by Ed Nelson
“Why, nothing, Rick, you are an adult now and can make your own choices. We don’t agree with this one but done is done.”
“I thought I would be in trouble.”
“I guess we could send you to your room with no dinner.”
“I just ate.”
Dad sighed, “You don’t get it, we worry about you, but we know you are going to do what you do. Someday it will catch up with you. It scares us.”
“I don’t mean to try to be a hero, but when you are there and only you can do the job, what would you have me do?”
“That’s the problem, Rick, we would have you do what you need to do, we just don’t have to like the situation.”
Mum broke in, “It all began when JFK called you to take the SEAL team into Vietnam. There had to be other ways to do that. Once you started down that road it seemed to be foreordained that your life would be at risk.”
Dad continued, “You do what you have to do when you are on the ground, but you should have never been on the ground in the first place. If you don’t learn to say no, events will catch up with you someday.”
“I hear you; I have to think about this.”
Chapter 5
My first stop of the week was at the R&D lab. I wish I hadn’t gone there. I developed a monumental headache trying to follow what they were telling me.
They had come up with a family of integrated circuits which was more efficient than any of its predecessors and more importantly didn’t infringe on any other patents.
Another plus was these could be manufactured with a higher throughput rate. They attributed a lot of that to my suggestion that they use pharmaceutical cleanroom protocols.
Another advancement they made was in the passivation process. This was the stabilization of the silicon surfaces through oxidation. I nodded my head as though I understood what they were talking about.
Also, they were protecting the transistors with a planar process using a thick layer of oxide. At this point, I couldn’t even figure out when to nod my head.
I stopped listening when they started talking about large numbers of p-n junctions for impedance. I never figured out if impedance was a good or bad thing.
In their main conference room, we talked about the best way to proceed. They were upfront that while they had developed the process, they were not the people to implement it.
It would take a manufacturing team to design the equipment to manufacture something new to the world. The cost would be enormous.
We would have to either take in partners or license the right to manufacture the chips. I had very good luck with licensing the shower heads and hairdryers, so my first impulse was to go that way.
After listening to what would be needed in the way of personnel and financing my mind was made up. We would try to license out the new integrated circuit chips. We might even finance a new start-up company if it looked like it could succeed but we wouldn’t take on the project ourselves.
We moved on to what their next projects would be. One director thought they had done as much as they could and that the teams should be reassigned to other projects.
Now I didn’t understand the technology involved but I did understand that the result was a complete breakthrough in electronics. From devices with hundreds or even thousands of tubes we now could use these IC Chips.
I asked them how long it had taken them to develop what they currently had. It was eighteen months.
Deciding with no real data I asked that the team be divided into three groups. The first group would work on optimizing the current production technology.
The second group would spend eighteen months generating second-generation chips which would double the number of transistors.
The third group would be working on a third generation which would double once more the number of transistors.
When group two completed their task, in the eighteen-month timeline they move up to the third step using the data created by group three.
Group three then would move onto another third step or doubling what they had previously been working on.
If we could keep this pace up, we would always be the leading technical source for IC Chips. Our licensing agreements were to take this into account.
Several people wanted to argue with me because I was just a kid. I stopped all that by reminding them that I owned this company lock, stock, and barrel.
That shut them up. It also reminded me of Mum saying, “Because I said so!”
My next stop was to see Jim Williamson in his office. We had to plan the agenda for the business meeting. Before that, I asked him to look into what the appropriate bonuses would be for the people at the R&D lab.
He thought a one-time cash bonus and a continuing extremely small portion of the licensing profits should go into a pool to be shared by the staff who had worked on the project.
I asked him why an extremely small portion of the profits.
“Rick, I have talked to them about the applications. We are talking about billions of IC Chips.”
“Oh, they still would get rich.”
“Right, and it would be over a longer period so we wouldn’t have a lot of immediate retirees.”
“This is why I pay you the big bucks.”
“Speaking of which.”
“You want more!”
“No, I just wanted to get a rise out of you.”
We talked about the upcoming business meeting. We both agreed that the format we used in the last meeting worked so we would follow it again.
The next week flew back in a flurry of pre-meeting meetings. I didn’t realize so much work went into getting ready for a state of the business meeting.
I had been able to avoid it in the past, but now I knew that I had to be involved if I was to consider this my business.
Since by the time all the meetings were finished, I pretty well knew the status of the business. I asked Jim why we went through this exercise. Why have a meeting?
“This is what a publicly held company has to go through every time they have their annual meeting.”
“But we aren’t publicly held.”
“Not at this time, someday it may be in your best interest to go public. This way we will be ready. Also, if the company is ever investigated, we can demonstrate that due diligence was being exercised.”
