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SUSTAINABILITY, EQUITY, DEVELOPMENT SOMETHING ELSE: Survival Is Not An Option CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Guardian Angel
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GUARDIAN ANGEL |
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Formerly
when great fortunes were only made in war, war was business; but now when great
fortunes are only made by business: Business is war! Business
is a combination of war and sport. If you
are going through hell, keep going. It is
easier to get into something than to get out of it. All I
have in this world is my balls, and my word, and I don't break 'em for no one,
you understand? Back to December 2006. A. Anguish and Spiritual Terror
Again, my heart went out to Vaughn. For no compensation at all, he had to devote significant time to the fiasco. Soon, it would occupy as much time as his paid position. When she had been board chair, Carol had no cakewalk, but she didn't have to draw swords against fellow board members. The ethical dilemmas rendered enjoyment of the holidays impossible. Completely miserable, I anguished over when to resign. While in Ohio, I gave an immediate resignation serious consideration. I updated the date on my letter of resignation to 1/31/2007. We were bleeding at better than $10,000 per month. Carol had said she did not want my job. If I resigned, odds favored a cementhead stepping in. Staff would walk and customers would leave with them. The place would quickly close. We live in a universe that has guardian angels. The spooky ones cannot be explained. The spookiest intervention I've experienced spared my life on Thursday, September 28, 1978. I was running at almost full speed into a street where traffic had stopped dead at a light in one direction, and there was no traffic in the other direction. For reasons I will never know, as I zipped between two stopped cars, I locked up my legs and did everything I could to stop. I could not stop my momentum, so I continued forward, but falling forward. As I fell into the middle lane, just before me a car screamed past at better than 45 miles per hour. The limit was 25, and the middle lane was for left turners only. I never saw the car until I was falling into it. I never had the thought, "Stop!" and experienced no fear. The event ended before I could react emotionally. The emotions began immediately afterwards. The witness opened his door and stepped out, wide eyed, "That is the strangest thing I have ever seen. Are you OK?" Spooky. I also missed death by inches at the intersection of Pima and Swan. I suddenly felt the irresistible inclination to speed up and press the pedal to the floor. Call it an impulse. Some old guy in a Volvo sailed through his red light at full speed. I passed inches in front of him. That Volvo would have killed me. Spooky guardian angels saved the lives of our mayor and his wife during the Rodeo Parade in 2006. They know the edge of the cliff I am discussing. Horses crashed a carriage into the one containing the two. She was knocked unconscious. Events occur, and in a flash one's life can end, just like that, and forget about having any control. Death had stared at them both up close and personal, and the universe warned our community about certain possibilities. In the past 40 years, there had been several mishaps where horses got spooked, a carriage overturned, something bumped into something, and there were bruises, scratches, and in the worst cases some broken bones. Non spooky guardian angels of the flesh and blood variety can also come to the rescue. In 2002, thanks to an election fluke caused by re-districting, Carol Somers became SAIAT's board chair and saved the organization. If she had won the 2002 primary, SAIAT would have closed in 2003. Reality is a strange and messy affair, an incomprehensible dance of order and chaos. Carol belonged at SAIAT, not in Phoenix. Ask God. The first time, she became the chair of the board. The second time, she would become its executive director, but not at first. My plan would give her five and a half months to learn about the organization before taking the reigns. Our cash reserves would still hold a six figure sum. She might stand a chance. I did not. I don't think I can convey the awful nature of my December. Our 24-year-old receptionist was five months pregnant and due mid-March. The low SES individual depended on SAIAT for health coverage. The funding cut pointed a gun at her. Laying her off and increasing Sergio's hours would save the company over a grand a month. She needed three more months. The 100 percent Republican board would consider business to be business. My replacement would zero her in four to six weeks. So what if she was pregnant? So what if she barely scraped by? We were too small for COBRA. Who cared what getting laid off shortly before giving birth did to her emotionally? What business did she have getting pregnant before establishing more financial security? Her health coverage was her responsibility, not the company's. The company was not in the business of helping kids have kids. I knew Republicans. Business was business. Her 25-year-old husband looked for work but had only found positions without health benefits. A resignation effective 1/31/07 might give her time. With my coaching, she could probably negotiate for her health premiums for the two remaining months. AAAAAGGGHH!! Never mind. F*** it. I would stay until May. I had two cementheads to get rid of as well anyway, and staying gelled with my strategy for