Legacy

In 1936, Gary Wilson’s father George Wilson had an opportunity to take a very well paying job overseas for a contract period of eight months.  The job was in Turkey, and George was enthused about the prospect.  However Gary’s mother wouldn’t stand for the idea so that took care of that.  Needless to say, but important side note, Gary wasn’t born until 1938.  George was a heavy duty equipment mechanic.  By 1942 George was employed by the Highway Division of the State of Kansas as a mechanic.

In 1950 George was sent to Chicago for six weeks to receive special training in the repair and maintenance of diesel fuel injectors.  George spent about eight years doing that and became an expert in that specialty.  In spite of that, he gave it up to become shop foreman, and he spent his last five years doing that before he retired in 1963.  He did part time work for a Ford dealership to keep himself busy for about three years after retiring.

Meanwhile, Gary had run into some unemployment problems and was looking for a situation.  Gary had limited experience and training was rather narrow, primarily in accounting, and inventory management.  In the process of looking for work, Gary happened into the Martin Tractor Company to see if there were any possibilities.  On his way down the hall he bumped into Harry Thompson.  Harry he knew from fishing next to him a few times at the local lake.  They had stuck up a few conversations and became sort of casual friends.  Harry asked Gary what brought him there,  Gary explained and Harry said follow me lets see what we can do.  Gary was just finding out that Harry was the CEO of Martin Tractor.  Gary thought to himself, a friend in high places might be a good thing.   That turned out to be so very true.  It was the longest generalized interview Gary had ever had; it took in lunch and most of the afternoon.  Seemed more like to Gary, a get acquainted and share philosophies session than an interview.  In the process Gary shared quite candidly with Harry about why he was now unemployed.  Gary said he’d been one of ten persons spread over ten hospitals doing a similar job.  Gary stated how proud he had been of being the only one of the ten that for years had one hundred percent perfect audit scores.  That had amazed the auditors who were curious as to how Gary did it.

Then three persons in another department were found guilty of serious wrong doings, as a result the headquarter goons came out and stuck their noses everywhere but where they belonged. Gary went on to say how he never minded being inspected by people who knew what they were doing, but headquarter jerks with no expertise come out and damned a perfect operation because they can’t  understand how it works.  Then they forced me to fix it so they do understand it.  And of course that’s the old fix it till its broke bit.  That’s exactly what happened.

I fled to another department for a few years till the place closed, but on my way out of that other department, I told the know it alls exactly what they would get.  They wouldn’t listen, and that cost them three and a half million dollars over the next few years.  Of course now they still weren’t listening, but they disappeared from the scene. Not a surprise either.  Well a lot was shared besides my sob story, and Harry listened with an obvious fascination.

Harry then said to Gary that it was apparent that Gary had a great understanding of how to not do things, like sending the wrong people with to much power to do things they aren’t qualified to do. Harry said that’s a common problem in the corporate world also.  Harry went on to say that he had worked hard to see his company got away from that sort of thing.  It had caused too many problems.  Harry said the mark of a good administrator is to secure the right people to do the right task.  An administrator’s talent should be just that.  To many good Engineers for example as well as others have their education and expertise wasted doing an Administrators job, instead of what they were trained for.  Gary agreed to that.

Harry went on to say that a highly trained Engineer can certainly supervise other Engineers, but that’s with an eye to being a working part of a specific Engineering team; and not doing purely administrative work,  Administration should be considered its own specialty.  A good Administrator can achieve a viable over view of any project or operation in a relatively short time.  Then pull together the human package of experts to do the task.  Harry went on to say the Administrator don’t have to know how to put a frizzit in a framit; but he needs to know how to find someone who doe’s.

Again Gary agreed, and Harry noted that he and Gary seemed to think alike to a high degree.  Then Harry said he’d been looking for sometime for someone who thought like he did.  Harry then said to Gary, I will offer you an opportunity.  If you take it and all the strings attached, then we will give it a whirl.  Harry said one of the strings is that most likely that about one month out of each quarter I would be traveling out of town or out of the country as needed.  I said I thought that was workable; that my wife might do a double tale, but I was sure she could adjust.

Harry said well you talk that over with her tonight and tell me your decision in the morning.  If it’s a go, then I will send you to a special schooling facility right here in town.  Its about a two month course and they don’t care if you are a high school graduate or college professor.  They will un teach all you thought you knew and re teach you the skills I want you to have.  After that you will become a Project Manager.  You will never know from one time to the next, exactly what kind of a project you will be managing.

Well Gary went home and explained it all to his wife, who wasn’t thrilled about the idea of Gary not being home each night for a total of three months out of the year, but since it was not all in one piece, she said she could deal with it.  Then she said how much doe’s it pay.  Gary said he didn’t know, but was sure it would be pretty good.

