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MAKING
THE BREAK:
Corporate Types Who Brave the World of Private Enterprise

By
Michael Finley


It
is the dream of every employee -- on the bad days, at least -- to
make the break from the corporate mob and begin afresh with a business
of one's own.

The dream is sweetest when it focuses on the blissful independence,
the pioneering sense of adventure, the delicious bosslessness of
going it alone.

And it turns most sour when it swerves into the dread unknowns and
the even more dreaded knowns of running a business -- the long hours,
the constant need for capital, the responsibility of meeting payrolls,
the constant need for capital, one's failings as a manager, the constant
need for capital, the crippling misreading of the market, and the
constant need for capital.

Today, corporate life is still the target of most green graduates
of America's MBA mills.  If you're not with a large corporation,
the idea goes, you just aren't, period.  But for those who've done
time within the labyrinth of a modern corporation, the charm has
long since begun to ebb, and the lure of entrepreneurship is like
a line drawn in the dirt, with the implicit double-dare to cross
it.

Every day, hundreds of middle and even top managers bail out of
the flying fortress and parachute softly to whatever spot their talent,
know-how, and luck in the marketplace can take them.  Occasionally
the bailout is the fortress' idea -- the high-tech trio of Honeywell,
Unisys and Control Data have jettisoned over 5,000 in Minnesota all
by themselves.  Occasionally, the fledgling entrepreneurs become
producers themselves, starting smaller, leaner companies to compete
head-to-toe against the corporations they left.

Most often, however, managers leave corporations to do the same
thing outside that they used to do inside.  An army of consultants,
armed with beepers and black books, has sprung up to do battle on
the field of business, for the promised bounty of freedom, dignity,
and more money.

Mary Erickson, partner in a two-person Edina computer consulting
firm, ERI Consultants, Inc., might still be working for Sperry, now
Unisys, were it not for the feeling that her division there, Sperry
International Trade, was a backwater even among backwaters.

"I suppose I just wasn't right for corporate work, certainly not
the part of the corporation I was in.  Sometimes I think it would
have been different if I'd been in the main offices in New York.
 What I hated was that you never got the full picture there, and
no one ever gave you any real responsibility.  With everything so
segmented, self-respect was a hard thing to come by."

Erickson, trained as a CPA, thinks entrepreneurship was the only
answer for a "people person," like herself, someone extroverted enough
to enjoy getting out and meeting people and taking a few risks.
Her partnership with Denise Ring, and the microcomputer consulting
the two have been doing for CPA firms and other companies since incorporating
in 1983, much more closely meets her requirements.

Luckily, Erickson's expertise in business microcomputer use was
not widely shared.  "There's not a lot of people in the field --
lots of CPA firms include it among their services, but we are one
of only a few that specialize in it.

But specialization has had its price.   Erickson didn't know nearly
enough about marketing her services, and the first year was a tough
one.  "Marketing is harder than I thought it would be.  We've relied
upon word of mouth, and through informal networking for the most
part."

It strikes Erickson as a wicked irony that, as a late bloomer, who
only started her CPA training at age 30, she is now barred by the
Minnesota Society of CPAs from bandying about her accounting credentials
in her promotions.  "It's an ethics bylaw of the society," she says,
"designed to prevent misleading the public, and it chafes."

One thing about management consultants like Erickson -- they tend
to be less starry-eyed and amateurish when they go it alone than
first-time business people who have never trod the corporate skyways.

"We
had a fairly fixed business plan from the very first day, though
like a lot of businesses ours was pretty short-range.  most of us
look twelve months down the line, and beyond that all is limbo.
Well, we're in limbo now, and we should develop something more farsighted."

Erickson
is grateful that her business overhead and start-up costs were low.
 "If we'd had to count on capitalization from a bank, I wouldn't
be talking to you now," she said.  Entrepreneurs might as well plan
on capitalizing themselves for the first five years.  Banks will
only disappoint you."

