Above it All Ch. 00-01

It took a while to find the Jeep I wanted. It was a four-door 2010 Wrangler model in dark green with black leather upholstery. The mileage was reasonable at just under 48,000 miles. It looked like it had been cared for and the dealer offered a one-year warranty with it. I haggled a bit, but ended up paying a little over $12,000 for it. It would do me for my everyday needs and my ski trips to the Sierras. Why a Jeep? Because it was one of the few vehicles that wasn't a truck that I could fit comfortably into. It had adequate headroom and legroom for my oversized frame. I was now six-foot seven, and fortunately, had stopped growing.

As expected, I stayed in the dorms at Geary for my final year. I didn't finish at the top of my class, but I was in the top 15%, so I was satisfied I'd done what I could, considering the upsetting trauma of the past year. Dow certainly seemed to be satisfied, and I was hired as a trainee field rep for Dow Chemicals Division. I spent two years working with Rex Lyman, traveling all over the US and parts of Canada. I still don't know to this day how Rex was able to keep it up. I know it took all of my stamina to withstand the constant travel. Rex was undoubtedly the prototypical "road warrior."

But he was also great company, a good teacher, and had a storehouse of stories about his job, his customers, and his contacts. I learned later that it was Rex who had listened to John Smith's proposal for the machine that would one day become Diamond Stream. John wanted support from the micro fiber group to develop a critical part of the design, and Rex recommended that he be given an audience with the development and management group to state his case. From there forward, it was a team that put the key component to the water purification system in place.

Rex taught me the importance of putting people together who might help each other, and thereby help Dow. He had met Kevin Riordan at Lockheed Martin and when Kevin was laid off, he recommended him to John Smith as someone who could help him with the design engineering. Kevin turned out to be a perfect fit, and Rex was given a lot of credit for making it happen.

So it was not too surprising that when I was hired, Rex was promoted to supervisor of field reps and his days of constant travel would be cut back dramatically. We were a bit of an odd couple. Rex was short, tubby, and now showing signs of male pattern baldness. I, on the other hand, was exceptionally tall at six foot seven and possessed of thin, blonde hair. In my new job, I was going to be a moving object, since my territory was the entire West Coast, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. I think there were a number of very envious field reps when I got that territory. My reward was a good starting salary, a potential bonus for performance, and three weeks on the road each month. Well, I can't say I didn't already have a taste of what that was like. Luckily, I was single, so the prospect wasn't as daunting as it might have been.

I studied my client list and their locations and spent some time on the Internet figuring out a route that would get me to my clients in an efficient way. In the end, I decided I could operate out of Metro Oakland International Airport, rather than the always busy San Francisco International. In a pinch, I could use Sacramento if the Bay Area was fogged-in. Not an ideal alternative, but a useful emergency one.

Rex would travel with me until I had been introduced to all the customers, and then I was on my own. I knew what was expected of me, so I wasn't too worried about being able to cope. The questions were, could I get improved results because I was more local and my calls were more frequent? Could I develop new business? Time would tell.

I found an apartment in Hayward, not far off the Cal State East Bay campus. It was a decent area and while the rents were high, I decided it would do for now until I could see how my career was going to work out and where I might end up with Dow. There was no shortage of students in the area with a population on campus of somewhere near 25,000.

Tom lived a little further away, closer to Castro Valley. Usually we got together on Friday afternoons if I was around and shared a beer and the latest events in our lives. I wasn't a highly social guy, so I didn't have a lot of friends around me. Most of my classmates at Geary had scattered to find employment where they could. I'd been away from Davis and Sacramento for the past four years, so I was in contact with very few of my friends there.

My first call with Diamond Stream was memorable for a number of reasons. Rex was with me and he was well known at this account. He was able to introduce me to some of the key people there, including the Manager of Production, Mel Branca, and his assistant manager, Marco Estrada. But the real surprise was meeting John and Georgette Smith, the CEO and his wife. Georgette was an active participant in the company's affairs, working with both marketing and product development. She had a PhD in Psychology that had never been used professionally, but she was a great sounding board for new ideas, Rex said.

John and Georgette invited Rex and me to lunch in their staff room. I was amazed at just how down-to-earth the two were. They were both famous and recognizable; John with his TV and magazine appearances, and Georgette as the glamorous wife, mother, and partner in the business. We had a great discussion and John made it known just how grateful he was to have Dow as a key partner in their business. We would become even more important in the future with their newest development for waste management.

I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement before I would become involved in the project, but that was a mere formality, since Rex and his boss and a number of Dow employees had already signed it. A plant tour was deferred since there was some new equipment installation underway and they didn't want to interrupt the work crews with visitors. The tour would come on my next visit.

I didn't get a chance to meet Kevin Riordan, since he was away making sure all the robotic systems in the new Bismarck, North Dakota and Ardmore, Oklahoma plants were up and running efficiently. Once that was established, he and Devon DesBiens, Georgette's uncle, would be off to Ireland to see if they could find a plant site for their first European operation. Beyond that, they would spend some time assessing the market for future business before investing in any further production facilities.

When Rex and I left the plant, I was truly excited that I would have the responsibility to represent Dow Chemical at Smithton, the parent company of Diamond Stream. They were not yet our largest customer in my region, but that was only a matter of time. More importantly, they generated a very high rate of return with their purchases. That might not last forever, but for now, it made this customer a very valuable asset.

What was I doing being given the responsibility for such an important client? Me, essentially a rookie, put in charge of servicing the most important and iconic account in the west? It was nerve-wracking, to say the least. It's not like I could hide, either. I was visible in a crowd. I was easy to spot, wherever I was. People remembered me, even if they didn't know me.

I maintained my contact with Robert Fuller, even though I was not running competitively any more. Now and then I would enter a 5k or a 10k fun run just for the exercise and the enjoyment of being with a lot of people all trying to do well. I was at the upper end of the ideal body weight scale at 215 lbs, but I was still within a healthy range. I suspect my muscle mass from weight training added some weight as well. I was satisfied that my fitness was good.

However, it was a challenge to maintain my fitness and diet while on the road. If I was away from home fifteen days a month, I was eating in restaurants and living in hotels, and that was not conducive to keeping a good diet and good habits. Once I was on my own, I changed my routine to staying in motels with kitchenettes and if possible, exercise facilities. I wasn't always successful with the exercise, but with a kitchenette, I was able to maintain my diet and eat healthy foods. If there were no exercise facilities, I looked for either a YMCA or some outdoor areas that would be safe for running.

If it sounds like I was a bit obsessive about my diet and fitness, I was. Heart disease ran in my father's side of the family, and I had no idea what might have been prevalent in my mother's side. My mother was fairly slim and dad was in pretty good shape for his age, but my grandfather was overweight and unable to do much about it. He had arthritis in his hips and that limited his activities. My grandmother was pretty much typical for her age, a bit overweight, but reasonably active and seemingly in good health.

To Be Continued