Chapter 6

Craig and I boarded the jet to Oregon. He understood the role of the newly designed trucks and he'd already visited the plant. I didn't like to talk in public so we talked about life in Nashville. He actually lived south of the City in Brentwood where he had a small farm. Near his farm there were many main interstate highways going in all directions, which placed him at a major crossroads in America where he could monitor the system working first hand.

He told me that he had a little girl and they had bought a pony that was fun for her to take care of and ride. His wife was settling in and he was working hard, but he was very happy with his team and the progress they were making. The office space was big enough to keep everything moving forward, but not so large that everything got lost. Nancy, his secretary, was doing great, but he was considering a second person to keep her from burning out.

When we got to the plant, we met with Roy and the first thing he wanted was for us to take a tour. He was proud of his baby and wanted to show her off. While I was walking through the plant, I saw Angus, (April's boyfriend), and walked over to give him a hug and say hello. I told him to keep his dinner schedule open and then went back to the tour. After we had walked the line, we went to Roy's office to talk.

I said, "Roy, I'm impressed by the speed and quality of the manufacturing. I don't know what I'm looking at, but it all looks great to me. We're about a year away from turning on the fire hose. What do you think?"

"I know you wanted us to produce a ton of trucks by then. To achieve that goal, I'm working these guys to death. We have two shifts going and if I can get the suppliers in line, I may try to start a third. The guys are killing my costs in overtime to try to meet the numbers you set up."

"I guess that brings up two questions and something that's been bothering me. The first question is do you have the people around here with the skills to add a third shift?"

"To be honest, we don't. Even with two shifts we have to train these guys because they never took the time in school to learn the stuff they would need to know, to become effective workers."

"My second question is more for Craig. Do we need all the trucks we had defined in our plan?"

Craig asked, "It's your plan. What do you mean?"

"Craig, I've been thinking. The goal was to put the top-heavy old school trucking companies out of business. We'd absorb all of their employees into our leaner and meaner organization. I'm fine with that because the same thing happened to sail makers and buggy whip manufacturers. We call it progress and you either adapt or die. I guess I started thinking about the independent owner operators. What are we going to do with them? They own their own trucks. I don't want to put them out of business. I wonder if we can adjust our plan and find out a way to make an acceptable percentage off them. We can sell them fuel, insurance or some other pieces of the puzzle while still letting them drive their own rig until they're ready to make the change. Then they can work in one of our trucks or see about getting them their own route specific truck. I can make money on the capital I don't spend on the actual rig. I can buy oil fields and refineries. When fuel gets over a dollar a gallon, I'll still have the oil in the ground at pennies a gallon. In ten years when it's a dollar fifty a gallon, I'll still have the same cost basis on the crude and better ways to extract it from the ground."

"So you want to figure out a way to save the independent truckers and in turn reduce the number of trucks we will need to build in the time between now and our go live date. Do I understand your concern?"

"I guess that's what I'm saying. I'm not going to lose money, so they can stay in business. These trucks are our largest out-of-pocket expense. If we can use our most skilled labor and not have to pay overtime, we will get the best product at the best price. I want to look at our options for independent truckers and small trucking operations. If we can make it work, it will take some stress off the manufacturing operation. If we mark up the insurance and fuel to standard rates, we can get pretty close to the margins we're shooting for. As we lower the price to consumers, we will have to either squeeze our margins or cut their profit. I'm not a charity, but I care about the working man at the end of the line."

Craig said, "I like the idea and if it helps out Roy then I like that as well. I think that when we get up and running that it would be a good idea to build a second plant in the south-east to give you better coverage."

I said, "That will be up to Roy. He might find it harder to manage, but it will give you a new pool of workers to draw from."

Roy said, "I've thought about it. Right now, I'm more concerned about opening day and that nothing away from here will be ready in time to help us out with our needs. Craig, when do you think you can have the adjusted numbers ready so I can take some pressure off the suppliers and shift managers?"

"I could give you something off the top of my head, but I would rather take a couple of weeks to analyze the data and think it all the way through. For now, why don't you cut out overtime and work at normal capacity. I can call you in a couple of weeks and we can compare supply to the demand I've calculated."