The next day Gary went in bright and early and told Harry it was a go.  Harry was pleased.  Harry said, schooling will start in three days, so in the meantime since you are now on the payroll, come on in and get used to your office, look around and get used to the layout of the plant so you won’t get lost and will be able to find the water cooler and men’s room.  Harry said the last bit with a straight face; then broke out with a big grin and laughed.

Harry said, oh, by the way, your salary as of today will be two thousand dollars a week; after you finish schooling it will be twenty five hundred per week.  Also after schooling you will need a Secretary.  Finding one and hiring her will be your problem.

Gary thought Okay, no problem, probably a portent of things to come; at this point that’s scary.  I get the feeling that can involve multiples of people at different times with different skills.  I’m going to need a healthy dose of fortitude; I hope that comes with the schooling.

Well yes how to not feel overwhelmed was part of the schooling and Gary found that very helpful.  There were lessons in how to determine needs, how to resource for them, how to direct the efforts, communications.  Emphasis on finding out about customs in a given locale before going there, etc. it was an extensive course.  Almost mind boggling in a sense, not hard to understand, but so many elements that one could not even come close to dreaming of in advance of learning.

Well Gary finished his schooling with higher than normal marks.  That pleased Harry because it reaffirmed to Harry that he’d picked a good one.  Gary hired a Secretary, one he’d had before with whom he was comfortable and familiar with and who always gave good performance, and consistently demonstrated loyalty.

Harry really didn’t give a whack about Gary’s choice as that was Gary’s problem.  About two weeks later the first project came down the pipe; it was a huge one, different aspects of it would be handled by various other Project Managers.  The overall project involved the sale shipment of a large variety and quantity of road building and road maintaining equipment to the Country of Turkey.

There were those who would be responsible for coordinating staging, and transporting of the equipment.  There were others who would be responsible for teaching the Turks how to use the stuff, and last but not least, Gary would be the Project manager in charge of teaching the Turkish individuals how to maintain and repair that bevy of equipment.  Gary was told there would be about thirty students and that’s all the information he was going to get, the rest was now in his ballpark.  Oh boy! Thought Gary, the pressure is on, so I best get with it since there is a time table for securing the personnel I’ll need to facilitate successful conclusion to the effort.

Gary secured by contract for the duration, three Mechanical Engineers whose specialties were heavy equipment in general.  They would teach classroom technologies with the aid of many appropriate manuals.  He hired two more to work with the Turks in hands on repair simulations. Then there are specialties within the specialties that need separate attention.  Gary was one up on being aware of that since his father George had been trained to work on nothing but diesel fuel injectors.  He needed three instructors in that specialty to teach from the manuals.  Plus two more to instruct during hands on repair simulation.

Now Gary  knew that in Civil Service that nepotism was heavily frowned upon, though it still occurred.  It was not a big deal with a private company.

So Gary approached his father George with the proposition of taking a four week contract to go to Turkey and teach in the hands on workshop.  Gary knew that his father had extra valuable knowledge because of years of experience.  The kind that the individual learns what really works and finds out what part of the technical manuals to ignore and do otherwise.  That kind of knowledge passed on could save budding repairman a lot of trial and error heartaches.

Well to start with Gary took his father George by a big surprise.  First George had to digest how Gary could possibly be in charge of such a thing.  That took a bit of doing and a lot of explaining.  Gary’s father was pleased that Gary had such a high opinion of his ability in that area.  Plus a chance to go to Turkey like he didn’t get to some thirty tears earlier.  It was a dream come true for George.

George said to Gary, I accept, I will go.  And with a bit of a laugh, he said one thing I’ll teach those Turks if nothing else.  I’ll let them learn one thing the easy way if they listen to me, because I learned the hard way.  It seems simple and almost an after thought, but I’ll let them know for darn sure; that when you work in solvents all day long, wear rubber gloves.  If you don’t you will have fingers that look like sun dried cracked open earth; not good.  They can avoid that if they know what happened to me.

Gary said, Dad, that’s a small example, but it illustrates exactly my bosse’s philosophy and mine also.  Experienced people know way more than a manual can ever teach them.  That information added to that which is in a manual and rounds out the picture and gives students understanding that’s valuable beyond measure.  George nodded in agreement; he was a self taught mechanic to start with; before they had access to manuals.

Well to fast forward the project went off without a hitch.  This pleased everyone and helped Gary gain more self confidence toward whatever wild thing came down the pipe next, he now knew he could tackle whatever it might be.

Back home George couldn’t stop talking about what a wonderful time it was for him.  A life long dream had come true.

Harry was also radiantly pleased with the results Gary achieved.  It reaffirmed once again to Harry that he’d made the right choice.

Well there were many projects over the years.  When the company’s second in command retired, Harry appointed Gary to take his place.  Gary didn’t know it at the time, but Harry was grooming his own replacement.  Harry was getting to the age of retirement himself, only a couple more years.

This has been a story with two happy endings, with maybe more. To come.