Along the lines of the cash-flow crisis, Erickson concedes that
the high-paying consulting business, after less than two years on
her own, is still to uneven to rely upon through thick months and
thin.  therefore she and her partner have been taking in laundry
in the form of data processing work for construction, heating.air
conditioning, and a few accounting firms in the area.  The service
bureau approach smoothes out cash flow, and keeps the young company
solvent between major consulting gigs.

"I haven't found much money yet, but I've never regretted leaving
Sperry -- I have found satisfaction.  If I had it to do all over
again the only things I'd do different might be to be prepared with
more capital, and perhaps to rely more from the start on some outside
marketing support.

"I miss the people at Sperry.  I see lots of people now, but the
interaction is different.  I miss the peer support, and the empathy
that builds naturally with team members.  But without self-respect,
empathy doesn't mean much."

In truth, the reasons individuals have for bolting one company and
starting another are innumerable, ranging from the conviction that
one can build a better mousetrap to the hope that one can make three
times the money, to the desperate feeling that there's got to be
a better life out there somewhere, even if one has to create it oneself.

But
reasons for making a move and realities encountered once the move
are made have no correlation.  Many would-be entrepreneurs learn
early on that there is a limit to their innovative genius, or their
managerial skill, or even to their ability to get dressed in the
morning.  And there is the crushing disillusion that sets in when
payrolls must be met, cold telephone calls to be placed -- and the
crystal moment in the first year when the do-it-yourselfer learns
he's now writing humongous checks to the IRS five times yearly instead
of getting a nice cozy little check once.

Consider the curious case of John Cowan.  Cowan's career has been
as a 20-year tug of war between himself and higher hierarchies.
Before taking his first job as a organizational development manager
with Honeywell, he was a parish priest in the Archdiocese of St.
Paul for many years. After three years with Honeywell, he tested
his wings as a private consultant for a couple of years before jumping
back into the fold, this time for a nine-year tour with Control Data.


And now he's on his own once again, amused by the on and off tension
in his life between being his own man and being somebody else's.

"There
was a lot of hopping there, I'll admit," says Cowan.  "My first time
on my own, I left the corporation because someone else wanted me
enough to hire me away.  I learned plenty.  Among the things I learned
was that I had no abilities in the area of marketing and sales.
I hated making calls on people I were convinced didn't want to see
me.  To make it worse, I had sat on the other side of the desk, and
I knew first hand what a drag people like me were."

The peculiar thing was, Cowan recalls, that as a corporate minion
he could have made any call to anyone.  It was only when the calls
were on his own behalf that timidity set in.  Armed with such self-doubt,
it's astonishing to learn that he sold the American Management Association
on a book project, The
Self-Reliant Manager,
about how to become a take-charge type.

Cowan says that, after going in and out the corporate door so many
times, he's learned some valuable lessons about business start-ups.
 "Number one, don't ever  expect anyone to call you.  If you do,
you're going to be a very disappointed person.  I can't tell you
how many days I used to sit by the phone, awaiting the promised call,
and just steaming with anger and frustration.  After all, I could
hardly make the call myself -- it was their
turn!

"Number two, stop expecting immediate gain for immediate effort.
 This is a lesson all wise salesmen learn early on.  If you expect
a positive result from every cold call you make, you're going to
be a very tense guy during your little talk.  Success in business
is a sneaky thing -- it happens over time, not minute by minute.

"And
number three, if you really hate that effort, you probably shouldn't
be doing it.  If you hate making marketing presentations, stop making
them, or call them something else.  I never make marketing presentations.
 But I have lots of lunches with friends.  And the word marketing
never even comes up."

"A corporate home can be great if you're in the right room.  But
I was in the wrong room -- the wrong corridor, really.  the mood
in the place was devastating.

"I watched a young woman who was completely alive as long as she
functioned as an external consultant -- vibrant, radiant, just beautiful
and intelligent.  But then she was invited aboard as an employee
and she was just dismantled before our eyes.  No one let her have
opinions the way she used to.  The top people no longer respected
her, because she was now way down in the hierarchy.  Soon she was
dressing shabbily, and mumbling.  The company had completely undone
her."