getting rid of them. I knew they would call for my resignation. When they did, I would survive. If one shoots and misses, one has to resign. Beveridge would hurt me, but if I lived, he had to leave the board. I spent the flight back to Tucson crafting a conversation to deflect the bullets and cement my departure, but according to a May timetable. If I made it to May, terrific. If not, I gave it my best. I didn't know how long I could protect her, but I could get her through delivery with health coverage. Maybe when this country pulled its collective head out of its collective ass when it came to health care, businesses and professionals wouldn't find themselves facing these situations. For all I knew she could have used AHCCCS. I met Carol for coffee at Starbuck's on 12/29 and hired her at once. Everyone wanted her to join the team. An experienced sales professional who had built a company up from literally nothing, she could inject the company with business development energy beyond what my skills could provide. The seasoned professional required no direction, only knowledge. She resigned as a voting member of the board and started work on January 3. To test her reaction, I joked that she could have my job. She repeated that she did not want it. I had five months to change that. In her new role as a paid consultant, Carol showed up as a top notch professional. Unlike Beveridge or McKinney, she was acutely aware that her first task involved learning the reality of SAIAT as opposed to the bullshit. To my delight, she drank deep. I launched the introduction at a high level and then put her into one-on-one meetings with staff. She quickly realized we had an outstanding team. My concerns quickly subsided and my respect for her professionalism blossomed. In only one day, she had pretty much gotten the basics. I made no effort to direct her efforts other than offer my assistance and educate her as well as I could about everything. In a really bizarre circumstance, a spooky guardian angel saved an unspooky guardian angel, new terrain for your humble blogger. On January 4 just a few minutes after noon, Carol Somers was almost killed. She had a brush with death of the same razor thin proportions the mayor, his wife, and I understood. A left turning Pepsico truck pushed a yellow turn signal into the red and assumed everyone would wait for him to clear the intersection. The driver did not see the pedestrian entering his lane, head down, having seen her white walk light and proceeding without concern. Neither pedestrian nor driver saw each other in time to react. The truck did not slow down. The truck flew before her in a blur where her physical body instinctively spun and almost fell. Witnesses thought she had been physically struck and pulled over to attend to her. One more step, just one, and that truck would have killed her. B. Dodging Bullets in Dodge The morning of February 15, 2007 I made a judgment call. Professional protocol called for keeping staff in the dark about the impending violence. Standard practice called for maintaining positive leadership stature to provide the sense of security. I rejected this approach. From where I stood, the team deserved a couple hours notice just in case events went south. I cared about them. I don't pull rugs from under people. I called the operations manager into my office and shut the door. I cleared my throat, and this intelligent person knew that what I had to say would not be trivial, "I find myself compelled to let you know something most in my position would not make you aware of, but after a lot of thought I've decided to tell you, and I am also going to tell the business developer." Her eyes widened. I continued, "I want to warn you that there is a chance, I think a small one, but not trivial, that I could be fired today. I know for a fact that Dave Beveridge is going to try to call for my immediate termination. I have prepared for this and think he will fail, but I want to warn you that I think Dave or Rich may want to install one of themselves as my replacement." Her face seethed disgust, "I am out of here today if you leave." "Well, wait. If I don't prevail in terms of myself, I am going to argue for Carol as the replacement, not these guys, and with Carol, you might want to give the place a chance, depending on what happens next." The operations manager was furious, "If they put either of those snakes in charge, I will finish packing before you do." I told her it was time to play poker and smile, and then called the business developer into the office. They would notify the operations coordinator, and staff would smile and nod as the board came in for the meeting. I had broken from certain paradigms, but they had a few hours to think, some information from which to navigate as the day unfolded. I was now managing conversations not covered in Harvard Business School. Yes, I was responsible for a business, but now we had now ventured into terrain where SAIAT's people occurred as a separate distinction. They needed to know that if I walked and someone other than Carol entered my office, they had thinking to do. Once shot, the context of any conversation I could have with them drifted to oblivion. Your humble blogger, well armed, walked into the gun fight at the SAIAT Corral. Carol and I entered the room together. She knew Dave's sentiments but thought he had disarmed. She did not know today was the day. Vaughn and I did. As I anticipated, he re-arranged the agenda to have Carol present her report first. Vaughn then broke the conversation wide