Page 188 - MY STORY

They thought that would be “fantastic”, so we elected to

team with TRW in California, where TRW would be the
prime contractor. We came to an agreement with TRW’s
SMATH IV proposal manager for a specific technical and

financial role in their bid to the USAF.

As the proposal process progressed, we prepared

“storyboard” charts to be pinned on the wall of TRW’s
proposal center that defined our critical work scope in
their proposed program. Later these storyboards would

translate to the written word in the proposal along with
our official cost estimate. I had assigned Doug R to work

as a member of the TRW proposal team in California.
About two weeks before proposal submittal, Doug called
to let me know that TRW was not going to meet our
pre-agreed financial agreement by a large margin, in spite

of earlier assurances from TRW that this was a “done
deal.”

My instructions to Doug were very clear – “Start pulling
storyboards off the wall until those left matched the scope

and price TRW was willing to fund us if they won.” As
Doug was doing this dastardly deed I got a phone call
from the TRW proposal manager asking “what the hell

did we think we were doing?!” When I calmly explained