Page 189 - MY STORY

that were simply matching our proposed contracted scope

of work to their price offer, the TRW proposal manager’s
response was, “You can not do that.” (They might not win
without our agreed-to scope of work as part of the

proposal) “We’ll find a way to fix the money problem
after program award.” I politely demurred and pointed
out that we had a gentleman’s agreement as a condition of

joining their team, and I expected them to honor it. They
reinstituted our agreement, we put the storyboards back
on the wall, and TRW won the program.

LASER BRIEF TO PRESIDENT

Our president, Irv B, held weekly in-depth technical
reviews in the executive conference room. The audience
consisted of Missile company executives, senior
managers, and the single presenter, along with any

backup staff the presenter needed. The presenter had one
hour of undivided attention from Irv and his staff. The

one-hour time limit included questions from the audience,
so it was important to limit the presentation time to no
more than 45 minutes since Irv always asked a lot of

questions.

Sometimes Irv’s questions came out of “right field” and

had little to do with the subject matter being presented.