open, and in a stunning move, fully exposed the assassins in front of everyone and announced that if the executive director were terminated TODAY, he would also submit his resignation as the chairman of the board effective immediately. The shoot out occurred. Dave and Rich fired with vague objections to the timeliness of the publication of the board minutes, insufficient documentation and implementation of a strategic plan, dissatisfaction with forecasting, and a vague lack of confidence in my ability to stop the bleeding. They bitched profusely about the lack of a forecast, wanting to know a forecast through June. SAIAT provided customized training modules. We could get a call in ten minutes and have 50 people showing up for class on Tuesday. I could estimate revenue, but they wanted actual training events. I could show them the public enrollment schedule. They wanted booked reservations. In February they wanted to know booked reservations for one day classes that ran in June. Think zero. They bitched about the lack of a strategic plan. I had one. It included their resignations. Firing a fruit picker is easy. Firing an executive director is not. Wayne and Vaughn returned fire and as voices rose Vaughn excused Carol and me from the room. Vaughn squeezed off a round that center struck Dave so hard and deep he had to flee the meeting, unable to remain in the conversation. Staff duly noted his deeply shaken and upset demeanor as he bolted from the building. He was HURT. Vaughn turned to Rich with laser sharp pupils that focused and did not blink, "Please explain to me how we are more successful terminating the executive director TODAY and having to find a replacement at a higher salary who has no background or understanding of the organization. Please explain to me how we become more successful immediately if staff leaves with him, and we know this risk is real. We have documented facts that our largest customer thinks highly of both the executive director and his staff. Please explain to me how losing our executive director TODAY improves the SHORT TERM revenue projections of this organization!" Rich. Could. Not. Say. One. Word. The cementheads wanted to take out the executive director of a publicly funded company in a single day without full board support and without the support of its chairman. Did they consider the relationships between the executive director, staff, the board, the customers, and people in the community? Did they anticipate how any would react? Did they have a plan for the financial administration of the organization? Did they realize they would lose the operations manager? SAIAT would have NO operations. They could not book a training event, cut an invoice, or pay a bill. Is it difficult for the reader to understand my lack of enthusiasm for their business consulting expertise? I wouldn't trust them to handle a Girl Scout table in front of a Safeway. Vaughn tossed the hook perfectly about his obligation to oversee operations if I were dismissed. As anticipated, Rich bit, "I could step in." Both Dave and Rich had made statements betraying their desire to run the company, and EYES WIDE SHUT, thought they could. The fish on the hook, Vaughn cut bone, "Staff does not like or respect you, and I don't think your stepping in would work." I ask the reader to trust me that the statement inflicted extensive damage. Devastated, deflated, crushed, and shocked, Rich could look at no one as he limped from the building. Blood now lay all over the field, placed on the scoreboard four months earlier by major player Smith and Mouch Bert. Blood would continue to flow, but the idiots, having shot and only wounded, needed to tender their resignations. They thought they could barge into an organization they did not understand, execute the director, move into my office, and staff would greet them as liberators? Who did they think they were, Dick Cheney? Staff HATED both of them. I learned further details. Dave had polled board members seeking support for the termination before contacting Vaughn. Absolutely unbelievable. NEVER DO THIS. Some consider messing with another man's board worse than messing with his wife. If you want to fool around with a board, GET YOUR OWN. I then learned Dave thought he had both Carol's and Vaughn's vote for my removal, writing a February 12 email, "I think we're on the same page regarding the situation." They did not even know how to count! I must acknowledge Vaughn's leadership, courage, and character, a fantastic human being who rose to an occasion that made the dismissal of Schwarz occur like kindergarten. As I watched him operate, I was moved with admiration. Because he had grown up in the school system and not private industry and had not run a company, I wondered if he had that certain chutzpah. I no longer wondered and could not think of a single instant where the man could have been better. How he interacted with the board, the cementheads, and also important, how he interacted with staff and me, was flawless. He has contributed more to our community than most will ever know, and I am talking about our schools, not SAIAT. I posted about the shootout at SED that evening and watched the email for their resignations. C. Dark Mathematics They did not resign. WTF?! They didn't even know Machiavelli? If you were in Dodge, and you drew your gun and unloaded all you had at the sheriff, and everyone saw you shoot the sheriff, and the sheriff saw you shoot the sheriff, and you wounded the sheriff, but he was still standing, what do you think was the smartest next step?
