THE SHEIK OF ARABY and BLUE SKIES

Do you remember when OPEC initiated an oil-embargo? I do. Here's my recollection of those days. 03/10/2016

THE SHEIK OF ARABY

When the Oil Producers Exporting Countries (OPEC) began its oil embargo in the early 1970s, the United States encountered a chilling reality, a monopoly it could not control. Our nation became hostage to the oil producing regions of the world. As shortages in supply arose, motorists waited in long lines fill up. Tempers flared. Prices soared.

At a cocktail party, I said to the host, “We’ll soon be paying a dollar or more per gallon.” He laughed at my prediction. Within weeks, prices passed that barrier with impunity.

As the shortage continued, the government prioritized the supply of natural gas, ranking residential home heating needs ahead of those electric utilities. SRP’s local power plants burned natural gas year round. The company now had to switch to burning either diesel or a very heavy tar-like fuel known as Bunker C on a continuing basis. Prior to this emergency, it stored small amounts of these fuels on site, used once a year while training personnel how to run the plants with them on a temporary basis, should the need arise.  No plans had been made to operate the plants indefinitely without gas.

Prior to this situation, I had routinely purchased small amounts of these two fuels to replenish the amounts consumed in training exercises. Now, I had to spend day and night trying to purchase both, in huge quantities, competing with numerous other utilities across the country. Demand far outpaced supply.

 Each product presented unique delivery problems. Two pipelines brought diesel fuel to Phoenix from refineries located in California and Texas refineries. The size of these lines dictated the amount that could be pumped in any given time frame. The same pipelines carried gasoline and other fuels as well. All these products had to be delivered to storage tanks located at pipeline’s terminus. Their were an insufficient number of them to hold the amount of diesel fuel SRP ordered, requiring the company to build four new tanks for our exclusive use.

As an interim step, we employed a fleet of trucks to haul diesel from California to our power plants. These measures helped alleviate the wide swings in usage and supply that varied with fuel oil consumption rates. Sometimes our plants could obtain natural gas which they would use before burning diesel. I found myself in at the center of a three-ring circus act, either trying to acquire more fuel or attempting to divert deliveries of supplies already in the pipeline for which we had no storage capacity.

The viscosity of Bunker C precludes refineries from shipping it by pipeline. Rail tank cars are required to transport this fuel. Soon, utilities found themselves facing a nation-wide shortage of tank cars. I helped SRP order the fabrication of 350 new ones to meet its needs. As these cars came off the assembly line in Pennsylvania, we routed them to various refineries to pick up oil we had purchased. No one supplier could meet our needs. I had to shop around, buying small quantities from a variety of sources.

 Many middle men appeared on the scene, trying to take advantage of the turmoil that prevailed. One memorable phone call from a New York based firm I recall vividly. The seller said, “Are you sitting down?  The deal I have to offer will knock you off your feet.”

“Tell me.” 

“I am prepared to sell you the entire contents of an oil tanker at an extremely attractive price. The ship is now sailing toward a U.S. port.” The astronomically high price he mentioned made me laugh.

“No deal, Charlie. Arizona remains a land-locked state, and in addition, we have decided to stop burning oil in our boilers. Instead, we have elected to toss our paper money into the furnace, as it burns cleaner and gives off just as much heat as fuel oil.” 

He laughed for about ten seconds and then hung up.

Shortly afterwards a big cowboy showed up in my office. “Just give me a purchase order number and you’ll soon have gobs of oil flowing your way. As you know, I am quite friendly with many SRP board officials.”

“What are the fuel’s specifications, in particular, the sulfur content?”

"Wadda you need to know that for?" 

"When we burn this oil in our power plant furnaces, sulfuric acid might form.” I explained the consequence this might have for our equipment and the environment.

He made an awful face, and then spat out, "You gotta be kidding me. This ain't no burnin’ oil. This here is sellin’ oil."  He seemed astonished that anyone would want to consume a product that had such an ongoing sales life.

Rail cars became the bane of my life. Some cars fell off tracks while others left a refinery and simply disappeared from the railroad’s monitoring system for months at a time. Some cars arrived carrying the wrong product, closer to asphalt than Bunker C. The sulfur content frequently exceeded the amount our specs permitted, but we had no way of returning the stuff. Through it all, we were able to keep the juice flowing to our customers.

In time, natural gas became more readily available and operating conditions changed. The company found it could buy energy from other utilities cheaper than generating its own. We did not wish to burn up all our high priced and high sulfur content fuel oil.