“If you say so, I'm just getting to hate meetings.”
“Unfortunately, a necessary evil.”
“And all these overheads, after a while they all run together.”
“Until there is a better way of showing charts and graphs, they will have to do.”
“Maybe these new chips will help us develop a method of creating them quickly and projecting them without all the heat.”
“That would be a powerful tool to make your points.”
“That’s what we will call it, PowerPoints.”
“I think you are getting ahead of yourself Rick but keep it in mind.
“I intend to.”
On the day of the business meeting, I was up early and got my run and exercise in. After that a good breakfast and a shower. I had a new suit, custom-made, from Hart, Shaffner, and Marx. It was dark blue with the finest red line running vertically.
We met in the small conference room for the Divisional meetings. The agenda allowed an hour each for Jackson Personal Products, Jackson Home Products, and the Entertainment Division. Jackson Transportation was in the afternoon.
First up was a review of Personal Products. The meeting room was set up with a sideboard with the usual coffee, tea, orange juice, bagels, and donuts.
I had coffee and a crème filled donut even though I had a large breakfast.
The new markets which we had opened in Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Columbia, and Chile had brought in ten million this past year. Way ahead of projections.
It looked solid overall in Africa, but hairdryer sales were still not doing as well as projected in South Africa. Market penetration had started in Egypt and Sout
hern Rhodesia and was moving ahead. We still couldn’t get a foothold in Liberia.
Don had talked again to the Managing Director of the Firestone Plantation. Mr. Dawson was still helpful, but everything was held up by the corruption in the Liberian government.
We continued to refuse to pay the bribes requested. These were for large cash payments. I still supported our position.
Australia and the New Zealand markets were above projections which had been ambitious in the first place.
Europe was still spotty. The Mediterranean countries were still slow adopters while the Scandinavians couldn’t buy enough dryers and curling irons. We discussed spending more money on advertising in the Mediterranean countries but finally decided not to. A few ads weren’t going to change a culture.
The bottom line on the Division was that it was going to earn over twenty million dollars in profit this year, well over the sixteen million projected.
Mark and Sharon Downing flew in for the meeting. It was good to see them. Sharon had had her baby. They had left their new daughter with her mother.
For the newborn's gift, I had fully endowed a college fund.
The purchase of a competitor worked out nicely. The production facility and its infrastructure were filling the need for expansion. The old workforce found that our company was much better to work for. An attempt to unionize their location failed miserably.
The profit pace had been projected at six million. Instead, it would be seven. Mark’s sister's wails still could be heard all over the world.
The last before lunch, we reviewed the numbers of the Jackson Entertainment Division. The accounting group gave us dry numbers from movies and music.
We took a restroom break before the meeting and refreshed our coffee.
Chapter 6
Since I had no new movies out it was a review of past endeavors. This was from the failed surfer movie and revenues from; ‘Over the Ohio’. OTO, as we started calling it had done fantastically. It had set US box office records and had done the same when released overseas.
The cattle drive movie had been delayed because of some post-production problems.
On the movie front, it now looked like seventy million dollars which beat last year's projection of sixty million. The music from all songs had been projected at $400,000 but ended up near $300,000. There was hope for American Music after all.
Susan Wallace was still doing very well. Mr. Spiller had set me up as a silent partner in her talent agency and was kept informed. Even so, I kept my hands off and would continue to do so unless she called for help. By keeping informed I could step in if her pride stood in the way of asking for help.
It didn’t look like she would ever need it. I asked that she be approached to see if she wanted to buy me out. Not that I wanted out, but she might want all the fruits of her labor.
After lunch was Jackson Transportation as it was normally the longest review. It included the production of shipping containers, the Scottish Line, and Narrow Freight.
Once more they were asking for additional financing allowing them to grow even larger. I just thought last year's numbers were large.
Freight Forwarding was doing well after being spun off as a new and separate part of Jackson Enterprises. I still liked the FreightEx name for Freight Express but gave it up as a lost cause.
The Scottish Line had added four more ocean-going freighters at sixty million. I asked why it cost sixty million this year for four more ships when we only had to pay fifty million for four ships last year. It seems there was some inflation going on that or the buy one gets one free sale was over.
The book value of the company was now well over one billion dollars. This year’s profits had been estimated to be two hundred and seventy-five million dollars, but instead, they were three hundred and ninety million.
Putting it all together I would make almost four hundred and fifty million dollars this year.
Jim Williamson gave the numbers his overseas Accounting Teams had recaptured for us. There was still no grand theft in under-reporting of royalties on the beer can pull tabs, but the nickels and dimes added up. The group more than paid for itself. We had wondered if we would need them all the time.