1. Stand there and do nothing. All is well. They did not resign. Two weeks later TREO had its monthly "Outreach" meeting at 9 AM the morning of Wednesday, February 28, and while the mayor and all of the suits discussed the economic blueprint, the business developer and the operations manager sat in a smaller room and noticed item #5 of the agenda for the meeting, which read, "Discussion of Solutus Partners." TREO's Steve Martin spoke to agenda item #5, "Discussion of Solutus Partners." The outreach questionnaire would be modified to include a checkbox for business "solutions and consulting." As SAIAT staff conducted these interviews, they were to ask if for interest in business consulting or solutions. If so, they should check this box. A checked box produced a referral to Solutus Partners. Steve had to leave the meeting for a closed door meeting with Solutus at 9:30 AM. SAIAT employees were now being directed, as they contacted businesses to discuss their needs and their operations, to solicit business leading to a consulting firm named Solutus. What about all of the other consulting businesses? What about Blake Group? What about Frank Bouchard? What about BCS? Tucson had many consulting firms. Why Solutus? We then noticed that Solutus was listed on the TREO "Council of Trustees." Who were these Solutus people? Beveridge, McKinney, and Galis, the two current and one recently resigned SAIAT board members wanted SAIAT for themselves. If a Solutus partner became the executive director of SAIAT, that director could specifically instruct SAIAT staff to aggressively market and promote Solutus using SAIAT email campaign infrastructure, the SAIAT website, and all of our outreach and marketing resources, print ads, and even the Cox Media television spots we were considering. SAIAT had established relationships and contacts with hundreds of businesses and many subject matter experts, as well as our state of the art meeting and training facility. With a Solutus partner as SAIAT's executive director, would we charge Solutus for space? How about our top of the line color printers and copiers that could print first rate color flyers? Would the new executive director get a nice computer? Our email campaigns, for which subscribers signed up themselves (this was not spam), went to over three thousand subscribers in the southern Arizona community. There was no possible interpretation of an undisclosed conflict of interest? I could not get to my board chair's office fast enough. Shocked, Vaughn sought advice and on Friday, March 2, sent an email to the entire board discussing the by laws of the organization and specifically requesting that DS and FH notify him in writing their positions regarding a conflict of interest with the SAIAT organization. Anyone with a brain seeing this letter would instantly resign and move on before matters got worse. We awaited their resignations. I posted Historical Marker - Take Four that evening. They did not resign. On Monday 3/5/07 we still had no response. Vaughn sent a follow up email requesting their positions on a conflict of interest. Still nothing, and meters tweaked further. What if instead of resigning immediately they turned for another fight? Who were these guys? The next board meeting was in ten days. I posted Rats, Rat holes, and Impending Violence the night of March 5. Vaughn endorsed my consulting one of the sharpest nonprofit experts in Southern Arizona, Suzanne Lawder, CEO of Goodwill Industries of Tucson. I met her the morning of Tuesday March 6. Suzanne instantly drew the distinction between the conflict of interest and the performance of the executive director. Separate issues, the first had to be addressed before even considering the second. They could shoot me later. Our more immediate step involved obtaining professional legal advice in writing. She advised we communicate the situation to our attorney and request a letter. Vaughn had an ally ready to join the board. Suzanne suggested we resolve the conflict problem BEFORE adding new members. I adored this woman. I posted Rat Malignancy Escalates that evening and visited Vaughn the next afternoon, March 7. We still had no response to his request for a letter. We discussed Dave and Rich, the slow conversation with periods of silence. We were going to take them out. We had a meeting scheduled with TREO in two days. I posted Dollars, Sense, and Rats that night. By 3 p.m. on Thursday, still nothing, and we had a meeting scheduled with TREO the next morning. At 3:27 p.m. TREO sent an email canceling the next morning's meeting without explanation. An hour later we got an email from Rich speaking for both himself and Dave asserting that they did NOT have a conflict of interest. They planned to attend the next SAIAT board meeting to discuss the issue. UNBELIEVABLE. Vaughn shot back instantly that he needed a letter, would be seeking legal opinion, and that it was up to Solutus, not the SAIAT board, to state whether or not Solutus had a conflict of interest. At least
