One Company – Four Men: Part II

Mike had a lot more responsibility with his new company than he’d had with the previous one we’d both been with. It was a fairly autonomous operation than ran into the millions of dollars. My role was coordinating operations and serving as backup to the various front-line managers in our region. We had a fun and hardworking group of men (and the occasional woman) and vendors and contractors. Ours was a business that had you either on top of the world or in the septic tank; there wasn’t much in-between.

During this time I was enrolled in a graduate-level program in legal studies. This became significant when Mike was visiting our division office one day and was made aware of litigation the firm was involved in up in Baltimore. Our division had just absorbed the company’s Baltimore region and had inherited a lawsuit. Mike mentioned to the division president that he might want me to take a look at the litigation and the next thing I knew I was asked up to the division office to meet with Joseph, the president of our division.

This litigation project, which involved substantial sums of money, was an opening into the world of contract law, civil procedure, and dealing with professionals and executives on a level that I had rarely done before. I became our national firm’s ball-carrier in this matter, to the point of briefing our corporate legal counsel flown in from out-of-state.

During the months I worked on this project I developed a relationship with Joseph, the division president. I’ll come back to Joseph in a future post.

Before I close out my thoughts about Mike there are two things I want to be sure I mention. The first is that I was exceptionally loyal to Mike and that when a Division VP position opened up and he was one of two men considered for the job – I really wanted him to get it. While I didn’t really know the other candidate, from what I had seen of him I thought Mike was the better candidate, and I frankly didn’t know how well I’d work with Sammy, the other candidate. Mike didn’t get the job, Sammy did, and I ended up working for Sammy. Sammy has been a dear friend for over 30 years…you just never know…do you?

Our industry was cyclical, as I mentioned you could be on top of the world one minute and the next in the septic thank. When we hit an economic downturn the word came down from our national headquarters that overhead had to be cut – that meant management. Our division had some deep cuts. During this time an opening arose in the division office – it was as an assistant to Sammy. One day Mike asked me to go up and see Sammy and the next day I was working for him – it was a great job and really advanced my career, and as you now know Sammy and I became great friends.

One day, months later, I was with the new president of the division, Charles, and Charles looked at me and said, “I don’t know what you ever did for Mike, but I can tell you than when we had those personnel cuts a while back that he called up here and lobbied hard for you to get the job you’ve got.”

Mike never said a word to be about that, not once, not even a hint.

The last time I talked with Mike has been so long I can’t remember. He had started his own company and seemed to be doing well. I don’t know if he ever thinks of me, but as you know, I think of him.