Bad news trumped this good news. As these new economic conditions prevailed, the fuel oil shortage turned into an abundant supply, then an unmanageable surplus. Within days, we filled every one of our storage tanks to their capacity. We had little flexibility when dealing with oil refiners. Most contracts contained a "take or pay" clause. I looked up one day and found we had 350 railroad tank cars, loaded with oil, headed toward our plants. It puzzled me. What were we going to do with all this unwanted fuel?  We could not afford to burn it, and we could not find a place to store it. All the other local utilities were up the same creek. They had filled all their storage tanks. We decided to divert the cars to various spurs and sidings all over the state. So did the other companies. Rail storage space became a premium and tank cars could be seen wherever one drove around the metropolitan area.

The railroad companies charged prohibitive freight and demurrage costs to accommodate the glut. It took a number of years, but our traffic consultant recovered hundreds of thousands of dollars from two different railroad companies through court action. The railroads were greedier than OPEC members.

Afterwards, SRP established a Fuels Department that assumed control of all the company’s fuel requirements, including coal. Coping with the oil embargo proved to be the most challenging and enjoyable part of my entire work experience. However, it did not displease me to relinquish my role.

Years later and happily retired, I came to a halt at a Tempe rail crossing, watching a freight train roll past including an SRP oil car. My mind flashed back to when the need to purchase and transport fuel consumed every minute of my working day. My immediate reaction was to sing, Tanks for the Memory.         

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BLUE SKIES

Oil was not the only bane of my life in 1973. At that time, Jamie, Laura and Ellen, ages 17, 15 and 14, were all students at nearby Saguaro High School, to which they could and did walk. We had considered sending them to a Catholic high school (there were two choices), but opted for the convenience offered by the public system. One visit to Saguaro convinced me to send my children there. I had just managed to convince SRP to provide my secretary with an IBM “Selectric” typewriter, the newest thing on the market. It cost upwards of $1500, a huge sum in those days. When I walked into Saguaro’s typing classroom, I saw at least forty of these machines ready to train students. Obviously the public school system had far more money to spend on education than did parochial schools.

Jamie disliked high school from the outset. Saguaro boasted an enrollment of about 3,400 students. She felt lost after her days in a small parochial elementary school. Adding to her angst, she was younger and smaller than almost all her classmates. The word, “petite,” always described her physique.

Laura cultivated a wider circle of friends than Jamie, and enjoyed her years there. Some of the students came from affluent homes, and drove their own cars. Ellen disliked the “rich kids”. While Jamie and Laura had no difficulty in passing their classes, Ellen excelled and achieved very high grades.

An organization called the “All American Softball League” formed in 1973, and our oldest three girls joined the Scottsdale club. Laura was named an “all-star” and played in a tournament game in California that we attended. She was a very good player, Jamie not so much. Called into an early season game as a replacement, the coach told her to take over in right field. Jamie jumped up from her seat on the bench, grabbed her glove, ran toward the pitcher’s mound, turned and shouted back, “Where’s right field?”

When they each turned sixteen, I helped teach the three oldest girls to drive. They practiced on weekends in the empty high school parking lot before venturing out on the city streets. They laugh when recalling those lessons, as I had no compunction in letting them practice parallel parking between other parked cars. They all became proficient in no time.

Jamie and Laura chose not to attend college after graduation. Ellen did, but not before she spoiled her driving record. One Saturday morning she drove my commute car, a 1972 Plymouth four-door sedan, to another high school to take an SAT exam. Running late, she pulled into a narrow parking spot, struck the rear bumper of the car on her left, plowed straight ahead anyhow, gouging the driver’s side of the car from stem to stern. Fortunately, her high SAT score enabled her to be accepted at a number of colleges.

“Which one do you have in mind?” I asked Ellen.

“The University of Alaska.” I rolled my eyes to heaven and then burst out laughing. I had attended a few classes at this school while stationed at Fairbanks back in 1946/47.

“Have you any idea how impossible it would be for us to send you there?” I asked.

“No.”

After explaining the meaning of snow, she agreed to attend the school where I had earned my MBA, Santa Clara University. The sky above returned to blue.

It was a good decision, although she could have used some sheik’s oil money to help with tuition.

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WHY DO I LOVE YOU?

Sometimes you just can't win for losing. This yarn describes a personnel issue I had with a young girl. 03/10/2016

WHY DO I LOVE YOU?