communication had started. Rich responded back to Vaughn, "Do you want us to
resign?" Then the cementheads ran to Major Smith for direction. Did he see a conflict of interest? Did he want them to resign from the SAIAT board? The email also introduced a new distinction. Solutus had a signed contract in place with TREO. Rich was suggesting the possibility that SAIAT be provided a copy of this contract. This was late on Thursday March 8. Two of our board members were in a three person company that had its own contract with TREO, which funded SAIAT. The water now red and hot, I was past figuring out whose blood was whose. We explained the situation to the attorney. His eyes widened, "These guys want to take over the company!" The morning of Friday, March 9 Lee Smith saw this email and our use of the word "legal opinion" shortly before Vaughn and I walked into the Unisource building. He responded to the email at once (8:02 AM) that he did NOT feel there was conflict of interest, but that he had concerns that the board chair of SAIAT had concerns, and voiced a desire to see the matter resolved in the proper manner. Concerned that the board chair had concerns? We had two board members with their own company who entered into a separate contract behind our back with our sole funding source that asked them to perform services competing with ours, and Lee major player Smith had concerns that the SAIAT board chair had concerns? Everything would rise to the next level. TREO had a contract with Solutus Partners. TREO had another contract with SAIAT. All three of the Solutus partners had served on SAIAT's board, and two still did. TREO could contract with whomever they wanted. THE LACK OF DISCLOSURE was the issue. The SAIAT board absolutely deserved to know about both contracts and be given the opportunity to discuss whether it presented issues. Further, the contracts asked both companies to conduct outreach efforts, establishing competition between the two. When asked, Solutus then stated no conflict of interest existed after TREO instructed SAIAT staff to refer business leads to Solutus through TREO for consulting. Oh, yeah, and we had the bit about firing SAIAT's executive director with one of them stepping in as the replacement. The implications escalated dramatically with dark mathematics.
I think Vaughn and I had the same thought at the same time. Had TREO ordered the hit? Oh my God. Without question all board meetings were indefinitely postponed. Vaughn contacted Solutus and reiterated the request for a written statement regarding the conflict of interest. He requested TREO provide a copy of the contract with Solutus. The afternoon of Friday March 9 Vaughn directed me to launch the 2/15/07 board meeting minutes documenting the failed coup. I promptly sent them, which locked my May resignation announcing an effective date of June 30, 2007. I hope the reader knows sending these minutes to the Solutus partners meant a direct forward to TREO. Now everyone knew I would resign in May. The minutes included the following. Matt suggested that the board give the current organization and its structure a chance for the next few months, and if by the May Board meeting, insufficient signs of progress were seen, he would tender his resignation effective at the end of the fiscal year and help the organization transition to new leadership as determined by the board. Lee Smith and Mouch Bert re-scheduled the meeting with Vaughn and me for Tuesday, 3/20. A professional, Vaughn decided to just mosey over to 120 N. Stone into the lion's den and see who he might see. He connected with someone, "If you want them off the board, just say so. We certainly don't want anything in the press." Perhaps everything I'd concluded about Mouch Bert was incorrect. Maybe the guy knew blood perfectly. Maybe he knew what he was doing. Instead of funding SAIAT, cut its funding by over half to produce heavy losses. Wait a couple months, call the director inept, and shoot him. Install yes men and acquire full SAIAT functionality, acquire control of the facility, the staff, the cash reserves, and the revenue streams. They could create their Business Convergence Center, all right, minus one recalcitrant executive director. Let's consider the FACTS: 1. The
Thursday 9/28/06 SAIAT Board meeting resulted in a Friday 9/29/06
