - everyone in the enterprise is a potential resource, and there is a central repository of information in every company about each employee, yet Program and Project managers have to enter each person working on a project into the scheduling database. Why isn't that information linked, with proper controls, from the HR database? Not only would it save time in creating schedules, it would give us the opportunity to finally understand just how much work we can undertake with the staff we have, and project what our headcount needs to be with a much greater degree of accuracy. It would also tell us what skill sets we need, when, so we can plan and direct our recruiting efforts BEFORE we have reqs to fill. But that, too, only scratches the surface."

"Program and Project Management has, for a long time in this industry, gotten short shrift in terms of training and proper execution. Properly done, our project schedules would drive our budget cycles, and our time accounting for project status purposes would also feed into our FASB accounting so that we could get accurate tax data for our research and development efforts. Turn to sales, now tied in with pre-sales, manufacturing, and support via SyncComp's interfaces, but all of that needs to feed back in to CRM so that every service call is a potential sales opportunity. CRM, in turn, needs to feed into marketing and product management, whose product feature requirements also need to feed into project planning.

"Now that's focussing on the operational aspects of the thing. Consider for a moment the OLAP applications that could be built upon such an integrated system. What would it be worth to be able to correlate sales data with development cost? What would it mean to finally, completely, fulfill the promise of ERP without having to have a single megalithic application that nobody understands or can maintain?"

"I'm seeing some glazed looks," I said, glancing around the room, "so maybe this would be a good time to pause for questions..."

"Have you discussed these ideas with Patricia?" Rachel asked.

"Not yet." I said, "I've just begun to realize their potential myself."

They exchanged looks among themselves and Bullock finally asked, "Do you know why you're here, Mr. Travis?"

I shook my head. "Not a clue."

"Patricia didn't tell you?" he asked, incredulous.

"She said she needed to stay 'hands-off' on this matter." I replied, even more puzzled than ever.

"She could at least have told you why we wanted to speak with you!" he laughed, "I fear your wife is having a little joke at your expense, Mr. Travis!"

"I suppose it would be too much to ask for you to let me in on the joke... ?" I said.

Bullock smiled and said, "Your wife apparently wants to take some time off from her position as CEO of Collins Industries, and has charged us with the task of finding a suitable replacement."

"Wait," I said, "let me guess. She suggested that I might be that candidate?"

"Actually, no." he replied, "She suggested we look within Collins Industries first, then, if we didn't find a suitable candidate, that we go outside. We've already interviewed all the other potential candidates within Collins Industries. You're our last."

"I see..." I said. I didn't know whether to hug Patricia for making this something that I had to get on my own merit, or to be mad at her for not giving me time to at least prepare.

"We're very close to a decision, I think." Bullock said, getting a chorus of nods as he looked around the table "Would you be so kind as to wait in the hall for a few moments while we discuss this?"

It wasn't until I was once again seated in the hallway that I had time to wonder why Patricia was looking for a replacement. She had not discussed anything of the sort with me, and the fact that she had kept it a secret filled me with foreboding. I had thought we shared everything, and to have this dropped on me by the people looking for her replacement was very disturbing. I was so wrapped up in worrying about her keeping secrets from me that it didn't occur to me to wonder why they wanted me to stick around.

The handsome silver-haired Rachel Hancock was once again all smiles as she ushered me back in.

"... T-r-a-v-i-s, yes, just like hers. Just bring it in when you've finished, thanks Trudy!" Bullock was saying into the phone as I reclaimed my seat at the foot of the table.

"I think you're in the wrong seat, Mr. Travis." He said, rising, "Traditionally, the Chairman and CEO sits at this end of the table..."

"Chairman AND CEO?" I asked, "How could you decide so quickly, and why both?"

"Patricia, as CEO of Collins Industries," he said, gesturing for me to take his place, "Has always held the Chairmanship of the board, as well. Since we have decided that you should be the new CEO, it stands to reason that you should take the Chair, as well."

"Actually, Mr. Bullock," I said, staying where I was, "it does nothing of the sort. It's my understanding that my wife wanted you to find a replacement for her as CEO, and while I'm still mystified as to why you should choose me for that position, I don't believe the assumption that it includes the Chairmanship is warranted. I believe a seat on the board is appropriate, but board membership is a new duty for me. If Patricia no longer wants the chair, then you should elect a new Chairman, one with at least SOME idea of what this board does."