The provisions of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) regarding women’s rights in the workplace got my approval. With a family that included four daughters, and a wife who had been an Executive Secretary, I had ample reason to support it. My track record proved I had no gender bias in my makeup. In 1967, I hired a forty-three years old woman to fill a secretarial position in the Purchasing Division. Tests proved she could take shorthand and type faster than other candidates.

Some years later, I had to fill two salaried Buyer’s positions. Applicants came from a number or Material Control clerks, members of the IBEW union and whose wages were governed by collective bargaining. I chose to promote a male to fill the first job, rejecting a female, telling her I thought she would be better suited to fill the other Buyer position. When she bid for that job, I promoted her, the first female in company history to hold such a position.

She rewarded my decision by lodging two EEOC claims against me. Her first suit alleged gender discrimination because she didn’t get the first job. Her second suit claimed pay discrimination, having learned his starting pay exceeded hers by her starting salary by twenty bucks a month. 

I provided our Law Department ample documentation to prove his education; skills and experience exceeded hers for that particular buying position.

I explain the disparity in starting pay levels. I raised them each ten percent higher than their current union wage. Their new starting salaries exceed the entry level amount established for this job classification. It seemed fair to me. The disparity arose because his hourly job rate happened to be slightly higher than hers at the time. I asked, “How could an identical percentage raise be deemed discriminatory, when each now earned more than the minimum for their new job?”

Much to my surprise and great dissatisfaction, SRP’s Law Department sided with her. They said, “This issue is too petty to fight.” We settled by increasing her pay to match his, back dated to when he became a Buyer.

Years later, this female married an SRP employee and resigned. In her exit interview, she handed a letter to a Human Resources staff member. In it, she accused me of numerous mismanagement actions or inactions. My boss read it to me and asked if any of her claims were true.

“No.” 

“Case closed.”  He put the letter in his file drawer and never mentioned it again.

I encountered this lady at a funeral five years later. She greeted me in the friendliest way you could imagine.

“Hi Joe,” she said with a smile, walking toward me, arms apart, ready to hug.

“Oh, hi,” I mumbled while turning away in total disbelief. Had she forgotten the past or just forgiven me for my sins? She had done her best to kick me in the teeth when all I wanted to do was improve her lot by promoting her to a position in which she stood the best chance of succeeding.

Women should be seen and not heard, right?

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TEMPTATION

A new job offer in 1969 tempted me to leave SRP. This story describes the incident. 03/10/2016

TEMPTATION

In mid 1969, SRP made a number of changes in its organizational structure. George, my boss, no longer reported to the General Manager but to the Director, Operations Services. He hinted this might cause him to resign.

The San Diego Gas & Electric company contacted me in November, wanting to know if I’d like to interview for the position of Purchasing Agent. Although it would be a lateral move, I decided to apply for the job. I interviewed once and received an employment offer. I made no commitment, but gave every indication I might accept.

SDG&E invited me and Angie to spend a weekend at their expense looking at homes in the area. We found a lovely one located some thirty miles north of the company’s downtown corporate headquarters building which would be my new work site. Their realtor said he’d help us sell our Scottsdale home. It seemed inevitable that I would accept the new job.

I discussed this with George. He suggested I delay making this decision.

He said, “I’m on the verge of leaving SRP myself, and you are the most likely person to replace me. The Supply Department manager’s position pays more than that of a Purchasing Agent. Don’t decide until I have left.”  

As the days went by, I found myself betwixt and between, caught in the “Bird in the hand, two in the bush’’ conundrum. SDG&E kept calling, wanting to know my decision. Finally, on January 5, the pressure got to me and I verbally accepted their offer which required me to start work the second week in January. The very next day, George resigned and his boss. John Rich called me into his office.

“Do you want to be the next Manager of Supply Department?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, the job is yours.  You start on January tenth.”

This completed my job interview.

Why did I get promoted in such a perfunctory manner? I have no idea. In my brief period of employment, I must have made a favorable impression on John. When he informed me of my new salary and executive benefits package, I floated out of the office on a cloud of joy.

I phoned SDG&E to inform them of my change of heart. It distressed them. They made a last ditch effort to have me accept their offer. The executive to whom I would report flew to Phoenix and took me and Angie to dinner at the Camelback Inn. He pleaded with me to reconsider, but I would not.