letter from SAIAT to TREO requesting that its funding level remain unchanged. OK, dear reader, you tell me. We have confirmed TREO had prior knowledge of the 2/15 hit. Did they approve it? Did they order it? I do not know. On Wednesday March 14 (note how many days were passing), we had still heard nothing from Solutus or TREO regarding the conflict of interest. Vaughn emailed Lee again on this day asking for a copy of the TREO contract with Solutus. There was no response. The ides of March were upon us. Both Tucson and the water around me was getting hot. I knew Microsoft was aggressively locking boxes into its new operating system, Vista. I required XP and was running out of time. All stores were exclusively Vista. My computer person located a warehouse in Houston and locked up a fabulous VAIO with XP Pro. It was also now time to lock up the Web site, so GoDaddy parked www.x4mr.com for me by 5 p.m. that night. By 3/21, I had my own machine, my website domain, and a contract with a local host with internationally located server farms. Neither
TREO nor Solutus were returning Vaughn's phone calls or emails. Finally on
Friday morning 3/16 Vaughn sent an email to the most appropriate TREO person,
"Please help." What's up?! We're seeing possibly borderline illegal activity and requesting clarification, and you are ignoring us?! Lee gave us a copy of the contract but did not ask Solutus to resign from the SAIAT board. Back to the Unisource building we went, and we were scheduled to meet with Lee and Mouch the morning of 3/20. Would they cancel? No. Vaughn and I met them and basically listened to 75 minutes of bullshit. Lee infuriated me by expressing "disappointment" that confidential information shared with SAIAT leaked into the community, knowing damned well the loose lips belonged to Rich. I barked, "We BOTH know who was responsible for that!" TREO returned to the idea of SAIAT doing the Arizona Department of Commerce Job Training Grants AND become self-sufficient. We were to generate six figure sums doing what they had done for free for the last ten years. Think about that. SAIAT would charge a fee for the service, and our fees would be sufficient to fund a $3/4 M operation allowing them to slash our funding to zero. Then Kendall Bert voiced a certain "disappointment" that what we really focused on was "property management." Property management?! Bert could really press my buttons. Need computers? U-shape or classroom style or pods? Free easy to use wireless internet for everyone. Oh, got more participants than expected and need 7 extra copies of the 54 page class handouts? Collated and stapled duplex in high quality color? For a class that started in ten minutes?
As mentioned, Joe Snell had attended our April 2006 board meeting with the mayor where I walked both through the facility and explained the operations. He and Mayor Walkup sat together and ate lunch while I delivered the message. By fall 2006, ALL feedback was glowing. One example of many. Over ten thousand Tucsonans got trained at SAIAT each year in the skills their employers considered important. Such activity was not work force development? What did TREO think was happening inside the SAIAT facility every day? With OSHA and Statistics and GIS, it was our instructor. With UPH, it was their instructor. With C sharp it was an instructor SAIAT flew in from the coast. For soldering we hired a Universal Avionics employee to teach. With Arbinger, it was Raytheon's instructor. Was the local workforce being developed or not? If it was our instructor, that developed the workforce, but if it was someone else's instructor, it didn't? Well, the next time the dear reader listens to some politician or economic development agency talk about the importance of workforce development and improving the skills of the local workforce, I really request that you think of SAIAT. While they were talking, SAIAT was training. While they made fancy brochures and held meetings to discuss meetings to develop plans on how to create projects to develop action plans for implementing activity to produce a strategy, we trained the Southern Arizona workforce in the manner requested by its employers. It was common for an organization to already have its own instructor. Something was wrong with this? Vaughn and I walked out of 120 N. Stone and looked at each other. The more we thought about what just happened, the more confused we got. What had we just heard for 75 minutes? We didn't know. Finally, the morning of Wednesday, March 21, 2007, Dave Beveridge submitted his resignation. Three down, one to go, and it insured Rich's departure by giving