The answer was we needed the group permanently. This continued attention to the small details would prevent large thefts.
There were two new items on the agenda.
The R&D department's breakthroughs on IC Chips and their products were a major topic. The more we talked about the cost of getting into the manufacturing end, the better licensing sounded to me.
At this point, we had no way of estimating what we might make by licensing but there would be enough of a tax write-off that there would be no negative consequences from trying my three-step improvement process.
When asked about how I thought of doing it that way I told them that I had learned it in the gulag logging operations.
The forests were not a monolithic growth. There would be one team out identifying large and useful tree lots, then a team would prepare the logging site by cutting brush and making roads. The third team would do the actual logging.
Dad thought that was a good idea and maybe I should be sent back to a gulag every year to learn new processes. I didn’t think he was very funny.
The last item on the agenda was my idea of an airfreight line working from a hub concept. Instead of our last meeting where I wanted to go worldwide, I suggested a California test case.
When I presented my budget for the operation all the others were against it. I took what they said in stride. Rather than argue I would start a separate company without these naysayers. It wasn’t as though I didn’t have the money.
The only thing left was for the accountants to tell me if I would have anything left after the tax man took his share. Not only here in the US, but in all the countries we worked in.
Sam Wingate our corporate attorney had a tax accountant update me on my earnings and tax position.
I was still in the ninety-one percent marginal tax bracket and the only way I would ever get out of it was for the government to change the tax rates.
My three-million-dollar salary, oops, five million, so easy to forget what I make, wasn’t the real money. It was the company's profits. On those, I would owe over ninety million dollars. Of course, I would keep two hundred and seventy million.
I once more made a mental note to think about spreading my money around a bit. The US stock market was great but there were other markets around the world. I was serious about buying a lot of land in Australia.
At the end of the day, numbers were spinning in my head. It is a good thing I took a lot of notes and had copies of the presentations.
After the business meeting, which I deemed a success even though they disagreed with my Flying Express idea, we had dinner as a group at the Brown Derby. In the middle of dinner, I realized that we hadn’t discussed the Bank of Guangzhou. Probably not as it was a personal loan, not JE business.
It was a jovial bunch, which it should have been after the annual bonuses were announced.
Mister Wingate asked me, “Rick, did you see that looker that just came in.”
I hadn’t but I turned to check her out. She is gorgeous. Blonde, blue eyes, proportional breasts, and legs which went clear to the floor. She must be five foot ten inches. A good height for me.
I asked Mister Wingate if he knew her. He grinned while he stirred the sugar in his coffee.
“I believe she is Princess Olga Glucksburg from Denmark.”
“I wonder what she is doing here, not the restaurant, but the United States.”
“I met her father yesterday and had lunch with his family. He is interested in investing in American movies. I tried to discourage him, but I think he is doing it to get his new wife a part in a movie.”
He must have seen the confusion in my face as he added.
“She is a trophy wife. He has a lot of money, his first wife, Olga’s mother died many years ago, so he recently r
emarried. I’m not impressed with the new wife. I think she is a gold digger par excellence.”
“Is he a Prince then?”
“Yes, but he is not in line for the throne. That is a first cousin of his. Olga’s children will not continue the title. They will become barons or something like that.”
About that time the parents came in. I saw what Mister Wingate was talking about. Her father was distinguished-looking. His clothing was discreet but spoke of money. Olga’s stepmother was an outstanding representative of her class. Brassy beauty with a tinge of greed.
I bet Olga and her new Mom didn’t get along. Mum must have been five years older than Olga if Olga was my age.
I asked Mister Wingate if he knew Olga’s age.
“Nineteen this past month.
Perfect.
Then Mister Wingate asked me a question that made him a hero in my world.
“Would you like to be introduced to the young lady?”
Would I!
“Yes, I think I would like to get to know her.”
How I said that calmly I didn’t know, my heart was beating like a drum.
My new best friend Sam and I excused ourselves from the table, and he took me over and made the introductions. The parents first, then the daughter.
Dad was nice in a cool way. Her Mom was cold. That is until she put it together that I was Rick Jackson the actor. It did help that Sam mentioned that to her.
Then she couldn’t be warm enough, too warm if you asked me. She leaned over in such a way that I got a good look at her stock in trade, an enormous set of breasts.
It was my turn to be a little cool and remote and I told her it was my pleasure to meet her.
Sam my best friend in the world then introduced me to Olga. From the way she received me, I think she approved of the slight cut I gave her stepmother.
We talked inanely, at least I did, for a few minutes then returned to our table. My mind was whirling as to how I could get to know Olga better.
“Incidentally Rick, they are staying at the Beverly Hills hotel, if you wanted to call her.”