"I'll keep the Chairpersonship, for now, if you don't mind!" Patricia said, sweeping in through the conference room door, "Thank you, dear, for clarifying that for them. Will that be a problem for anyone?"

No objections were raised, and Patricia, seating herself in Bullock's former position, said, "Very well, is there any other business before the board today?"

"Just the signing of the contract, dear," Rachel said, "but that really requires only the two of you."

"In that case, I would like to thank the members of the board for their diligence in this matter, and ask if there is a motion to adjourn." This was the Patricia I knew!

"I so move," Ms. Hancock answered.

"Second!" said Bullock.

"All in favor?" Patricia looked around the table and all the hands raised.

She looked at me with a smile, "Are you opposed to adjournment, Gary?"

"Oh!" I said, startled, and raised my hand.

"The motion to adjourn passes unanimously!" my wife said.

"You'll get the minutes recorded and reviewed as usual, Rachel?" Patricia asked the silver-haired woman.

"Of course, dear!" Rachel replied.

Each board member stopped to say a few words to us as they filed out, then, suddenly, Patricia and I were alone, except for the receptionist who had the contract for us to sign. With that done, my wife turned to me.

"Are you very angry at me darling?" she asked, caressing my face.

"Confused, I guess." I said, "Why didn't you tell me you were considering stepping down?"

"Because then," she said, "I would have had to tell you why. I wanted to be sure the company was in good hands before I discussed that with you. You're not angry that I didn't recommend you?"

"I'm pleased that you didn't, dear!" I said, "While these people could, I suppose, have done this to suck up to you, I dont think any of them need to, so while I still don't understand their reasoning, I feel better about the fact that they didn't do it because you asked them to. Now that I know, by the way, I'd really like to know why you're stepping down."

"Drive me home." she said, taking my arm, "I'll tell you in the car."

We took the elevator down to the level where I had parked the Buick. I guided Patricia to the spot where I had left it, only to find that it wasn't there anymore.

"Crap!" I said, "Why the hell would someone want to steal that old bucket of bolts? I guess we'll have to call Walt to bring the limo. I'll call the cops and report it stolen!"

"Why don't we just take this one?" Patricia asked, waving at the brand new Mercedes Benz S600 sedan that occupied the spot where my Buick had been.

"Well, among other things," I said, exasperated, "It wouldn't look too good for the new CEO of Collins Industries to get arrested for stealing someone else's car!"

She took my hand and pressed a set of keys, with a fob for remote entry into my hand. Attached to the key ring was a small card.

"Why would he get arrested for driving his own car?" she said, smiling.

I stared at her, wondering what the hell she was talking about, then my brain kicked into gear and I glanced at the card.

'Congratulations, Gary!' it read, 'Thanks for everything!'

In a daze, I experimentally pressed the 'Unlock' button, and lo and behold, the Mercedes' doors unlocked!

I turned, open mouthed, to stare at my smiling wife. She tiptoed and kissed me tenderly.

"I got tired of hinting!" she laughed, "I decided if you weren't going to get a new car, I'd get one for you! Walt will clean all your junk out of the Buick before dropping it off at the charity of your choice. You'll get a nice little tax deduction out of it."

"So THIS is that 'something else' you had to do!" I exclaimed, wrapping her in a vigorous embrace, "You might at least have given me a hint about what was going on!"

"In all the time I've known you," Patricia said warmly, "the only time I ever surprised you was the first time I undressed for you. I thought it was about time for another! Now come on! Drive me home! We have a lot to talk about!"

I held the passenger door as my lovely wife slid into the leather seat, deliberately giving me a long look up her skirt as she did. I kissed her passionately as I leaned across to fasten the seat belt for her.

I took a few minutes to explore the features and controls of my new 'toy', and to inhale the smell of fresh, new leather, before actually starting it and backing out of the parking spot. I could not believe the smooth power of the V12 engine nor the luxurious feel of the controls.

Finally, out on the street, I said, "Okay, what gives? Why are you giving up your position with Collins Industries?"

Patricia leaned over and put her head on my shoulder as she answered.

"I want a baby." she said simply.

"A baby?" I replied, "You already have... Ah! Of course! You want to give birth to your own baby!"

"OUR own baby, sweetheart." she said, "I know we never discussed this, and I hope you're not too angry with me, but I want to be the mother of your child."

I was silent for a long moment, piecing together in my head the little clues I'd gotten over the last couple of years. Suddenly, much of it came clear.