Vaughn a three to one vote. I posted of his demise at SED. The same day I got the letter from the attorney. Vaughn wasted no time, and the next day, he visited SAIAT to send the email himself using the SAIAT domain as the chair of its board, vcroft@saiat.org to Rich that said in nice language, "Resign or be shot." By Friday morning, still no response from Rich. Vaughn shot another email (again, he used appropriate language I am translating to the semantic equivalent), "Get the F out of here." On Friday, March 23 Rich McKinney sent the inevitable, "I hereby resign as a member of the Board of Directors of SAIAT, effective immediately." Thank God. I posted of his departure. Staff cheered and celebrated afterwards with drinks at API. At long last, the organization had freed itself of cementheads. The place went from a $351,000 loss in FY 04 to a $56,000 gain in FY 05, a $400,000 reversal in a single year with only $50,000 in additional funding. The other $350,000 difference came from operations, $125,000 achieved with the reduction of rent and the remaining $225,000 the result your humble writer and his team's efforts The folks at the Tucson Bank had no view of the players on the field, but they watched the scoreboard and gave me statements every month. In August of 2004 they thought I was dead. In August of 2005, they all greeted me by my first name. In August of 2006 they were offering me lines of credit. After we showed a gain of $56,000, they slashed our funding $62,500. Then we showed a gain of $22,000 with six figure positive cash flow. At the board's direction, my inability to function produced cash reserves of a quarter million dollars for a company with a three quarter million dollar budget just two years after it was losing $30,000 a month. Numbers didn't lie. There were the financials, and there was bullshit. TREO told me to become self-sufficient, but if I quoted a competitive price for a computer lab, they bitched at me, "Couldn't you have given them a big discount or a day for free?" They told me to become self-sufficient, but if I did something that made money, they criticized it. They told me to become self sufficient, but if I made money, they took it. I was supposed to be a non-profit that provided services with no funding and criticized for performing services that produced cash flow. I was to create a company that received no funding, made no money, yet sustained itself by provided services that could not be performed at the costs of doing them. Survival was not an option. Cigar Man consoled me during my December misery, "You gave it your best and treated your people well." Blood returned to the water and seriously, but it felt different this time, darker, like coffee having spent hours on the burner. This was the blood of an idea. If the organization survived, it would not be what I'd created. D. Death, Birth, and Murder Sometimes when something beautiful got created, certain forces just couldn't let the beauty survive. Guardian Angels could not be predicted or counted on. Tucson had its Rodeo Parade again, and in almost the same location, the same thing happened as the previous year. Spooked horses went out of control, and this time, for reasons beyond our reach, angels did not spare a life.
On the morning of Tuesday, March 13 at 6:47 AM, the receptionist gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Conner, her health insurance intact and covering her hospital expenses. Welcome to the planet, Conner. I waited a month. On Thursday, April 12, 2007, we did what was necessary. I irritated Republicans by paying the insurance through 5/31/2007. I did not have it in me to make the phone call, so I had the operations manager do it. She acted like a professional. The receptionist was gone. I was going to resign in May. Perhaps if I fell on the sword just right, with well designed behavior and statements, my departure could save the organization. Only time would tell. I informed Vaughn of my resignation on Thursday May 3. Vaughn informed TREO on Friday, May 4, and he and Carol met with TREO on Monday, May 6, while I was at the Tucson Regional Town Hall. I informed staff on Thursday May 10. We issued the press release on Friday, May 11. The Star included a brief statement in its "News and Notes" section that Saturday. Your humble blogger was gone. We lived in a universe that had guardian angels. They saved when they could. They had to come from somewhere. Shortly after I left SAIAT, I learned that a year earlier the wife had taken Lucky and Pidge, two healthy dogs I loved and missed, to a particular clinic. She had both killed.
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