Just Say Yes: What I've learned About Life, Luck, and the Pursuit of Opportunity by Schwartz Bernard L

Author:Schwartz, Bernard L [Schwartz, Bernard L]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626340756
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Published: 2014-03-16T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

A Good Man

If you had been in the corridors of Loral in the days when I ran it, you would have seen that the culture made for a very free-form work environment. We had well-thought-out plans for expansion, for securing new contracts and completing them on time, and for managing the people in our various divisions. But the daily schedule of activities came together as we went along, improvising in response to challenges and opportunities. My management staff rarely resorted to memos, formal meetings, or multimedia presentations because we were always in and out of one another’s offices, talking about whatever was on our minds.

I’ll never forget the day I walked into Frank Lanza’s office to talk about a contract and saw him with his head down over his desk, furiously sketching on a pad. If he was aware that I’d come in, he did absolutely nothing to acknowledge me.

“What are you doing, Frank?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing,” he said, without looking up.

“No, really, what are you up to?”

“Just something.”

“Oh, I see.”

Frank was one of our corporate vice presidents and president of Loral Electronic Systems. He was an unusual guy. He wasn’t at all corporate, polished, or bland. He had a heavy, dark moustache and sometimes a gruff manner, and when he had a cigarette between his lips, which was pretty much always, he gave off a kind of gangsterish air that you don’t see in too many conference rooms.

Frank was an engineer by training—a brilliant one—with a creative mind that ranked with the best thinkers in defense electronics. He absolutely loved working on the electronic equipment in which Loral specialized, and in addition to being able to create wonderful technology, he was a genius at coming up with design and manufacturing solutions that kept our products profitable. But because of his look and his manner, he was not exactly Jeanette Clonan’s go-to guy when we needed someone to appear on television. Frank spoke only when he felt like it, which wasn’t often, and even then he didn’t say much. Some people who didn’t know him were intimidated by him. But I really liked Frank. He was an okay guy who told it like it was.

He would often do drawings on scraps of paper or yellow legal pads, but on the occasion that I mentioned above, he was working with extra purpose and intensity. In fact, every time I visited his office during that period, he was thoroughly absorbed in his sketches.

“Still drawing I see, Frank.”

“Yes.”

“Well, you have all these reports stacked up on your desk, but you’re not getting to them.”

“I’ll look at them.”

“Okay,” I said.

Frank’s “just something” turned out to be what we called Rapport, the first successful attempt to integrate the active and passive functions of radar detection into a single system. (You might recall I introduced Frank and the Rapport in chapter 12.) At the time the US Navy and Air Force were buying the active and passive units from two different manufacturers, and as soon as Frank told me what he was working on, I realized it had several advantages for our customers.

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