It pained me to renege on my verbal acceptance. I had looked forward to living in San Diego, enjoying its balmy weather and surfer lifestyle. However, neither their starting pay nor the employee benefits matched those of my new Manager's position. Other drawbacks included the longer commute I would face and the loss of a company car. I’d be forced to pay high monthly parking fees, and significantly higher state income and real estate taxes. And my children would have to face the challenge of making new friends and attend new schools. The beach lifestyle would not appeal to Angie, a non-swimmer. All these factors made it easier for me to rationalize my decision to stay put in Scottsdale.

About a year later, the SDG&E executive who recruited me died in a traffic accident. The news shook me. What if I had accepted his job offer? Would I have been considered a candidate to replace him? Not likely.

I remained Manager, Supply Department for the next seventeen years. My decision to spurn San Diego Gas & Electric’s job offer proved to be the right one. Wasn’t it? I’ll never know. 

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T.

BY THE TIME I GET TO PHOENIX

It took longer to sell our house and move the family to Arizona than we had hoped. This story tells how that all worked out for us. 03/10/2016

BY THE TIME I GET TO PHOENIX

Our house in San Mateo remained unsold through April 1967. To improve its appearance, I returned home over the Memorial Day weekend and began painting its exterior during howling winds that made my allergies flare up. Angie had to finish the job. All weekend long my eyes watered and itched. Sneezing and gasping for air, my return to Arizona couldn’t come soon enough.

In August, unable to find a buyer and needing to enroll the children in an Arizona school, we leased our San Mateo home through a realtor to a dignified looking middle-aged man who resembled Cary Grant, according to Angie. I never laid eyes on this gent. He and his hippie wife moved in and damn near wrecked our house. His rental checks bounced and we had a terrible experience trying to evict them.

A year later, the house finally sold. I felt a great sense of relief but Angie thought we should have held out for a better price. In retrospect, we probably should have continued to rent it. Seven years later, we learned it sold for almost ten times the price we had received. Fate did not intend us to be wealthy.

SRP had agreed to pay our moving expense. I solicited three bids and chose the low bidder, Bekins Moving Company to handle the job. When the movers arrived on Friday morning they could not believe the amount of household goods we possessed, including a storage shed encased in corrugated asbestos and an upright piano. Our effects exceeded the capacity of the truck. They had to use a second one to haul the balance of our possessions. They promised to deliver the goods on Monday afternoon.

We planned to spend the weekend visiting both Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm while the trucks headed for Scottsdale. The SRP travel agency made all the necessary travel and hotel accommodations for us. On Friday evening, after the moving vans left, we flew to Los Angeles. To avoid the expense of renting a car, our travel agent had suggested we take a bus to Disneyland. The jaunt became a nightmare. It took us forever to get to our destination. We trudged up the driveway of our hotel, looking like prisoners of war marching off to internment. Angie could have murdered the travel agent who had suggested this mode of travel. We needed a good night’s sleep.

At dawn Saturday, we passed through the admission gates of Disneyland and all our troubles disappeared. We stayed until the park closed, leaving me in a complete state of exhaustion.

On Sunday morning, I rented a car and drove to Knott's Berry Farm where we hooked up with Angie’s brother Chief Petty Officer Al Sammarco, his wife Mary and their two boys, Richard and Gary. They had driven there from his current duty station, Miramar, near San Diego. We rode every ride, saw every attraction, tasted every food, and savored every thrill.

We arrived at the newly opened John Wayne Orange County Airport on Monday, scheduled to take a flight to Phoenix only to discover the car rental agency not yet open. I parked the unlocked car in front of the terminal building, keys in the ignition, hoping somehow or other authorities would return it for me. Inside the terminal, a voice informed us there would be a one-hour delay due to mechanical problems. That’s really bad news.

The kids began acting up. I tried to remain calm. About an hour later, we boarded a twin-engine Hughes Air West plane. Angie feared flying in such a small aircraft. The warm desert air created some turbulence on our flight, a white knuckle experience for her.

George Nielsen met us when we arrived and took us to our rented four-bedroom house in Scottsdale at 86th and East Citrus Way. The moving vans arrived simultaneously.  While unpacking, a six-inch long garden-variety snake crawled along the garage floor. Screams erupted. To us, it seemed more like a six-foot long rattler.

Despite this episode, Angie loved Arizona right from the start, pleased I had accepted SRP’s job offer. We enrolled our oldest four children in a Catholic parochial school, Our Lady of Perpetual Help. The school’s bus stopped at our street corner, making it easy for them to attend.

The mood of depression and anxiety that gripped me earlier in 1967 while slaving away at a terrible job in San Francisco had changed to one of euphoria. Who cared about Vietnam, hippies, or other issues? I was on a roll.

A payroll!