But don't get Cowan wrong.  "Hey, I love corporations.  As clients."
 His clientele includes or has included such biggies as Armour, 3M,
Cray research, Dain Bosworth, Data Serv [sp?], Honeywell, and Control
Data itself.  And working within the walls has been the perfect preparation
for psyching out today's marketplace.

"My nine years at Control data taught me exactly
what
a client feels like.    I dealt with vendors, I knew what cycle felt
like.  I talked sometimes like I was sole decision-maker when I wasn't.
 So I know what it's like in there.

"One other habit, I probably got it from my priestly training, was
I never turned anyone away, even a salesman.  you waste a lot of
time that way, but you make a mess of friends."

If Cowan misses anything, he doesn't miss it enough to look back
longingly.  "But I do miss the sense of belonging.  The nice feeling
about being a member of a team, with a day-to-day casualness about
it.

"And also the other definition of belonging -- to the corporation
itself.  Being able to submerge yourself periodically in the larger
identity.  And the resources -- all I had to do was push a button
and a machine would take dictation for someone to type up later.
 Now I have to drive across town when I need typing done.  And pay
for my own scratch pads."

After all those years of contracts in quadruplicate, many take to
small business for the thrill of informality.  "Most of the time
I don't even bother putting forth formal proposal, which in the old
days would have been 20 pages long, with charts and graphs.  Instead
I explain my idea, then ask the other party if I'm on the job or
not.  It's terrific."

Less terrific is the terrible loneliness of having one's fate in
one's throat at all times.  "It's the terror of knowing your calendar
is never full three weeks out."

For Alan Van Slyke, who strongly prefers corporate work to going
it alone, fear isn't the issue -- integrity and peace of mind are.
 Van Slyke was trained in the '50s to be a store manager for Montgomery
Ward in Chicago.  But a bit of detouring through the Midwest was
necessary before landing his current post of vice president for human
resources at phamaceutical wholesaler Krelitz Industries of Minneapolis.

After
false starts with a diversified Omaha group and a Minneapolis lumber
company, Van Slyke felt the first twinge of attraction to the consultant's
life.   Joining with a pair of colleagues, Van Slyke performed in
the areas of labor relations, human resources and telemarketing.

"It
was fun, and I made good money, but for me something was missing.
 One day I stopped myself and saw that I was doing all my assignments
right there in my clients' offices.  That told me something -- that
I, personally, had a lot of need to be around people.  I needed the
daily exposure and interchange.  Working at home was just not satisfactory.

"You
know what consulting was like for me?  It was like having 87 kids.
 You could never settle down and give any one of them the attention
he or she deserved.  Every relationship I built had a sunset contract
to it."

Van Slyke's dream was that he could settle in somewhere within Honeywell's
Systems and Research Center, a client completely devoted to research
and development.  It was like a college campus to Van Slyke, exuding
creativity and seriousness.  Instead, he followed a tip and landed
his current position at Krelitz Industries, a $200 million pharmaceuticals
group that has made him once again a happy man.

"I've got enough gray hairs now, and the kids are all grown.  I've
got the prerogative of saying there are more important rewards for
one's labor than the consultant's per diem.  For me, corporate work
is a quality of life issue -- but then, I'm fortunate to be working
with some really great people."

These days, with the layoffs of managers from Minnesota's big high-tech
companies, and with all those displaced managers popping up as consultants,
the hardest thing to find is the entrepreneur of old -- the person
who wants to do what the corporation couldn't do, and goes off on
his or her own to do it.

In Newt Fisk's case, entrepreneurship came almost as a surprise.
 A confirmed company man, New Fisk worked at a very high level within
Control Data Corporation for many years as a sort of corporate Red
Adair -- putting out fires among CDC's holdings, stanching the flow
of capital and restoring the division to profitability.

One of the sick companies -- the "cats and dogs," as Fisk describes
them -- he was called in to save was Autocon Industries, a company
founded in 1922 which manufactured electronic systems controls for
waste treatment plants and pumping stations.  Control Data's bought
Autocon in 1967, and Fisk, as CDC's top gun, served as president
of the company for three years.  When CDC decided Autocon no longer
fit in with corporate plans, Fisk leaped at the chance to buy in.