"And you needed someone you could trust to run Collins Industries while you take time off to be a mommy?" I said "You've been setting me up for this all along?"

"Actually, no." she said, "I never thought I'd be able to let go of my responsibilities to the company long enough to give birth, much less be a mother to our child, and that was making me sad."

"Yeah, I noticed that." I said, "I was getting ready to confront you with it and try to force you to tell me what was wrong, but then it stopped. What happened?"

"You happened, dear!" she said, "Without even discussing it with me, you went out and took over driving the product strategies for the P2P stuff. You felt even more strongly about the vision than I did, and you went and made it happen! My board was impressed, even then, and I began to think I might have found someone who could take over for me."

"Ah. I remember now." I said, "That was about the time I stopped seeing the sadness and wistfulness in your eyes. So is that when you started setting me up for this job?"

"You don't understand, dear." she said, "That was when I began to hope. YOU set yourself up for this job by taking ownership of my vision and making it your own! When I told the board that I wanted them to find me a replacement, several of them came up with your name right away. Without saying whether I was in favor of their choice or not, I asked them to do a proper search, starting within Collins Industries, then outside, if necessary. They looked thoroughly at everyone who might possibly fill the position. They talked to the CEO's of each of my companies, and a couple of the other executives as well. I think they had pretty much decided on you before you came in, but for them to insist on having you sign the contract before you left, they must have been quite impressed! All I really did was to give you free rein to show what you could do."

"But, all those other guys have so much more experience than I!" I said.

"Certainly experience is important." she replied, "But I picked the members of that board because they have the reputation for depending on people who get results, among other things, and that's what you've done. You did my job when you didn't have the power or the authority to do so. They couldn't wait to see what you'd do if you had the position, too!"

"Wow!" I said, "Why didn't you just tell me what you had in mind? I don't know if I'd have done anything differently, but I'd certainly have tried to help you out!"

"I wanted to see, and I wanted the board to see, just what kind of executive you would be." she said, "If you had been trying to do it for me, we wouldn't have known if it was you, or you trying to please me. Anyway, it worked out well, don't you think?"

"Passably!" I said, turning my new car smoothly into the driveway of our home, "Now, about this baby thing..."

"What about it?" Patricia asked, with some trepidation.

"Want to start tonight?" I asked, grinning.

She threw her arms around my neck and whispered, "Oh yes! We should probably wait until after dinner, though."

"Because... ?"

"Because I took the liberty of inviting Dolores and Felicia and a few others to dinner, to celebrate." She answered, "Hope you don't mind!"

"Pretty sure of yourself, weren't you?" I said.

Patricia smirked a little when she said, "Let's just say, I know you, and I know my Board, so I was fairly confident things would work out the way I wanted them to!"

'A few others' included Rachel from the CI Board, and Mr. Bullock, as well as a couple of the people who had seemed sincere in their congratulations when we got married.

Patricia seated me at the head of the table, since the dinner was in my honor. I wound up with Felicia on my right and Rachel on my left. Bullock, seated between Dolores and her daughter, seemed taken with both of them, and divided his time between them. Felicia seemed flattered by the attention. At nearly eighteen, she had developed into a beautiful young woman, with her mother's flashing eyes, a figure to die for, and the grace and poise of a princess. That left me with Rachel, who turned out to be an engaging companion for the evening.

I had admired her career from afar through the business journals, and was delighted to find her as sharp in person as I had imagined her to be. She was one of the rare CEO's who valued the investment the company made in its people, and had become quite creative in finding ways to deal with hard times that didn't involve laying people off. About two thirds of Rachel's employees were cross-trained in at least one other area, so that they could be shifted as the changing business environment forced a de-emphasis in one area or another. This allowed her to keep her headcount steady while her competitors were laying people off. Not only that, she believed in investing heavily in new product development as the economy waned, so that she could hit the market with capabilities her competitors couldn't match as soon as the economy turned up. As a result, her company had gone from near the bottom of its markets to a 72% share in only a few years.

"I'm still mystified about what really happened this afternoon." I said, as way of starting the conversation.

"That's because you think it happened this afternoon!" she laughed. Despite the silver hair, the only lines I could detect in her face were smile lines around her eyes. "We've been watching you for almost two years, and when Patricia asked us to find a replacement for her, you were the yardstick by which we measured everyone else."

"How can that be?" I asked, "I've only been CEO of SyncComp for a little over two years. My experience has been somewhat limited, to put it mildly!"