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IN OTHER WORDS

Read this story to gain an insight into my world of purchasing, previously unfettered by such things as terms and conditions. 03/10/2016

IN OTHER WORDS

In 196 SRP’s standard purchase order forms contained no “boilerplate” terms and conditions. George, a lawyer who never passed the bar, wrote a page of them and had them printed in small font on the back of our purchase order form. I can’t recall if he asked our Legal Department to review or approve them. His intentions were laudable as he sought to bring a new level of professionalism into SRP’s procurement process.

When we started issuing these new purchase order forms, many large corporations such as GE and Westinghouse objected to them because the terms and conditions were so one-sided in SRP’s favor. Many vendors acknowledged our orders by returning acceptance forms containing their terms and conditions.

Thus began the battle of the forms. Nothing ever occurred that required either SRP or a supplier to determine in court whose terms and conditions governed such transactions. I firmly believed SRP would lose such a case, reasoning that the vendor’s lawyers were a mite more experienced than George.

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HEY! LOOK ME OVER

This story describes my involvement in helping to create a procurement policy for SRP. It was not an easy task. 03/10/2016

HEY! LOOK ME OVER

SRP’s General Manager, Rod McMullen, wanted George Nielsen to write a Purchasing Policy document that would formalize its Corporate Purchasing process. George produced a draft copy for me to edit and comment. He had copied it almost verbatim from one used by his former employee, General Dynamics, a large defense contractor.

“SRP does not operate under the Federal procurement guidelines. The language in this draft is inappropriate,” I confided to George.

He chose to submit it to the General Manager anyhow. A few days later, Rod summoned us to a meeting where George and I took turns reading and explaining its provisions. When the presentation ended, the GM said, “Distribute it to my staff for their review.”

A week later, George and I met with the rest of the GM’s staff to discuss the proposed policy. As soon as we began reading it, many of them erupted in rage and anger, especially the company’s chief electrical engineer. He became red-faced, gasping for air, while pointing out its inadequacies and inappropriateness.  I tried to pull George's chestnuts out of the fire a few times, emphasizing some of the policy’s virtues. In a way, George and I played the roles of “bad cop, good cop.” 

The staff rejected the written proposed policy but agreed to implement a few of its provisions voluntarily.             

Long after both George and Rod left the company, I helped create an acceptable procurement policy. It contained provisions that required me to obey certain rigid procurement rules and procedures that had not existed previously. I had found a way to improve the process and increase accountability.           

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DAY BY DAY

I begin learning the ropes of my new job, and trying to figure out exactly how SRP came to be. 03/10/2016

DAY BY DAY

The origin of my new employee dates back to 1903 when the Bureau of Reclamation built the hydro electric Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River, the first project constructed under the provisions of the National Reclamation Act. Local farmers formed a company named Salt River Water User’s Association and pledged their lands as collateral for the loan used to finance its construction.

The Bureau completed the dam in 1911 and operated it until 1916.  The Association struck a deal that allowed them to run the facility. It remains the only Federal reclamation project in the country run by non-government employees.

This picture shows the dam as it appears now, increased in height to provide significantly more water storage capacity. A bridge now enables automotive traffic to cross the reservoir. Previously, cars had to navigate their way across the top of the dam.

Initially, nearby copper mines purchased the dam’s entire power output. The revenues these sales generated helped offset the cost of providing irrigation water. Subsequently, the Association built transmission and distribution lines that delivered power to their farms. Years later, when these lands were developed into residential and commercial tracts, SRP inadvertently found itself a major supplier of electricity throughout metropolitan Phoenix.

It provides power within a well defined service area. The Arizona Public Service company’s service area rings SRP’s. This utility provides power to portions of major cities within SRP’s service area. Their proximity makes it difficult for newcomers to figure out “Who’s on first?”

Soon after joining SRP, I participated in a week-long orientation program that included field trips to Roosevelt Dam and many other Project facilities. It gave me a unique opportunity to familiarize myself with the sprawling canal system, and to learn about the company’s organizational structure and its unique history.

In the mid 1930’s, Arizona’s legislature approved the Association’s request to form a quasi-municipal entity called the Agricultural Improvement and Power District. All the Water Users assets were placed under the umbrella of the Power District. At the time, the Power district had three employees, the Association many hundreds. Today, the Power District employs over four thousand people, while its counterpart still employs about four hundred. 

Its municipal status allowed the company, now called Salt River Project, to raise capital more cheaply. Instead or having to pledge farm lands as collateral, it could now pledge revenues from power sales. This helped provide capital needed to build or buy numerous power generation plants.