Roy said, "That sounds great. Maybe my hair will stop turning grey."

"I think it makes you look more mature, Roy," I said.

"It does, but my wife is looking for a younger model between my grey hair and long work hours."

"Invite her to dinner with us and I'll apologize. I promise not to offer myself as a younger model." That got a laugh out of both men and we finished the meeting. Roy was going to call his wife and Craig was going to call Nancy to start collecting the reports and data he'd need to figure out the independent driver dilemma.

I wandered down to where Angus was working. He was working on some calculations.

I said, "Hey, how are things going? I haven't received a wedding invitation yet?"

"You sound like April."

"Sorry. What're you working on?"

"We're just testing to make sure that the materials and designs will stand up to the workload of the trucks."

"How are they looking?"

"They look great, but the level that we use materials can stress them. It is therefore very important that we monitor that use to make certain that we aren't under using or overusing them. The way we designed these they should last considerably longer. The quality assurance testing goes on continually, but I fly out about once a month to check on the results and answer any questions."

"We're going to have dinner tonight. Can you join us?"

"That would be great."

Roy asked what I was in the mood for and I said seafood. He said we could go over to Dan & Louis Oyster Bar.

I met and apologized to his wife Francine. She accepted and then she sat with me as we demolished the menu. I had raw and oysters Rockefeller, clam chowder and scallops. She was with me through the oysters and chowder, but went with the salmon for dinner. She was not fat at all, but enjoyed her meal and we all had a good time. We had some drinks after the meal and then Craig, Angus and I shared a cab back to the hotel.

Angus and I were going to have a drink in the bar and we invited Craig to join us. We ended up with a bottle of port. Angus mentioned April and that opened a preverbial 'can of worms'. Stories and things started to slip out. Craig was laughing when Angus told the story about the girl in New York that was screaming his name in ecstasy. Craig was around ten years older than we were. He told some stories on himself as we emptied the bottle. I guess those Harvard guys can have fun as well.

On the flight home the next day, Craig said, "Britt, when I agreed to accept this job, I felt excited about all the things that Joe told me you were doing. When we first met, you were with Marshal and I thought that he was the man and you were his son or assistant. When we first met, I felt scared that I might be throwing away my future by accepting the job. It sounded great, but I was not sure about you with your age. I want to say that from what I've been doing these last months I feel like I have to get up early and stay late just to keep up with you. When I see potential problems, you call me with an answer before I call you with the problems. I'm so excited about what we're doing and where this is all heading."

"Craig, you're here for two reasons. The first is because you earned it. You worked hard and learned what you needed to learn to lead this company. The second is because I never want my name to come up when anyone mentions this company. I want you to talk about these ideas as if they're yours. You'll do hundreds of interviews. If you want to say I or we, it doesn't matter. Just never please, use my name. We're changing the world and in ten years, we will both be billionaires. You'll write books and they'll hound you for the rest of your life. I'll walk down the street and have to wait in line for a table. That's the price you'll have to pay for your success."

"Billionaire, I like the sound of that. I think we can do it. I keep looking for the flaw and I can't find it."

"Ten years to work our asses off and then the rest to figure out how to live well."

The next few months flew by. I made it home to Orlando to see Mom, Dad and the grandparents. I took my dad out and played golf. I hadn't played in six months and was happy with my 85. I didn't talk to anyone outside of work very much, but tried to call my parents and grandparents at least every couple of weeks. Dad had remarried and he was happy with his new wife. Mom was happy with Bill.

Dad had done well with the bank he was with, and his wife worked as a buyer for Disney. I guess that means I can get in free under the family plan if I only had time. The golf with dad was nice. He apologized again for the choices he made when I was a kid and I told him that I was happy with who I was and those decisions, although it was not fun at the time, but it had helped me to become who I was. I asked if he was doing all right and he said that between him and his wife that they were very comfortable and very happy. I gave him a hug and told him I loved him. I gave him a card with Beth's number so he could always contact me wherever I was.

I stayed down with Doug and caught up on old times. He was great and very happy with work and life. The collection of vintage cars he was collecting and restoring in his spare time was very cool, and it was fun to hop in his '67 Camaro when we went out for a burger.