From
his first day on the job, Autocon has proved itself a winner, grossing
over $15 million per year, with 150 employees.  In addition, Fisk
has made a go of CSS-DESCO, Inc., a company which designs and installs
computer rooms and computer buildings nationally.

That Fisk was bound for greater things was obvious to Control Data
all along, of course.  Multinationals don't hire yes-men to take
on the often brutal work of corporate trouble-shooting.  Even so,
the new freedoms and new responsibilities of being an owner have
been an eye-opener for Fisk.

"The main difference is that, at a large corporation, you spend
half your time figuring out what to do on a given problem, and the
other half convincing your own management to do it.  With your own
company, you still spend half your time making up your mind.  But
the remaining half is all action."

He likened the difference to that between playing bridge for fun
and for money.  Corporate life has an abstractness about it, he said,
because the actual financial burden is always way off on someone
else's shoulders.  When it's your money, the sense of play wears
thin.

Which doesn't mean Newt Fisk's not enjoying himself.  "I'm working
harder than ever, and having a lot of fun.   I don't feel any of
that entrepreneurial terror you're talking about.  To me there's
always something you can do to stay in the black.  It can be painful,
it may well be distasteful to you, but you can do it."

The one thing Fisk misses about the old days is the world-class
resources CDC had at its disposal.  "Sometimes wish I had specific
expertise on hand that I don't.  We don't have a whole lot of resident
experts here.  So we use consultants a lot.  I think lots of businesses
starting out make the mistake of being scared about by $1,000-a-day
help.  But if your problems are serious, that's a small price to
pay."

After hearing the stories of those who've been forced to make the
terrible choice between corporate life and life on one's own, it
would be excusable to picture business life as a series of excruciating
either/or decisions.  Until one remembers the rallying cry of the
1980s -- you
can have it all.

Just
ask A.B. Reynolds.  For
years Reynolds worked as a supervisor in 3M's management development
program, training 3M's 2800 managers nationwide.  3M, which has long
gotten high marks for the care and feeding of its people, gave Reynolds
exactly the proportion of growth and challenge she needed to blossom
in the corporate environment.

Today she's curriculum consultant (and a cofounder) of Woods Academy
in Maple Plain.  How to explain the transformation from corporate
cog to educator?  Kids will do it every time, Reynolds says.

Reynolds and other parents in the western suburbs had been discussing
what the dream curriculum would be for grade school-aged kids, and
when the local school district announced it was unable to maintain
its experimental education project, Reynolds and company decided
to take it from there.  Woods Academy appears almost to be an educational
parallel to the 3M environment -- maximum flexibility, high standards
of achievement, and on emphasis on personal growth.

This is Woods Academy's fifth year, and Reynolds has seen the curriculum
broaden to include everything from preschool to 12th grade, and to
relocate to a permanent 13-acre site and facility.  It's easy to
envision how starting a school is the perfect complement to Reynolds'
3M career in adult career development.  And to imagine that Reynolds'
is pleased to have graduated from the corporate world by returning
to school.

But one would be wrong.  Reynolds continues to serve 3M in much
the same capacity as before, only on an occasional consulting basis.

"I
may have been the exception among people making the break from corporate
life, because, when the time to make the break came, there were no
hard feelings.   3M was super to me as an employee, and they have
been wonderful to serve as a consultant."

It would be incorrect, too, to deduce that Reynolds has "ducked
out" on the real world of business and taken refuge in the groves
if academe.  Woods Academy is a business, after all, and survives
by virtue of the excellence of its product and the skills of management.
 And Reynolds and company are also at work formatting the educational
ideas underlying the Academy for use by other groups nationwide.
 She sees the new business as a way to franchise the school's ideas,
and raise revenue for deserving teachers and bolster the academy's
fledgling endowment.

What Reynolds has learned makes a good addendum to any entrepreneur's
education.  There are good corporations and not so good ones, and
there are people who belong in their own business and those who don't
quite seem to fit anywhere.

The
important thing in the end, Reynolds says, whether you're an intrapreneur
or an entrepreneur, is to push that good idea and to make it work.
 With hard work and will, there are few dead ends.

#  #  #