Both the Power and Water organizations operate independently but side-by-side, controlled by boards of ten officials elected by landholders, one vote per acre. I own one fifth of an acre, and have one fifth of a vote, should I choose to cast it. Members of families who began the Association continue to own most of the land and have the most votes which allow them to vote themselves as board members. The Supreme Court upheld this method of voting when unhappy residents sued to have the voting system changed to allow more diversity. 

Voters elect a President and Vice President, but they leave the operations under the control of a paid employee, the General Manager.

SRP derives its revenue from the sale of power and irrigation water at rates set by its respective boards. Revenues that exceed expenses are retained for operational needs. The landowners are its stakeholders, but no dividends are paid. When I joined the company in 1967, its revenues were $250 million. By 2015, its revenues topped two billion dollars.

SRP’s status as a quasi-municipal district makes it exempt from paying state taxes. To retain its status, SRP now voluntarily contributes funds to the state equivalent to what its rival, Arizona Public Service, pays in taxes. However, it is still exempt from federal taxation.

A hybrid entity, SRP ran its procurement function like a private corporation. It never conducted public bid openings nor did it have to explain or justify its purchasing decisions.

My job centered on the procurement of materials and supplies, stocked in our warehouses, needed for the maintenance, repair and operation of various facilities. These were termed MRO inventory and assigned specific stock inventory numbers. Warehouse personnel monitored the inventory levels and sent “traveling” requisitions to Purchasing authorizing a buyer to replenish the supply. Buyers bought the same items over and over again, in small amounts. Limited warehousing space dictated how much could be bought at any one time. Every day a bazillion of these cardboard forms would arrive at my desk, each of which carried the history of its previous purchases. I doled them out to the buyers for them to take action.

Engineering initiated the other primary purchasing authorization document, a bill of material. It listed the amounts of various items needed to construct new facilities.  Some of the items identified happened to be MRO items. The quantity needed for the job sometimes exceeded the quantity normally carried in inventory. When the item arrived at one of our warehouse locations, it became a challenge to keep them apart physically. From an accounting point or view, these construction items bearing the same stock number as its MRO counterpart, would enter our inventory system, inflating it to levels I had to try and explain to management.

Paperwork drove me nuts. Lacking a tracking system, these traveling requisitions and bills of materials forms often got buried in the piles of paper that swamped buyers every day. 

The company employed a “Ditto” machine to create its purchase orders. A secretary typed a purple-inked “masters,” affixed them to the machine’s drum, which when turned imprinted the data onto blank pre-numbered collated purchase order forms. The secretaries found this task messy and labor-intensive. I laugh now, just thinking about how antiquated this seems today.

SRP limited my purchasing authority to a miniscule $5,000. Any order for a sum greater than that amount required Executive Approval. This entailed my attaching a statement to the purchase order form explaining or justifying the award, even if the merchandise happened to be proprietary in nature. You can’t buy GE parts from Westinghouse, as an example. Even in such instances, they gave me no additional latitude in expenditures. Naturally, it delayed routine actions.

SRP contracted with many retail outlets to serve as collection offices for its power and water customers. Unfortunately, it couldn’t figure out an effective way to pay these stores their collection fees. They chose to issue each store a purchase order, a new one every year. To obtain payment, these entities had to submit a copy of the purchase order form to our Accounts Payable monthly. The number of pieces of paper needed to implement this system flabbergasted me. It took a few years but I managed to eliminate the use of purchase orders to facilitate this payment process.

It took me longer to end another long-standing company practice that allowed employees to utilize a purchase order form to buy items of a personal nature from local merchants. I think it had its roots when the Bureau of Reclamation ran the company. A procedures document of some twenty pages had been written to explain how these forms were to be processed. It blew my mind away.

I spent months trying to unravel accounting problems associated with the purchase of industrial gases and the subsequent need to pay manufacturers’ rental or demurrage fees for cylinders we did not return, timely or otherwise. Many cylinders of gas went to remote construction sites. Field personnel took little interest in keeping track of them, and no one would take responsibility to authorize payment when the bills came due.

My work consisted mostly of trying to streamline or eliminate the processes that created a paper jungle. My boss, George, continued to have a low opinion of most of the Purchasing Department personnel. He expected and encouraged me to replace them. After some consideration, I chose to retain them all. I strove to introduce new procedures and improve efficiency, not toss out the handful of men who continued to support me in all ways possible.

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